silences

I began drafting the chapter that I'm currently working on several weeks ago. In the absence of immediately available primary source material, I relied heavily on a book which has proven to be very unreliable. After getting some of the sources and looking at them myself, I realized the extent to which the author had creatively extracted and selected quotes. It's something we all do, as historians, but there are limits that must be adhered to, and fine lines which can't be crossed in representing our sources and their authors. To me, it mostly comes down to intention- you can't, as a scholar, deliberately misrepresent something. You can fail to see things, or fail to get past your own world view, but when you impose your argument on the sources, and bend them too much to your own will, you begin to loose your objectivity, and the scholarship suffers for it. Since the book that I've been using wasn't written by an academic, it has also impressed me (somewhat depressingly) with the need for professional standards which at their best ensure that deliberate misinformation isn't disseminated.

But this has also gotten me thinking about the things we don't say or are best left unsaid in our own lives. Our own creative editing, deliberately constructed and carefully nurtured blind spots, and the things we don't even tell ourselves, much less other people. I still admire the search for truth all the way down- a relentless pursuit of who, what, where, how, and most importantly, why- in both scholarship and one's personal life. But the examined life is a tough road, and I'm increasingly of the mind that even in our own lives things are rarely so simple as truth and fiction, because there are simply too many truths and too many fictions. And, let's face it- fiction is often more persuasive, simply because it is so flexible; the truth is what is (or at least our own perception of what is), but fiction encompasses what might/would/should/could be. Its seductive qualities are in it's very nature, and I think that it is what many times makes us want to believe it, perhaps so much that we come to believe it, rather than a once-existant truth. In other words, when you begin to see the space between the notes, sometimes it becomes an alternate tune, which is somehow more interesting than the original, and eventually you don't remember the original anymore. But, in that process, the silence is foundational because it allows for the space of creation although one of its ultimate ironies is that it is the thing that is most easily ignored.

A town deflates

My town, which is essentially a company town, dances to the rhythm of the university. Because it is such a huge institution, the tempo shifts dictated by the university's schedule are not small, and this weekend is proof of that. It's graduation weekend. Over the course of the past week, finals week, I've seen the usual convoy of cars stuffed to the ceiling with the entirety of some undergrad's possessions. The cars (usually driven by parents, and most of the time double-parked in front of dorms and apartments) herald the migration of the undergraduates back to their suburban Chicago jobs, homes, and lives. Today is convocation, and so in a week the town will return to its summer-time quiet. It's a day I've looked forward to since all the 35,000 or so students arrived in August, meaning I could no longer find an easy parking spot or table in a coffee shop, had to show up early for movies, and wait in line at the grocery. And yet, there's a feeling of emptiness, as the temporariness of student life once again cycles through- communities and friendships made so fast and firm during the year will be eroded with summer-time absence, only to be resurrected in the fall.

It's times like these that I reflect on my own career path: to shepherd young people into finding and creating themselves (at least that's what I tell myself optimistically). Watching students in their graduation regalia pose for pictures in front of buildings and statues, I remember the feeling of pride and fear- to be ending something they've done their whole lives, and yet buoyant in that ending and the possibilities in it. What will they do with their lives? How will they make their worlds? I realize the comfort of a path chosen, even as I envy them their choice. And yet would I go back? No, most definitely not. I am happy to be in proximity, without wanting to change places. This is a temporary nostalgia; practically by the time the last Chicago-bound minivan hits the road, I'll forget what it feels like to have tens of thousands of late-teenagers and early-twenty-somethings around, and enjoy the ease and elbow room of this place in summer. And, by August I will have forgotten the emptiness of the town, and will once again look up from my work, wonder where the time went and where all the people came from, as we all start the dance again.