Wednesday, August 5, 2009

future/present/tense

The next two years of my life are quickly developing some structure whether I like it or not.

For example:

By the end of this year, my grad school applications must be completed and shipped out.

By late spring 2010, I will make a decision where to go for grad school (or to go at all) and make moving plans, employment plans, insurance plans and a great many other plans accordingly.

By summer 2010, the book will likely be published and launched at the US Social Forum in Detroit, and I will be planning and participating in events, tours, and publicity for it.

By fall 2010 I will have started a new six years of my life in grad school.

And I have just learned (via Bao Phi and friends) that by summer 2011, me and a core group of some dozen other Asian/Pacific Islander American poets, writers, spoken word performers, artists, marketers, fundraisers, and organizers will be hosting the biennial APIA Spoken Word Summit in Minneapolis/St. Paul and showing some 200 attendees what the Twin Cities are made of.

It should be pointed out (or rather, I have been attempting to point out to myself, over and over and over) that everything on this list takes LOTS of time, energy and commitment, and hella discipline. In college, I could still get away with writing a senior-year final paper the night before it was due. This does not hold true for making and publishing a book, applying for grad school, or developing a freaking national summit.

I am trying to remind myself. I am really, really trying. I am seeing to an adjustment that comes with great difficulty for me: looking just a bit further on from the here and now. Making the future present, identifying the steps to manifest what’s in store, and doing it. It should be easier because this future has birthed some staggeringly concreteness that’s much less avoidable compared to the vague. It should also be easier because I am so fucken inspired and ready right now like I haven’t been in years.

All the same, that’s some considerable stress and tension on my end.

“I am generally known where I am known as one cool, collected queen. And I am ruffled.” –Prior, on the torments of his Angel, Angels in America: Perestroika

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