Process Note: "Dissertation"
Today I wrote “Dissertation”. Here’s how I got there…
A few years ago, I went on vacation to Vashon Island, Washington. Waiting for the ferry, we turned on the radio to the local Vashon station (KVSH-LP) the “Voice of Vashon”. The radio was playing a talk show where two men were discussing a poll called “Top 10 Hats”.
The sheer brilliance of discussing “Top 10 Hats” has always stuck with me. In the years since, it’s always been a thing I want to share with everyone but the retelling would not live up to the experience.
I am low-key obsessed with hats. I don’t wear them myself unless it’s winter (and hey, pom-pom hats for the win) but it’s fascinating when people do.
I wanted a poem that was on a ferry because I thought it could be interesting and it maps directly to lived experience. That setting has been in my notebook for a while.
So… I began thinking of that trip and naturally turned to hats. You know what’s a weird hat? The mortar boards you wear when you graduate.
How can I connect these?
By having a person riding the ferry thinking about academics in some way. That was the launch sequence.
It is, of course, not “done”. There will be lots of editing and potentially changes in the middle, but I know what it’s supposed to do and I’m confident it will work, eventually.
Here’s how I laid it out when I started:
- Cup of coffee in hand, but failing to provide warmth (because you’re on a moving vessel).
- Quiet tap of a pen during an academic review board session.
- A gaze into the distance
These three points gave me a situation (someone on a ferry), a psychological turn (the moment of realization), and an emotional register (cold, distant, failing comfort). That was enough to start writing.
Don’t overthink it.