Theodora Goss

Status report: Today I finished the draft of my introduction that I’ve been working on. I still need to add some footnotes. But then it will go to my readers. And then we’ll revise it some more, and then it will be done. All I have to do, otherwise, is add some footnotes to Chapter 2. And then the whole dissertation goes together, hopefully by September 1st. I actually feel quite good about this. I feel, perhaps for the first time, as though I really am close.

And I want to thank you all for being so wonderful. For all the people who read yesterday’s post, and the people who commented, and who encouraged me on Facebook. And the people who told me it gets better, and how it gets better. And even sent me a poem. I honestly don’t think I could do it without feeling as though there were people out there who cared and who had gone through some of the same things. I think there are a lot of us who go through these sorts of tough times. I do think it’s more difficult for artists, too. Although artists also have something that other people don’t have. We have our art. When I sit down to write a story, I go someplace else. I love that, the feeling that I am completely absorbed in the story I’m telling. That I’m a traveler in space and time.

Tonight I’m packing, because once again I will be out of town for the weekend, in Asheville, where I will be critiquing our YA novel chapters with Alexa and Nathan. I think traveling is good for me. It’s good to get out of town, breathe the air of another place. And I can’t wait to wander around the antiques stores again, and go to Malaprop’s. It’s been years since I’ve been to Asheville, and it’s quite literally one of my favorite towns, the one I based Ashton, North Carolina on in “The Wings of Meister Wilhelm” and “Lessons with Miss Gray.” I want to set a whole suite of stories in Ashton and publish them as a book. Well, someday. Right now I have so many other things to do.

Like pack, and make my lunch for the airplane, which will include chocolate-covered pretzels. My usual traveling treat, that I don’t get any other time.

But I will leave you with one pretty image:

That’s a chair I found at Goodwill, and to be honest it’s a little battered. But doesn’t it have nice lines? I had to buy it and bring it home, simply to rescue it from a place where it so clearly did not belong. And it goes with the upholstered chair I bought recently.

That’s all I have today, just thanks and a pretty picture and I’ll write from Asheville tomorrow!

Status report: I’ve finished Chapters 1 and 3. Chapter 2 needs some more footnotes, for which I’ll need to read some sources. But since I’ve come back from New York, I’ve been working on the introduction. I have about twenty pages written, meaning most of it. Now I just need to add a section on how my argument fits into scholarship on the Gothic. So I’m reading some books, trying to get that section written.

Once I have the introduction and those footnotes to Chapter 2, the dissertation will be done. And then it will go to the committee.

I know I’ve skipped a few days of posting. I’m so tired nowadays that I get to the end of a day and I just don’t have the energy. Part of that is depression, although right now it’s a depression I’m working through, because I know the only way to deal with it is to go through. The only way is forward.

I don’t know how people with chronic depression deal with it. They have my utmost admiration and respect, because even the few times I’ve had to deal with it, it’s been incredibly difficult. For me, it’s a condition that happens when I’m under extreme stress, the way I’ve been this year. Finishing the dissertation had been difficult, but it’s been more than that – physically difficult circumstances, being out of the city with a long commute, and all sorts of other things. Just a lot of things all piled on top of each other.

So what does it feel like? Sort of like living in darkness. And when you’re out of it but it’s still there, it feels like being followed around by a dark cloud. I read in an article that J.K. Rowling was depressed while she was writing the first Harry Potter novel. The Dementors are representations of that depression. That makes sense, doesn’t it? They suck out all the light and hope.

For me, right now, the most difficult part is the tiredness. I deal with it by doing what I have to do, but all sorts of other things are left undone. There are emails I haven’t had a chance to respond to, for example. But the introduction is getting written. That’s the most important thing, right now. And I try to give myself permission to rest. And I try to eat well. And I buy books.

I will write about the Alexander McQueen exhibit, and I will try to get back to posting daily. But just so you know: I’m going to have a difficult month, so bear with me. I’ll do what I can.

And I think I’m going to try to write about the depression at least a little, because I know I’m not the only one who deals with it. And writing about it might help other people. I do remember what it’s like to be out of it, and that’s my natural state: calm, interested in and excited about life. Happy. That’s what I’m usually like, and this is an anomaly for me. But it does happen, and when it does, I just need to deal with it.

On the way back from New York, I had two seats to myself. The bus was driving through countryside, so I saw trees all around. It was quiet and calm. And I suddenly realized that I felt exactly right, exactly myself – the person I was meant to be, the person I think I’ve been trying to become this year. And you know what I did? I wrote a story. I still need to type it up, but I’m going to do that by the end of the month. And then I’ll send it to a magazine that requested a story from me. I remember what that felt like, sitting on the bus writing, being myself. I want to get back to that. The only way is through . . .

It’s been a long, tiring day, so I’m just going to post a few pictures from this weekend.

I took two buses to get to New York. I wanted to take pictures of the three bus stops, but I only ended up taking pictures of two. Here is the first one, where I’m waiting for the bus to the station. It looks so rural, doesn’t it?

And here is the second one, where I actually got on the bus to New York.

The third one would have been Penn Station, but I was so absorbed in finding my way to the subway that I completely forgot. Oh well. You can see that I was moving from the rural to the urban. And just so you get a sense of the urban, here you go:

That’s from across the reservoir in Central Park. I took it on Friday morning. I had just taken the cross-town bus and was walking down to the Met, where I was going to meet Helen Pilinovski, who is a wonderful academic and scholar. We were going to the Alexander McQueen exhibit. On my way, I passed the Gugenheim, which was looking lovely as usual.

Well, that day didn’t work out quite as planned. Although we arrived at 10 o’clock, the line was incredibly long.  It would have been a four to five hour wait to get into the exhibit.  You can see how busy the museum was that morning:

So instead of going to the exhibit, we went to the American wing to see some of my favorite objects.  This is one of my favorite parts of the Met.

I particularly like the long, light-filled balconies, where there are all sorts of vases and ornaments in glass cases.

Including ornaments worn by late nineteenth-century Cthulhu worshipers.

And then we went thrift shopping, and then we met Ellen Kushner at a bookstore filled with first editions, including of that odd book, Christina Rossetti’s Speaking Likenesses. And then I came back to rest. I had walked all over New York, and I was very tired.

There was no exhibit for us that day, but we were determined to see the Alexander McQueen exhibit, and you can’t keep two resourceful women from a museum exhibit they have decided to see. We decided to split the cost of a museum membership and come back the next morning, when there would be extended member hours. So there we were, bright and early, in line at 7 o’clock. Here is what the museum looked like this morning, when I arrived:

Of course, we lined up at the members’ entrance, where we were third in line. They let us in at 8 o’clock, and we wandered around the exhibit for an hour. Then we went for brunch, and this afternoon I had coffee with Ellen Datlow, who is one of my favorite editors. There were so many people I wanted to see in New York, and I only got to see a few of them. But I’ll be back soon.

I’m not going to describe the exhibit tonight. I’m going to try to write about it tomorrow. It was gorgeous and overwhelming, and I want to do it justice. But tonight you do get at least a few pictures of New York. It’s been wonderful being here.

Status report: Today, I worked on the introduction. It’s going all right. By the time I get to sleep tonight, I should have about ten pages written, which is theoretically half its length. Theoretically. And then I’ll take a break for four days, while I’m in New York. I won’t be able to concentrate on academic writing there, and I won’t have the sources I need with me anyway. So instead, I’ll work on the YA novel chapters I need to get to Nathan and Alexa by Sunday, and then on my Folkroots column. I’ll also take some books to read: Stephen King’s On Writing and Michael Chabon’s Reading and Writing, which is a collection of essays that I’m really enjoying.

I grew up around Washington, D.C., and we used to go to New York almost every year, usually for the opera. I still remember my mother taking us to see Madam Butterfly, which has to be the most boring opera in the world. My brother slept through most of it. If you want to take children to see opera, take them to Carmen. In fact, take anyone who has never seen an opera before to Carmen. It’s the one opera everyone can learn opera on, partly because it’s so easy to follow. It’s all plot. I still love the Placido Domingo version.

As you read the rest of this blog post, you can listen to “Près des Remparts de Séville.” This is where Carmen first meets Don José. I love how defiant and seductive Carmen is in this version. Poor Don José is a gonner from the first note.

It was difficult, going to the New York of those days, for a hypersensitive child. I experienced the city as overwhelming. When I moved there after law school, I went into the city to work, but I lived outside the city in Larchmont, and often on the weekends I went out to the countryside, to farms or apple orchards, or small towns with antiques stores. I still don’t think I could live in New York. But now, I love to visit. The city feels much more familiar, more like a home, the way cities like Budapest and Paris have always felt to me. I love to go into the little grocery stores, or wander around the streets and see the small shops, or walk through Central Park. And I love the museums.

Tomorrow, I’m taking the bus down. It will cost me $35 round trip, which is one of the advantages of living in Boston. And then on Friday, I’ll go to the MET and see the Alexander McQueen exhibit. While there, I’ll stay with friends, and meet friends for coffee or dinner. And I’ll have time to work on writing. It will be a quiet, cozy sort of visit, for New York. I started this summer knowing I would have a lot of work to do, but also wanting to visit three places: San Francisco for the Isabelle de Borchgrave exhibit, New York for the Alexander McQueen exhibit, and Asheville for the antiques stores. The only one of those trips I wasn’t able to make was the trip to San Francisco: the exhibit was too close to the school year, and I had too much to do then. But I think I’m doing pretty well. I also wanted to go to the seashore, and I didn’t get to do that. But next summer I will definitely go down to Nag’s Head, North Carolina for a writing week or two. I have my cottage all picked out.

I still have to pack, but that’s easy, for New York: jeans and black shirts. Maybe a black skirt in case I go somewhere fancy.

I grew up traveling to all sorts of interesting places. I hope I can do that more in the future. That’s one of the things I’m working for, this summer. Which is why after I finish this blog post, I will go back to that introduction, and keep working at it until it’s in proper shape.

Status report: I’m so tired that I’m having a hard time even keeping up with this blog. Chapter 2 is done, although I still need to add some critical sources. But I need to go to the library tomorrow, and some are coming through interlibrary loans. Once I get those, I’ll be able to add them. I finished Chapter 2 on Sunday. Today, I started writing the introduction. It should only be about twenty pages (double spaced), but to make it more manageable, I’ve divided it into five sections (at least for my own purposes): a section on the Great Exhibition of 1851 and the freak shows that were happening all over England around that time, a section that explains my argument, a section on the critical history, an outline of how I will present my argument (basically, what the various chapters say), and finally the implications of my argument and what I’ve left out. By the time I go to sleep, I will have finished the first section on the Great Exhibition and freak shows.

Sometimes I feel as though I’m too tired, as though I can’t do it anymore. And somehow I make myself sit down in front of the computer and keep going. But it’s not easy. When it’s done, I don’t know if I’ll ever want to look at this material again. At least, I know I won’t be able to look at it for a while. And in the meantime, there are so many other things I need to do, even small things like answer emails, that I constantly feel overwhelmed. And more often than now, nowadays, I just can’t do it all. So the emails pile up, and the to-do list grows, and I just can’t do it. It’s all too much.

As I write this, I’m listening to Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black.” Before she died, I didn’t know much about Winehouse. I casually assumed that she was like all the other pop stars I don’t listen to who are always featured in the tabloids. I’m not sure why I started becoming interested in her after her death. I think I just wanted to know what her music sounded like, why there was such a to-do. And that’s when I realized she wasn’t one of those pop stars, that she was actually something quite special. A genuine artist.

If you haven’t listened to her music, here is the song I’m listening to as I write this, and that I’ve been listening to quite often in the past week:

We live in a world where so much is crude and stupid. Including many of the reactions to her death – that it was predicable and somehow deserved. That there are more important things to mourn. But I think the death of an artist is always something to mourn. Artists are strange people, and many of them aren’t particularly good at life. But they produce works that form our cultural dreams. How poor we would be without Michaelangelo’s David, or Ulysses. The world would be less interesting, less complex. We would have less to think about, less to wonder at. My world would be less beautiful without “Back to Black,” now that I’ve heard it.

It’s always sad when we lose an artist. We’re always justified in mourning, no matter what else is happening in the world. And what we think of the life, how we judge it, ultimately doesn’t matter, because we’re not left with the life. What we’re left with is the art. Cy Twombly died recently, as did Lucien Freud. I didn’t particularly like Twombly’s art. I could appreciate the power of Freud’s. They had a lifetime to develop, to give us their best, and I’m glad of that. It’s sad that Winehouse didn’t.

Status report: Yesterday, I spent the entire day reading academic articles. Today, I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to get out. So I went to the Museum of Fine Arts for a new exhibit, Jewels, Gems, and Treasures: Ancient to Modern. It was a small exhibit, a single room. As you walked around, you could see the history of jewelry-making, from ancient Egypt to modern designers. The most interesting period was of course the nineteenth century. I saw a set of earrings that was made of taxidermed hummingbirds.  It was creepy but also beautiful, as Victoriana tends to be. The most beautiful pieces were from the end of the century, when masters like René Lalique were designing.

I tried to take photographs, but the room was dark, and the jewelry was lit from above and behind so the gems would sparkle. Of course I was not allowed to use flash in the museum. So it was almost impossible to make photograph turn out well. But I will show you the most beautiful piece in the exhibit, which appears on the catalog:

It’s a silver brooch with a marsh bird on it, in enamel. The original was just as stunning as the picture. The exhibit presented a good argument for looking at jewlery – at least some jewlery – as wearable art.

It was good to get out, to remind myself that there are more things in the world than this room, my work. Sometimes it feels as though, day by day, I’m becoming more despondent, more tired. And I need to finish what I’m doing. I can’t get stuck in the slough of despond, not now. But some days are difficult, especially when I have to read articles that are deadly dull. For hours at a time.

So I’m glad I went to the museum. Here I am, by the way, standing in front of the museum. In one of my new favorite dresses, which is comfortable and summery. In honor of the exhibit, I wore pearls.

I’m afraid that’s all I have for you today. I’m very tired, and I’m trying to keep going, and some days are better than others. At least today I saw some beautiful things. They reminded me that I want to make beautiful things myself – things that are beautiful and true. I just need to get to the place where that’s possible, because it can’t happen when academic articles are jostling around in my head, you know?

Status report: It’s been a dreadful day. Would you like to know what I did for most of it? Well, I’m going to tell you. When I first wrote Chapter 2, I used the Penguin edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray. But the scholarly edition, the edition used by scholars in their research – what they call the authoritative version – is the Oxford Complete Works. So what I did today was go through the last section of Chapter 2, which is on Dorian Gray and “The Soul of Man under Socialism” (for which I had used the Harper & Row Complete Works), check all the quotations, and correct all page numbers in the parenthetical citations. Every single one. It took hours.

I keep telling myself that I’m learning valuable things in this process, but sometimes I’m so bored that I could sob into my decorative pillows, and sometimes I’m so bitter that I could kick the walls. And I’m starting to feel the way I felt when I was working as a corporate lawyer: as though I’m spending time that I could be spending doing so many other things – writing stories that people are actually going to read, for instance. I think my disenchantment with academic writing started the day I went to a seminar on publishing academic books and learned that selling 3,000 copies was considered a success – an academic best-seller. At that point, I had already published my short story collection, and it had sold well over 3,000 copies. And I thought, but I want people to read what I write. I don’t want my work to sit in a library somewhere, where only graduate students consult it. I want to communicate.

So, as I mentioned, today was dreadful. Once my work was done, I had to do something. I didn’t know what – it was already seven o’clock, and here I was in the suburbs, with nowhere to go. Stuck.

So I did the best I could. When I’m feeling desperate, I usually try to make or change something. So I went to the fabric store and bought a pillow insert, so I could make a pillow out of the fabric I bought yesterday. I don’t have time to actually make it now, but at least I have everything I need, for when I have the time. Then, I went to the bookstore and bought three decorating books. These, specifically:

Something seems to have happened to decorating, and I think it’s a good thing. It’s an interest in a more casual, artistic, cottage style. That’s the style I like best, using older pieces, making rooms beautiful, comfortable, filled with space and light. But also quirky, with individuality and character. Each of these books is about that style. I bought the French General book specifically because I like the French General aesthetic: it’s actually a store in California that sells all sorts of things, including fabric designed by the owners. Here is the store’s website.

So today I’m completely despondent, but at least tonight I’ll have beautiful pictures to look at. And I’ll think about what I want in the house I’m going to have, someday. That Witch’s Cottage I’ve been wanting for so long, with the high, airy rooms, and the old wooden furniture, and the claw-foot tub. And the cat sitting in the window, while white gauze curtains blow in the breeze. (With an enormous garden, filled with roses and herbs, and a sundial, and a pond.) That’s the sort of thing I need to keep me going, when I’m dealing with everything I’m dealing with now. That dream, and the knowledge that I’m working to make it a reality.