This is one of those days when there are so many potential topics, I don't know where to start. So I'll start with me.
This week, two more of my stored boxes reached me. I still think this is miraculous. Taken in the context of a world where increasing numbers of people's possessions are burning up in wildfires or floating away in floods, the fact that after all my many moves, I still have these items available to me seems just remarkable. I am grateful to friends and total strangers (the delivery-people strong enough to carry them to the porch!)
I've only opened one of the boxes, but it was extremely emotional to do so. I guess you could say that the contents are evidence of my serious lifelong effort to use all my skills productively: my master's thesis and accompanying course papers, notebooks full of slides of artwork and advertising for art workshops I led, course syllabi that I created when I taught at the Community College of Vermont, and even some stationery and draft letters from when I worked at Time Magazine Letters.
The most poignant is my work for my master's. I don't believe anyone thought I would get through that year successfully, since "early Christian chant" was pretty far off the mark from my real passion, the English cathedral choir tradition. And because of my American liberal arts degree, by the standards of the day I was teetering close to the edge of unqualified. But I worked harder than I ever have in my life before or since, and passed. Could I speak for more than about two seconds today about Aquitanian neumes and "my" specific piece of 12th century chant? No. But that year at Royal Holloway/University of London used every ounce of my left-brain intelligence, my intuitive and design skills (creating a modern transcription of ancient notation), and my musical skills (singing daily morning choral services). I was in fertile soil that year, and blossomed, doing all this in addition to travel, many new friendships, and -- of course -- loving England. I was "fully me" in a way I truly have never been since.
But when I returned to the U.S., my parents distractedly asked me if I had had a "good time", and then essentially elbowed me out the door. I had big student loans which I had to start repaying within about two months, so all I could think of was to go to New York City and start job hunting. My packet of degree materials (including the 75-page thesis typed on a manual typewriter, a 25-page hand-written chant transcription, and a number of - yes! - hand-written papers for the related classes I took at Holloway and in London) was packed up in a box, and has only surfaced a handful of times since then. I, literally, put it away. I ended up in living situations and workplaces where this work was essentially irrelevant, and, having never been really asked about that year, I didn't tell the story. Several people have told me over the years that I have done "nothing worthwhile" with my life, and it hurt but I semi-believed them and swallowed it, even joking about my master's degree myself. In turn, having an intimidating-looking foreign degree on my resume worked against me in the U.S., especially as I began to struggle even to find restaurant and retail jobs.
So I wept when I gathered these materials up in my arms. I begged the forgiveness of the Goddess for my having played a role in downplaying my own intelligence. Yes, I studied for the degree within the most patriarchal of constructs, and perhaps it all would have turned out differently if I hadn't already begun to un-tether myself from that world. But it's like, I had to see these papers again to remember how intelligent I am, which is a gift from the Goddess. It's a homecoming of its own, a return to my real self. Imagine the brilliant women of the past who were denied an education at all. Imagine those women, worldwide, today! It is such a ridiculous tragedy.
I haven't begun to make a dent in this topic. But all I can say is, if any of you have degree work or diplomas packed away where no one will see them (including you), bring them out into the light. As I am trying to do today, love that part of you that was "too smart". Celebrate Her.
