Writing Time
Jessica Lyn Bannon
Keywords: cancer; parental illness; grief; process; fetal loss; surgery; medical trauma; single parenthood
Categories: Navigating Loss and Grief; Visual, Sonic, Tactile, Interactive Texts as Self- and Collective Care; Writing the Process of Writing
Content warning: cancer; parental illness; fetal loss; medical trauma
Introduction
The following collection of collages [linked below] represents some of the writing, drawing, and academic work I engaged in over a roughly 18-month period while in the midst of the global pandemic. In this piece, I aim to foreground the ways writing and other forms of composing helped me cope with the demands of new and existing forms of carework. The constraints posed by the pandemic threw into sharp relief not only the extent to which carework permeated my professional life but also the extent to which I had internalized an expectation to ignore that fact.
My daily composing, or “writing time,” became a crucial part of decompressing from carework and engaging in some version of self-care. I began each entry with the phrase “writing time” to help me focus on simply engaging in personal reflection rather than meeting professional demands for writing. Although messy, scattered, unfocused, unsettled, and inconclusive, this composing became completely necessary for my stability and health. It is one representation of my personal response to the many forms of carework occupying my daily life and permeating the many roles I inhabit: single parent, academic, professor, writer, chronically ill, immunocompromised, divorced, sister, daughter, cat person, artist, etc. The carework I provide for myself and others is rooted in all of these roles and a host of experiences ranging from joyful to traumatic.
Every day, sometimes during the day in the short spaces between one obligation and the next but most often late at night after my child had gone to bed, all the chores were done, and I was too exhausted to devote mental energy to work but still needed to do something, I’d put in my earbuds, listen to music, and sit in bed or an armchair with my laptop. I’ve pulled together bits and pieces of this daily composing to share just a glimpse into the complex and varied ways carework saturates our lives, often juxtaposing and integrating facets of our identities we’ve been told to keep separate. Despite my efforts to maintain the low-stakes nature of writing time, often any form of writing felt too overwhelming. It required mental and emotional labor I had already spent throughout the day. Much of my time during the pandemic, then, also involved making visual art. Rather than my laptop, I’d grab a sketchbook or canvas and pencils or any medium on hand. This form of composing became a valuable complement to writing activity, allowing me alternate ways to decompress.
Throughout the pandemic I attended as many webinars and online workshops as I could, designed a new course, redesigned old courses, revised curriculum for online instruction, and attempted to make progress on scholarship. The collages represent this work as well. While much of this was required as part of my job, it also fulfilled my need to be doing something and using my time in ways others would find valuable. More than that, this constant work served as a form of self-care in itself; at a time when national and global events render individuals helpless, it seemed more important than ever to find ways to participate meaningfully – even if that participation was limited to a smaller context like teaching or an academic discipline. Like so many others, I just needed to do something.
Writing time also became a means to externalize emotional trauma, some of it stemming from physical trauma, some of it from life events past and present. In the past, writing served as a way for me to abstract and distance myself from immediate pain, anxiety, and discomfort. This changed during the pandemic. I began explicitly chronicalling all the details, which felt strange, at times uncomfortable, and yet also cathartic. This is not groundbreaking; many people have similar experiences using writing or other media to process grief, stress, and trauma. What I find interesting, though, is the challenge of figuring out how to share this in a public professional forum that, while pushing the boundaries of what kinds of writing are acceptable to share in such forums, still makes me keenly aware of my departure from traditional peer-reviewed publications. Honestly, I am not entirely comfortable sharing personal information in a professional forum, and I excluded a lot of my writing as a result. Still, I feel the collage fulfills this special issue’s aim to offer wide-ranging representations of how writing and carework have come together in our lives over the past couple of years. Such representations require deviating from academic publishing norms because the experiences themselves simply don’t fit within those norms.
Collage allows me to highlight the non-linear, layered, messy, and disjointed nature of experience. Central to the collages below are images of my writing time journals. This writing is integrated with drawings I produced during the same period. These drawings were rarely directly connected to the subject of the writing; rather, they allowed me space away from that subject matter when it became too difficult. I also layered the collages with images of writing produced for teaching, scholarship, and professional development, including lessons, notes, outlines, drafts, and slides. Those writing activities were ever-present and represent work that typically gets professional validation. Yet they are at the periphery of the collages. In this piece, I want to prioritize the personal writing activity that affects professional work but often remains hidden. I hope others can relate to at least of some of the experiences, ways of thinking, and attempts at processing represented here.
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Image Descriptions for Collage
Page 1
Three images run down the left side of the page, positioned partially behind the main text: a painting of a black bird flying in profile, a screenshot of a notes app, and screenshot of a research project in a word processing program. Below the text on the bottom right of the page is a screenshot of a Google slideshow for a composition class.
Page 2
Surrounding and positioned slightly behind the main text are seven images. In clockwise order from the top left, they are: a watercolor painting of a black-eyed Susan flower, a screenshot of a Google doc displaying a lesson plan, a colored pencil drawing of black-eyed Susan just beginning to bloom, a graphite drawing of a cone flower in front of a fence, a screenshot of a research project in a word processing program, a colored pencil drawing of a black-eyed Susan almost fully bloomed, and a screenshot of a notes app.
Page 3
In the top right corner, slightly behind the main text, a screenshot of a research project in a word processing program. Across the center of the page, slightly behind the main text, a grayscale painting of a swallow bird in flight and a screenshot of a notes app tilted at a 45-degree angle.
Page 4
In the top right corner, slightly behind the main text, a screenshot of a research project in a word processing program. Across the center of the page, slightly behind the main text, an abstract drawing in black marker and colored pencil and a screenshot of a Google slideshow for a composition class. In the bottom left corner, slightly behind the main text, a screenshot of a research project in a word processing program
Page 5
The main text appears in seven text boxes staggered on the page from top to bottom, each with feathered borders. The background is an abstract painting in deep blue, green, and brown tones.
Page 6
In the top right corner, slightly behind the main text, a graphite drawing of a cat’s face and a screenshot of a research project in a word processing program. In the center-left, slightly behind the main text and angled, a screenshot of a Google slideshow for a composition class. In the bottom left corner, slightly behind the main text, a screenshot of a research project in a word processing program
Page 7
Across the top of the page, slightly behind the main text, a screenshot of a research project in a word processing program and a screenshot of a Google slideshow for a rhetoric class tilted at a 45-degree angle. Across the bottom of the page, an angled screenshot of a notes app and a graphite drawing of a wolf laying down with its chin resting on its front paws.
Page 8
The main text appears in seven text boxes staggered on the page from top to bottom, each with feathered borders and several images comprise the background. in clockwise order from the top left, they are: a graphite drawing of an owl’s face, an angled screenshot of a notes app, a graphite drawing of a wolf’s face in profile, a graphite drawing of an owl’s face in profile, a screenshot of a Google slideshow for a professional writing class, and an angled screenshot of a Google doc displaying a lesson plan for a composition class.
Bio
Dr. Jessica Lyn Bannon is Associate Professor of English and Director of the Writing Lab at the University of Indianapolis, where she teaches courses in professional writing; first-year composition; composition theory and practice; rhetoric, writing, and social change; and pedagogy. She has published in College English and Spark: A 4C4Equality Journal and presented at local and national conferences, and her research interests include literacy studies, political discourse, writing pedagogy, writing center studies, and critical language awareness.