This Little Light of Mine

It's a gorgeous day: bright blue cloudless sky, red gold leaves in the trees and underfoot, and warmth under the dappled sun. As I tramped through the leaves in the backyard, half listening to my neighbor summon her cat "Cowgirl! Here kit-kit-kit-kit-kit-kit-kit-TEE!" which makes me feel like I'm in the country, I noticed that the familiar call was mixed with a strain of bright music. There is a church on my cross-street, a tiny white box of a building that I never paid much attention to. But today I could hear a small gospel choir inside singing

This little light of mine
I'm gonna let it shine
I'm gonna let it shine
I'm gonna let it shine
This little light of mine
I'm gonna let it shine
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shi-ine

My mother used to sing this to me when I was very small. Hearing it today was kind of transcendental.

Underneath

Being under review again is challenging, since I've started to make progress on my manuscript revision. The review can take up a lot of psychological and emotional acreage, leaving little room for focus on my current projects, if I'm not careful. And it gets scarier and scarier in the years leading up to the tenure decision. I'm only 3 years in and already I'm worried.

Reading one's colleagues' critical reports is a bracing experience, but I'm trying my best to take them to heart constructively by thinking about how I can use this as an opportunity to change as a teacher and as a scholar. I'm trying to read them as assessments rather than evaluations. And I'm hoping they'll keep me on.

I have also realized I am not a fan of certain words and phrases that tend to crop up in such reports. It's probably because right now my mind's landscape is being overtaken by thoughts about the review and its uncertain outcome. But for some reason the verb "evinces", even used in a positive way, freaks me out. It has nothing to do with what the word means. I think it has something to do with the way it sounds- kind of like a sharp knife slicing away at paper.