The Scientist's Daughter Considers Sunrise--Tuesday Tidbits

--People ask me why I get up so early.  This morning, as I was running before sunrise, with the cold, crystal, coin of a full moon to my west and the smooth comforter of the Atlantic to my east, I thought, this is why.

--We've had a calmer hurricane season down here than people in landlocked states, like Vermont.  Our overnight lows have been slightly cooler, still in the high 70's.  Usually by July, our lows never go below 85.

--Interesting to watch how the light changes what I'm perceiving.  When I started my run, in the dark, I thought that the only whitecaps around were the clouds.  Once the sky began to lighten, the clouds got darker.

--The sea and the sky are both gray this morning.  But it's a pearly, luminous gray, not that sullen gray that speaks of storms.

--I hadn't really thought of myself as a scientist's daughter until this post of Jeannine's.  I wrote a comment about being the daughter of a computer scientist.  And now I can't stop thinking of scientists' daughters who become poets.  I want to write an academic paper that looks at the poems with spiritual themes written by the daughters of scientists.  If you have any insights, I'd love to hear them, or even correspond about them--perhaps even cowrite the academic essay?

--I keep thinking about this post of mine, where I consider jobs that might honor the intersections of spirituality and creativity.  I want to put myself in a better position for such a job, should it ever exist--thus, the thinking about an academic essay, or at least something to present at this year's College English Association meeting in Richmond, Virginia.  You could present something too--the deadline for submissions isn't for a few more months yet.

--I haven't forgotten about my panel presentation for AWP, even though I missed this year's deadline.  I'd love to put together a panel discussion of female poets who use fairy tales in their work--or who create their own fairy tales.

--Is creating one's own fairy tale a form of spirituality?  Perhaps that should be the focus of my academic essay.  Perhaps I should write 2.

--I never wanted to have a publish-or-perish kind of job, but I'm finding myself wondering what it would be like to have that job.  I yearn for an academic library; interlibrary loan just isn't the same, and even with everything available on the Internet, I still need a good library.  I find myself longing for the time to write, to research, to ponder. 

--On Saturday, we watched the adolescent daughter of one of our friends arrive from a journalism conference to go rushing off to work on her Senior year project for high school after talking knowledgeably about Constitutional law and her Chemistry friends who just don't get her passion for the Constitution.  Except for the daughter and the visiting grandmother of the granddaughter, we are a group of women at midlife, even if we (I) have trouble admitting that we're at midlife, or perhaps slightly beyond. 

--We talked about doors that have closed forever.  One of the Saturday group could have once been a career ballet dancer--that door really has closed.  We will none of us be permitted to join the military--if we are allowed to join, we know the situation is dire!

--Is it too late for this publish-or-perish job that I'm not even sure I want?  Or is there another way to get access to a good library and time/encouragement to write/create?