a little place of calm for a woman prone to hysteria

I have a little place of calm. I go there to seek shelter from the cruel, unforgiving and sometimes unfathomable world. It's good to have a place of calm especially if you are prone to fits of hysteria and unprovoked anxiety. Last week I looked ahead to this week and I felt in control. I was working on my interpretation chapter and I was feeling mildly optimistic about the progress I was making, but more importantly, I was feeling confident about the argument I was building. Fast forward to this morning and all of that is blown away for shit.

Luckily I was in my place of calm, it gave me the sense of peace and security I needed to face this bout of anxiety. I realised today that I don't need supervisors to get my knickers in a knot - I do that all by myself. I went from being marginally confident about the quality of my work (the stuff I'm meant to submit on Sunday) to only seeing all the gaps in my argument and the missing sections of explanation in my literature review. And of course I started calculating that I would never have enough time to address all the problems popping up in my work before Sunday. Always on high-alert trying to work out how to solve my never-ending conceptual and time problems. What a seriously rocky road we travel on this PhD journey.

But my daily trips to UCT library has become the source of some strange sense of calm. I find a spot to sit in the Research Wing, hopefully close to a window and then all that matters is trying to make sense of the writing task I've set myself for that day. I find my concentration is greatly improved and I can sit and work for up to two hours at a time. Then a brief dash out to the 'real' world of undergraduate students trying to get themselves heard and seen by their peers, trying to make an impression. I have a cup of tea, and the guy who takes my order is now saying 'Tea! cold milk, no sugar' I give him a familiar smile and nod my head. I have something to eat, I sit in the sun for a bit. Then in the afternoons I walk down the hill to Rondebosch using the walk to create some distance between the intensive thinking work just completed and the more mundane tasks ahead - like cooking, cleaning and doing the washing. And so I am this strange person, almost mostly alone in her head, finding peace and calm in a place alive with people working on their tomorrows.

I can get no sleep

On the back of an intense week I had a really relaxed weekend. I watched movies, spoke to friends, did a little bit of work on Saturday, followed the sun on Sunday and spent some quality time with my niece in Stellenbosch. I was visualizing a productive and equally intense week preparing the bulk of my thesis for review. I felt confident with the amount of time I had to complete the tasks at hand. For the first time in a long time I felt confident that I could attend to all the 'gaps' I had identified, allowing me to submit a reasonably polished draft to the supervisors come Friday (well I was going to extend the deadline to Monday morning because who reads anything on the weekend, especially a PhD student's draft work?). But this is where the subconscious intervenes and brings any cheeky, arrogant, over-confident PhD student right down to size. I couldn't sleep last night - no amount of Rescue Remedy or Relicalm tablets brought me any relief. All I could do was watch the clock, slowly, painfully countdown the minutes and hours to about 5am. I knew I'd feel like crap in the morning and all the good intentions of kick-starting this all important week would be doomed before it even started. I got too big for my boots - is probably how my Mom might explain the whole sorry night. Where did I possibly get off thinking I could feel confident or on track with my work? So having wasted the day away feeling like yesterday's reheated breakfast - I'm now behind my well meaning plan to do things right this week and have some time to spare. What does that infamous comic-strip say...Piled high and Deeper!

I'll follow the sun

It felt like I needed the sun this week. On Thursday when I arrived at UCT at about 12pm, I felt compelled to sit at the bottom on Jamie steps for a few minutes before rushing into the library to work on my Interpretation chapter. I sat on the edge of University Avenue and watched the passing undergraduate students. I looked out across the Cape Flats, the real world below the ivory tower perched on the hill, and allowed the sun to burn my skin. I've been in Cape Town for more than four months and I haven't really allowed myself to enjoy the city, its weather and beautiful, vibrant people. This morning I sat on St James' beach at just after 10am and for the first time since I returned to the city, I submerged my body into its ocean. Why had it taken me so long? What is it about this PhD process that makes you feel like you aren't allowed to enjoy everyday pleasures? That unless you give everything over to the PhD you are bound to suffer the wrath of the PhD guilt police. This week the sun called me and I listened and followed it.

pushing on despite being knocked down

When I had a serious crisis in my personal life just about 10 - 12 years ago and my common-law relationship ended, I went into survivor  mode. Somehow I feel like I'm in a similar place at the moment. A serious personal crisis and I'm finding a strange resonance with this other period in my life such a long time ago.

Dancing with my mother on my 40th birthday

But I'm a survivor - if anything that's what I am. Thanks to my mother and my big sisters who instilled in me this sense that you never let anything get you down and that irrespective what negative or challenging situation you find yourself in, you have the capacity to get through to the other side. Laying down and giving up is simply is not an option. I guess this is where I get my almost innate confidence and determination from - instilled in me from an early age - you will survive whatever gets thrown at you, you will survive. You will do what you need to do to survive. I went through another period in my life when I believed that you can't just operate in survivor mode, because surviving isn't living. If you want to get anything out of life you need to live, not survive. But needs must - I'm going into survival mode again because I know it will get me to the other side.

grateful to be in Cape Town

I can't imagine what it would have been like to try and complete this PhD alone. I don't think I would have been able to do it alone. I'm constantly reminded of how grateful I am that I'm back in Cape Town. How even when I feel really alone as I go through this process, I am not.

I've been rather upbeat about my progress over the past three weeks. It has felt really authentic, not just a mask created specifically for this somewhat public platform. I really am enjoying working on my PhD, even though I've been grappling with some fundamental ideas and how to present them. But it's always like this when the work I'm doing is of the 'low-stakes' variety. Then invariably when a written tasks needs to be completed or  feedback on that tasks is pending or has taken place my sense of equilibrium and buoyancy and confidence  unravels.  At these times I am probably most grateful for Cape Town. I can't do this thing alone and I'm not ashamed to admit it. But increasingly I know that I will do this thing. I know that what I've done so far is worthy of the degree and I will get to the other side. This is my story and I'm sticking to it.