I have been thinking for a while about my lack of focus. I get distracted a lot. I cannot seem to stick to a research project then publish it. I write bits and pieces, I read; I get excited, and at times, I wonder if I am manic. As an emerging researcher, I have been riding this wave of revelations about who I am and what research is. Often, my encounters with people, readings, and movies create a “leavening” where ideas for research, observations, epiphanies seem to resemble bubbles that come up to the surface of the dough with no apparent pattern or predictable rate–they just bubble up.
I have been observing this process; I have been amused by it, and even awed–I feel creativity and life coursing through my veins. I want to create, to write, to draw, to tell amazing stories that are happening in plain sight, through daily living, but are somehow missed in the cacophony of the daily life. I want to research the “now,” the moment…
I have been distracted… Dr. Richards pointed it out on many occasions. Normally, I would be concerned… I would feel anxious–at stake is my CV, my readiness to find that job that will pay my student loans and help ease my children into adulthood. But I have been enjoying the process, and somehow I feel the importance of this leavening experience. Yet, I am starting to question myself, whether I am overindulging in these moments.
Today, I read Leavy’s (Method Meets Art) chapter on visual arts, and somehow I came to a good idea of a visual to communicate my emergence from a commercial artist to researcher–I envision myself flying a kite. I am running as fast as I can, thinking the speed will help it go up. Then it falls to the ground, limp. I pick it up and try running again. This time, a breeze carries it just above my head for several feet. Inevitably, it falls. I pick it up. I run myself to exhaustion. I take breaks. I keep examining it–perhaps, something is wrong with it? I adjust little things–the string that keeps it together, the frame, the shape. I know the color has nothing to do with my kite’s ability to fly, but I keep re-painting it just because. Still, it flies only short for short periods of time, and not too high. I keep picking it up, keep examining it, and keep trying to fly it. I keep trying because this is the kind of person I am–stubborn and maybe naive. I know that all I need is a fresh wind to help raise my kite past the layer of still air, to the heights where currents constantly move. Where they can pick up my kite and sustain it all the way past the clouds. My kite is my confidence. I have it. All I need is the right moment to make it fly.