Goodnight, Thesaurus
I was supposed to take the GRE today. When I canceled my test a few weeks ago, it was with a sense of grief. Today, it is with a profound relief. For months I have been memorizing vocabulary — esoteric vocabulary — and gobbling up rules about right angles and all things algebra. But it wasn’t enough; I wasn’t doing well on my practice tests. So I sobbed, canceled it, and found out that the one school that I was applying to that still required it just changed that policy starting this application cycle. When I saw that, I laughed like a child.
In middle school, I stole a thesaurus from my mom’s classroom. I still have it, and I consult it frequently, and it even sits with pride of place on my desk. When I wrote my first novel as a teenager, I pawed through its pages, which barely cling to the spine of the book, trying to arrive at just the right word and its subtle, attendant meanings. Because I name everything, I thought about giving the thesaurus a name as I was making lists of synonyms of GRE vocabulary. In the end, I didn’t, but I did cradle it to my chest when I canceled, and I told it that we would be free from the pressures of trying to do it all, trying to be it all. I am not Superwoman.
Today, instead of barreling through a test, I am going to drink some tea, write my statement of purpose, and study some Arabic and Icelandic. I am going to read Introducing Comparative Literature and annotate it with pastel highlighters and trusty pens. I am going to be gentle with myself.
The entire process of applying to doctoral programs has been exhausting, but I love story so much, I love what makes us human so much, that I get excited when I think about navigating academia. My undergraduate grades were rather vanilla, but I have done much better at The Johns Hopkins University, where I am finishing up my MA. Like traveling solo, this is a moment where I have to understand what I am capable of. I may not be accepted to any of these programs to which I am applying, but I am getting to know myself with a sort of hopeful stirring.
Why literature?
Because what we are as humans we owe all to our ability to tell a story. Because I am genuinely happy to be a living, heart-beating thing when studying foreign languages and their narrative and poetic traditions. Because I love humankind so much that I would do anything to remind anyone and everyone that we are capable of remarkable things.
If only we know ourselves, if only we all understood that we are good on the inside, and that light cannot be dimmed by others, by tragedy on a small or global scale, or even ourselves. We cannot understand this without the stories we tell. Literature is not simply a good tale — it is the thread, like cognitive DNA that propels the soul to do things grand enough to impress the stars.
And there is for me the appeal of the intersection of story and mind. I trained as a cognitive scientist in my undergraduate years, and I still aspire to this glorious science. Maybe we are neurologically wired to tell stories, to think in myths and metaphors. I can’t think of a happier life than writing, studying, translating, and traveling. When I realized that I needn’t have the GRE to do that, well, I guess I pet my cat and felt okay.
I love you, world.
