Lately I have been afraid to read. When I say that fear hasn't kept me from reading, you should not cheer me on: I can read the following with ease: 

1. facebook status messages
2. blogs
3. in particular, food blogs
4. self-help books
5. magazines (the shorter the article, the better: I've even been avoiding the real articles)
6. the Ikea catalog
7. Etsy

There are many, many things I honestly want to read. There's that book on Kant's moral philosophy that I started. I enjoyed reading it (the 20 or so pages I accomplished) but have not returned to it. I started War and Peace one night. A bookmark about 15 pages in is all I have to show for it. I have several books on my shelf (free! I have them!) about fiction and literature. These would help me in my dissertation work. I might not even have to take notes on them. And their spines and covers are perfect, without a single crease or bend. I loved The Golden Bowl and I have two copies of The Ambassadors. Haven't started. And then, of course, there is the poetry into which I can't bring myself to journey; I run my mind lightly over their surfaces instead of plunging into their depths.

I just can't bring myself to do it. I am not even entirely sure what it is that I am afraid of. Unless it is that I am afraid to learn and know more than I do. I am at a stage of writing now where I am better able to see the holes in my work. I am also at a stage where I must prepare (much and quickly) to obtain a job, and I see the holes in my professional development. The reading I want to do and must do would certainly help to fill those holes. 

And that, I find, makes me very, very nervous. I see that I have used "I don't know that" and "my background is not very good" and "oh, but I'm not very well-informed about that" as excuses. I have used such excuses to keep myself from becoming competent. That way, when I fail, I can say "well, I didn't know X or Y or Z" even though I could have taken it upon myself to learn them. 

I am afraid, it seems, of being an academic. Of having any authority. Of pushing myself to work (sometimes) at my own limits. If I did that--if I explored and expanded my limits--I'd have to learn to tell new stories about myself. I'd have to develop stories about growth and accomplishment and achievement. And that is why I just cannot, these days, bring myself to read.

The Divine Uterus Part I

In the middle of the journey of our life I came to
myself in a dark wood for the straight way was lost.
Luckily, I knew what that wood was,
so powerful and strong that the thought of it renews my wonder!
One less learned than I might have thought
that this place and its memory were so savage and
bitter that only death is perhaps more so.
I knew that I had encountered the door to my
uterus, strange and wonderful labyrinth of dark
and mysterious power.
I really cannot say how I entered there, so full of
sleep was I at the point when I abandoned the other way.
While I stumbled at the entrance, my eyes darkened by
the dark and red light that pulsed beyond the gate,
before me one offered herself to me who through
mystical silence seemed faint.
When I saw her in the great wilderness, I cried out and
begged her aid "whatever you may be, true woman or shade!"
She called herself - some utterance not translatable into
human tongue, the sound of which calmed my human fear.
"You must enter deep into your womb if you wish to leave
this dark and fecund place. There is no way out but in and
no way up but deeply down."
My heart sank at her words and I cast my eyes about within
the darkness that enfolded us.
She spoke, and then she moved, and I followed after her.

The day was departing and the damp and fertile air was
releasing its potency beyond the gates of the cervical city.
I alone prepared myself to undergo the journey which
memory will depict.
O muses, O high wit now help me!,
I sighed as I entered upon the deep, savage journey.

THROUGH ME THE WAY INTO THE CERVICAL CITY
THROUGH ME THE WAY INTO ETERNAL BECOMING
THROUGH ME THE WAY AMONG THE LOST AND FUTURE PEOPLE
ABANDON ALL HOPE, ALL FEAR, ALL THOUGHT, YOU WHO ENTER