The Not-Lost-After-All Art of Gratitude

subtitle: Cultural Materialism/Actor-Network Theory for Real Life


Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Words said so often they might seem to be rendered meaningless. Words often left unsaid. Who among us hasn't brushed over these words without thinking about what it takes to stop for a moment and express gratitude? "Oh, you're welcome." "It was nothing." "Don't mention it."  Who among us has not wished for an expression of gratitude that never arrived? "All that work and I all wanted was a little recognition."

I am fortunate to work in an industry I adore. I do adore academia. I love that there are places where people can gather to think and talk and figure out problems the rest of the world doesn't have time to stop and consider but which inform our very existence as human beings. I loved being in college, and I love being around people who are in college. I love being on a college campus for my day-to-day work. It is a place of a lot of stresses, but also a great deal of joy. A few years ago, I was walking by a spot in our lovely Dell that dips significantly, a spot which was filled nearly level with the rest of the Dell with leaves piled high by the grounds crew, when a student took a running leap (backpack and all, arms spread wide) into the pile of leaves with a wild, wonderful cry. I laughed and thought "I can't believe I get to do what I do for a living." I am grateful, every day, for the place I work and the people I work with.

A small note makes a big difference.

But some days I am just worn out with it. I have been feeling worn thin lately. Tired, yes. But not the kind of tired I've been at the end of a semester before. More like fabric where the fibers are thin and stretched, like jeans where they're worn out on the knees or the butt. I think if you held a scholarly article up behind me you could read through me. Some days my skin feels less substantial. I am tired.* Some days I wonder if anyone notices that I'm knocking myself out. Yesterday, on her way out the door, a student left me a handmade thank you note telling me how much my class meant to her and how much she appreciates all my work for my students. I didn't know how much I needed it until I got it. It changed my whole perspective. You're welcome, you absolute darling. My pleasure. Seriously. You are why I do this work. I am reminded how much the words mean. Thank you. If you tried to read that article through me today it would be a little harder to make out the words.

The best stuff in the world has to be gratitude for helping someone who got the thing. Sometimes these have gifts attached! I've gotten food and even gift cards for Starbucks or other restaurants, for writing recommendation letters or for helping with a tenure portfolio. I like the gifts, don't get me wrong. The biscotti is great and the gift card is greatly appreciated, but the greatest thing of all is the note. It takes time to write a note. It takes thought. I keep the notes forever. It's so easy to forget to be grateful when exciting things are happening. It's easy to forget that we didn't do it all by ourselves.

Months later, I still have one of these things. 

But I am wrong. The best stuff in the world has to be gratitude for helping someone who DIDN'T get the thing, because we all know it takes a little more character to feel grateful when we're disappointed. It frustrates me when students ask for reference letters but then don't tell me how it turned out. Did you get in? What are your plans now? Can I help in any way? I didn't get some fellowships I applied for this year. (Damnit, damnit, damnit - I tried so hard for them!) I wanted to just shrink into a little hole and not talk about my disappointment to anyone. But remembering how it feels when I'm the one who helped, I sent thank you emails to those lovely souls who wrote recommendations for me, because writing a recommendation letter might seem small until you have to write lots of them, and these people took time and effort to read my application materials and craft the best letter they could. They deserved to know that I am grateful, even if it was hard for me to tell them that I'd failed.

Gratitude matters. Experiencing gratitude makes us better people. Read Paradise Lost and tell me that humility isn't the difference between good and evil. Expressing gratitude makes other people feel better. Years ago, not long after my book had come out, I was chatting with a writer-in-residence who mocked me for having an acknowledgements page. He said "You're the one who wrote it, why would you thank anyone? I never thank anyone." This guy was one huge jackass, too. He allowed himself to be unaware of the forces in his life that made his life possible.** None of us acts alone, really. Proponents of something called Actor-Network Theory argue that nothing in nature, including humans in our own works of innovation, ever acts alone - that all things are contingent on the forces around them to make what they are doing possible. The actor is dependent upon the network in order to act. In other words, Copernicus didn't discover the truth of the Ptolemaic, heliocentric cosmos all on his very own; because we're all influenced by the lives we lead and all that is around us, there were forces at work on his consciousness that even he himself could not, perhaps, have recognized. It's at work at every level. Those butternut squash seeds that sprouted today in my little egg carton planters? Not all by themselves. Indescribable forces were at work to make that happen, networks of soil and nutrients and moisture, including me sticking the seeds in the dirt. You're welcome, butternut squash sprouts.

Shakespeare in Love - an entire movie plot based on cultural materialism. 

In the study of cultural products like literature and art, this is called Cultural Materialism, or just Materialism now. It's the understanding that Shakespeare didn't just up and write Hamlet one day, his imagination was impacted by forces all around him including cultural tensions and drama among people in his community and the sights and smells and sounds of life around him.

I am a Cultural Materialist in my own literary research because I truly believe that what we do comes from what is around us. I am myself, and I have my own personality traits and gifts and talents that I was no doubt born with. But my gifts were nurtured by people around me. My interests were mocked by some, and so I have some issues of self-consciousness that I wish I could shed more successfully. I am me, but the me that I am is inflected by the people and the events and the forces in the life I am fortunate to lead.

A little note from a stranger can make that check seem worth it.

It doesn't take much to show appreciation for that. What people really want is words. Recognition. Acknowledgement. Yesterday, the Annual Fund at LC set up a table for students and faculty to write thank you notes to donors to the college. Because when people write a check, however large or small, they are happy to do it as long as they feel that it is appreciated. I was pleased to see how many notes were in the collection basket.

And today is Teacher Appreciation Day. So, in honor of that, I post this blog entry. And in it, I want to say thank you to the phenomenal teachers in my own life. Carol Moore, the first teacher to tell me I was good at something (7th grade, and it was English). That is one of the moments on which my life pivoted. All my theatre professors at Appalachian State, you amazing crew of Sages. I am who I am because of you. Constance Relihan, my mentor at Auburn and my friend today, whose "And then what?" questions drove me into territory I hadn't known I was capable of reaching. The teachers I work with every day at LC, who work themselves to pieces for students they love.

Also, thank you to LC for working to help me be the teacher and scholar I want to be. It's not very trendy right now to be grateful to one's institution. We're supposed to be cynical and snide about how unappreciated we are and to cite statistics about pay differentials and point out that life for academics used to be so much better. And I'm working on an entry about pay differentials, for another time. Today I want to say thank you for professional development money that will help me with my research travel when I didn't get those fellowships. I want to say thank you for investing in your faculty when other schools are cutting entire departments and dropping contributions to retirement accounts. I'll come back from my fall sabbatical with a book draft and with skin so substantial that you won't be able to read a damn thing through me.








*  Since I arrived at LC six years ago, I have taught over 15 new preps (most in the first few years). I have done all the research I can, work I love but seldom have time for. A conference paper is a monumental effort on my teaching load, with advising and other service added in. I love the teaching, but it's hard to not resent how it can eat away at everything else that I am supposed to be doing (and yes, I am supposed to be doing these other things, too - I was not hired to be a teaching martyr, I was hired to be an academic, which means contributing to my scholarly field).


** For example, he had no idea that he should be grateful that I didn't throw my drink in his face when he complimented me on my ass. I do not expect to appear in an acknowledgements page for that, but it would be nice: "My grateful thanks to that Shakespeare prof I was a jerk to for not throwing her drink in my face."