From the Blank Page

a reminder to take your own advice

Introductions are impossible for the Enneagram three, as we prefer to contextualize our qualities based on the foliage and social fauna of the moment. Harder still for the Enneagram four, as we could never begin to express ourselves in the context of a character limit or a single conversation. I myself land precariously with a foot on each side of the imaginary line dividing the threes from fours, which provides no solace. Cocktail parties I just skip, but in the past months as I’ve contemplated how to introduce myself to the medical schools where I’m applying, I’ve just sat in the soup with the piles of CV, bits of Meaningful Life Experiences, and prompts and prods for successful medical school personal statement topics.

Following my own writerly advice, I put any words at all on the page. The blank page means the skeletons are still in the closet, and they need to be aired out to rearrange and introduce themselves. To fall into runes for other eyes to read. In writing my first draft, I again followed my own advice and planted without weeding. And then, as the deadline to submit approached I balked - simultaneously proud of my capacity to squash my lyricism and cornucopia of “gap decades” of experience into 7,300 characters of very dense copy (which was still 2,000 characters too many) and horrified that it just didn’t feel like the sort of essay that makes committees want to ask more questions. It felt a bit too much like a confessional or an obituary or a painfully long speaker’s introduction. Regardless, I sent it along to my post-bacc program March 1st, and kept the full-bodied draft open in a tab of my browser window, a little shrine to my favorite dieties: incompleteness and her sister imperfection.

My attention turned to organic chemistry, an ancient nemesis and the obstacle in the gauntlet of pre-med coursework responsible for redirecting the majority of the fallen, and managing the affairs of my deceased brother. Oh, and also the affairs of homeownership and body ownership, human companionship and dog management. The tab sat open, waiting patiently for enough inspiration to consolidate into action, or for my system to self-destruct*. We all juggle multiple priorities in life and adulthood, but this last season of mine has felt particularly demanding - partially because it has been, and partly because the work of grief draws from the same pool as cognitive capacity. I’ve always done my best teaching and my best writing in choppy emotional waters. My third biggest struggle as a human is grappling the tired and nearly universal truth that art (and whatever this is) often comes from the careful sorting of what washes up on shore after the shipwreck of a breakup, or a loss, or a death of some other kind.

To this end, I am most distressed that writing has been challenging since my brother died, despite me having big heartbroken feelings about it. Often I get prolific in the liminal spaces between the life before and the horizon ahead, but coupled with a deadline and a few gap decades of procrastination, I am just addled.

In spite of deadlines and various unmemorized reaction mechanisms (and adjacent to my better judgement), I found myself on my fifth flight in two weeks heading back to the beachfront hotel where my person was willingly captive. The time at home alone with the dog had been logistically useful, but emotionally inclement, and so I did what we do when storm clouds loom on the horizon: I fled.

In advance of my flight, I prepared dozens of pages of organic chemistry to print and study on the plane, but the night before the flight my printer wouldn’t print**. Security certificate expired. First time I’ve heard of such a thing, but quickly set the task aside in service of an early bed time and a day of travel. I woke before my alarm, and all other elements fell into place as I find they often do when I relent control and watch the world unfold. The shuttle driver at the parking area was waiting for me, security was easy, and there was room in a bin for my suitcase in the overhead bin, despite the oversold flight.

And then, for the third of three flights in a row, the cabin door closed and the seat next to me remained vacant.

Fortune?

Fate?

Andrew?

I had been texting a friend and former colleague about my essay, as he’d said he would read and offer feedback.

Just before airplane mode I quickly quipped “Oh and also my plan for this flight is to start fresh from the blank page to see if I can shake out my cobwebs.”

Was that my plan? My plan had been to study keto-enol tautomerization and aromaticity, to etch the rationale behind HBr vs Br2 adding to an alkene, but my thumbs started typing instead, below the list of things to do before leaving the house:

Dog
Dishwasher
Trash
Sky lunch

The black background of my notes app is often the place my soul surfaces in thumb typing - involuntary and not quite fast enough to capture the stream of words. Most frequently this happens in my weekly bath, (which, if you’re new here, is not a thing I do because I like it, but because I feel I should like it).

After thirty minutes of thunderbolt thumbs we were in the clouds, and I came to a resting spot and turned back to my audio book while I ate my sky lunch - apples and cheese, cucumber, half a bag of chips and a protein bar with the miracle (and atrocity) of coffee brewed in another time zone.

As I landed and boarded the train up the coast I opened the draft again, fiddling with words autocorrected away from their original intent. Added a word. Subtracted a word.

Good bones, I thought. Better, more cohesive narrative. Truth instead of trying.

I shared it off, knowing the thing I already knew, but desiring the external validation that another set of thumbs can offer.

My colleague agreed.

Others have said similar things, always with this phrase: very good.

Honest, real, raw, provocative. They are words I read in private messages or replies after casting a message in a bottle out via an internet platform. But this is an application, not a plea for readership or resonance.

For many years I read college essays, and still do now in service of the poor admission counselors who pour over all the words in every application, searching for a grail or something evocative. Many college essays reflect the idea that to be accepted, we must be whittled down and the cracks polished away, but I believe this is bad advice.

So for the third time, I followed my own advice and wrote a love letter to my former self, my intended audience. Her shoulders tired from hunching, her bag overstuffed with Personal Statements of varying degrees of sincerity, mostly about absurd privilege, and eyes that cannot focus more than 18” away.

And so I lay this truth at your feet - that sometimes listening to what you teach can be the medicine. Starting from the blank page is not a failure, and neither is the altar of the original draft. I do my best writing in an airplane (and always have). This, unfortunately, involves leaving home and putting myself in the circumstances that allow me to be my most effective. It’s how I get closer to god. And rather than hiding my vulnerabilities between the lines, they hold hands with my strengths. The secret of aromaticity is electrons who work together in service of cohesion, while anti aromatics use their energy to tear themselves apart. Same, same, really.

I am here to report back from the front where I have taken my own advice. Sometimes the magic is cohesion. Sometimes the medicine is disintegration. Both can be true.

If you care to read it, it’s below the paywall.

Thanks for reading,
Not-Yet-Dr.-Kwinn

*My computer did indeed self destruct, forcing me to force quit and lose back to the ethers my carefully collected pebbles of aspirational recipes, drafts, and crap I most certainly do not need to buy.

**My printer still will not print.

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