Finishing

While in grad school, I worked for a dear friend who ran a massive used book shop, a big red barn on the side of the road. I loved the smell of the place, the dusty piles, the rare finds and I was grateful for the extra money in the summer when I had no stipend. There were a few of us who did odd jobs there. My allotment was to schlep heavy boxes, mow the old farm field that surrounded the barn, befriend customers and occasionally run the cash register.

After a busy three-day weekend when I had filled in for a cashier who had suddenly quit, we were sitting around chatting and I asked my friend whom she was going to hire to work the register. She answered with a line taken from her parents, who also ran several used book stores: "The best clerks are grad students who think they are going to finish their dissertation." The point being that they never will, but they hang around forever trying. They are bookish and appreciative.

For me this comment was one of those moments when the curtain gets raised and you see the control room. I decide no matter what, I was never going to fall into this trap.

Mind you I really liked hanging out in grad school. We lived in a funky upstate town full of old hippies and the security that comes from being centrally isolated. I had lots of friends who were still hanging around Ithaca, didn't want to leave the lifestyle, thought the outside world was fascist, loved their girlfriend too much to apply for a job.

And to this day there are people, companies and institutions willing to give a place to those highly educated, almost finished academics. How many ABDs do the grading, the driving, weeding, and generally helping around the place without which relationships, stores and universities could not function? How many of us have been grateful just to be accepted and to be left a little time to write? But in truth, that's not enough.