sarah eve kelly

I’ve never heard rain like this before. It’s being brought past the flat on the wind in great gusts, and the sound makes me jump as though someone’s at the door. A good occasion to stop the hunt-and-peck research and do something a bit more freewheeling, so I always say, but last night I learned that freewheeling is sorta what research is.

I hadn’t been looking forward to last night. I was double-booked, and I hate being booked at all. The Graduate Women’s Network was having a drink-and-speak at Magdalene - about twenty minutes on foot from here - and Mike had his matriculation dinner back here at Peterhouse. My wisdom went thus: get to GWN gig for 6:00 (in time for drinks and to hear the first speaker), and then hoof it back to the Peterhouse Fellows’ Hall for 7:45 (dinner at eight).

It went reasonably according to plan. As much as I love candlelight, hierarchy, and history, I’m not much of a one for formal hall. This is because I like these things (excepting candlelight) at a distance: I don’t feel I ought to be part of them. Plus my gown is always slipping off my shoulders and no one will tell me where the loo is.

The matric dinner was your average nine-course affair, complete with white wine glass, red wine glass, sherry glass, more cutlery than is in my whole flat, and a gong. Wild mushroom soup, a fish course, a pheasant course; it goes on. (Mike wanted beans when he got home; still hungry. Mad.) It got warmer and warmer in the hall, and rich food always gives me indigestion, and I was feeling like shit anyway: very much ready to go home. I wasn’t even allowed to sit with Mike because we were meant to Mingle (Mingling being the third worst thing in the world, next to Chartreuce and the telephone). I ended up talking to a fascinating, slightly aged Fellow about his Tudor timber house and sheep farm, the disenfranchisement of midwives, and how I obviously got lobbed into the wrong college (sorted into the wrong house, if you will). I love that stuff, so it was a better-than-average way to pass the time and I got some great research leads.

One table over, when Mike and I had been looking for our seats, I saw a card with this written on it:

DR ADAMSON

Now, I drank deeply of a remarkable text called The Princely Courts of Europe by a genius named John Adamson during my Master’s degree. Still, I thought, ‘Naw, can’t be.’

But it was.

I went against every instinct I’ve ever cultivated and introduced myself to him after the dessert spoons had been whisked away. Bearing in mind this was after three glasses of white wine, two of red, and a generous tipple of sherry. I forgot the topic of my Master’s thesis when asked, but otherwise acquitted myself very well (I think), and he said he would like to have lunch and discuss my work with me. I’m still surprised I didn’t faint dead away. (Maybe I did, who knows.)

Afterwards, I was so happy to have met him, babbling to Mike all the way home, that I completely forgot what he said. He asked me how my research was going. Here is the answer I gave him: ‘Well, I’m just starting out, so it’s very broad,’ &c.

Here is the real answer: I feel like a revving car that is upside-down. The past two months have made me question my trajectory in ways I didn’t think possible. One of the GWN speakers said that we’ll never have a better opportunity to engage in critical self-reflection, and goddamn I don’t want any of it. I don’t know if I want an academic career; I don’t know if an academic career would be psychologically safe for me. I love my research; I am infinitely admiring of my supervisor. But I want to make it work, I want to be worthy of it; I’m running into brick wall after brick wall and for the first time in years, all I want to do is sleep, which is as dangerous in this context as it is in hypothermia. In short: I’m terrified.

His response to my pat answer was this. ‘Don’t be too organised about it,’ he said (No fear, I thought). ‘I find that a good topic has to be a bit anarchic, don’t you? All those little questions. Anarchy is what makes history fun.’ And also, he went on, what makes it worthwhile.

I didn’t remember that he’d said that until about ten minutes ago, but I might just revive my belief in the subconscious, because I woke up this morning (no hangover) and went at my work with a will. Every dead end delighted me, every little bit and piece made me smile. Not every day will be like today (which is by no means over). I imagine that most of the people I admire have encountered brick walls and continue to, and the secret to having brick walls and doing well at the same time is to run head-first into the wall, wake up from your concussion, and keep walking.

Also: I don’t have to be an academic if I don’t want to. Chances are good that I don’t have to be an academic if I do want to. But there are other options, not second and third choices: real options.

(I could be a novelist, who knows.)

I doubt that this revelation is of any interest to the common weal, but it was an important moment for me, whose lessons, I hope, will last me beyond today. Thank God for Dr Adamson, because I was one dead link away from jumping off my balcony, whether I knew it or not, and we’re on the first floor, so the jump would have been pretty embarrassing.

Till next time, if God wills it, &c &c.

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