A note on middle ground
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a person for whom there are only two settings: complete ambivalence and overwhelming passion.
Dear friend,
I have known very little middle ground in my life.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a person for whom there are only two settings: complete ambivalence and overwhelming passion.
In my first year of undergrad, I waded into political science and African American studies coursework and was driven for the first time by the urgent need to develop a political identity separate from my family or religious community. Every bit of information I received in lecture, every text I was assigned, I dug into with a ferocity I hadn’t previously and have not since. I carried that information home, to church, to family holidays. I spouted it without provocation. I insisted on enveloping the people and places that shaped me into the blanket of academia I’d been newly shrouded in.
They needed saving, I thought, and I was convinced the only to do so was to evangelize. I spoke about the brilliance of Ta-Nehisi Coates at Thanksgiving dinner. I waxed poetic about existentialism and the evils of capitalism. I fought, constantly, with the folks around me who seemed disinterested in stepping into the new, bright future that I was laying before them. I was developing a sense of self, and as a part of that development, when I took a new position—a more refined, progressive position, in my estimation at the time—I was completely beholden to it.
There was no grey area to be found. Either you were right, like me, or you were wrong.
I can see now that what I was experiencing wasn’t unlike thousands of nineteen-year-olds all over the country, who left home for the first time and devoured each new thing and experience like an insatiable beast born of naïveté. Such is the hubris of young adulthood: It was new and revelatory to me, so it must have been new and revelatory to everyone.
I do not regret those years, though I have since developed a more nuanced politic and relationship to discourse (I hope). But one thing has remained: When I believe in something, I believe passionately—when I want, I want without reservation. And when I don’t, nothing within me can push me towards it. This modality has often served me well. It has opened the door to opportunities and loves and worlds that I can no longer imagine myself without. But as a friend of mine recently reminded me, that single-mindedness means I often hurt as big as I desire.
But even knowing the way it sometimes smarts to burn fast and bright, I have very little interest in approaching life any other way. I’m not sure I could even if I wanted to. I’m not built for a life of grey. I’m built for startling color and clarity. If I must, I think I’ll bear the scars proudly.
Here's what you missed on Glee:
Last week, Horn Book published a short interview with me about my upcoming middle grade, Ellie Engle Saves Herself, and it’s available here!
I’m leading a workshop at the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center this summer and I want you to join me! Come hang out in Provincetown for a week with me and some other wonderful kidlit authors by reading my course description and (hopefully) registering here.
I’m running a giveaway for an advanced reader copy of Ellie Engle Saves Herself over on Instagram! All you have to do to enter is like the post, comment with your superhero name, and share to your story. I’ll be choosing two winners by the end of the day on Wednesday (3/1). Enter now!
I love this line: “I’m not built for a life of grey. I’m built for startling color and clarity.” ❤️