AFTERWORD
While pursuing my B.A. in English as an undergrad, I stumbled upon an article discussing Hemmingway’s six-word story; Far sale; baby shoes, never worn. The piece was essentially an invitation from the author to the reader to distill their life story down to six words; invitation accepted. Condensing my life experience down to six words was easier than I expected. On a piece of junk mail, I scribbled out the following in a handful of minutes: I was taught to run away.
Looking at the words, I knew they were true. After all, six years ago, I had written an entire transformational memoir with running as its central metaphor. The book, which has never been published, didn’t live up to my hopes. Perhaps nothing I write will ever live up to my lofty expectations, but this didn’t feel like another instance of imposter syndrome interfering with my art; I sensed a vital element was missing from my work. The almost six-year search to find the missing link has pushed me to my emotional and psychological limits or, as Mama might say, “driven me bat shit crazy.” My attempts at editing include reorganizing the vignettes, adding details, cutting entire sections, allowing others to offer insights, and having a professor of mythology edit the whole book—leaving her to conclude my style was “David Foster Wallaceesque” and that I should self-publish. So, what the hell was my problem? Why wasn’t I happy with my writing?
Enter emotional intelligence. The coming-of-age tale I penned in 2016 was written from my head. My desire to appear clever overtook the more profound message I hoped to convey. Writing from a need to control how others see me resulted in a half-hearted attempt at vulnerability. My stories were contrived, not channeled. I didn’t realize my mishap until I took this course (CNS5012 Emotional Intelligence). When I started this class, I had no idea how much I thought about my emotions. Emotions were ideas living in my mind, not full-body sensations. Getting emotional was easy. Being with my emotions, not so much.
During the second week of this course, I devoted myself to a single-word mantra, embody. When split into two, embody translates into (em) “put in or into, bring to a certain state” (body) “trunk of a man or beast, the physical structure of a human or animal.” Emotional intelligence is the kinesthetic process of getting out of our heads and into our bodies. As fate would have it, writing also requires one to move beyond their thoughts and into their sensations.
Each week, exploring the various affects—interest, joy, startle-surprise, fear, distress-anguish, anger, and shame—gifted me new insights into where emotions live in my body and their correlating experience. Journaling, art, and somatic exercises provided each affect an opportunity to speak. Through physical and creative expression, I began conversing with my emotions. The various affects presented themselves as different genders and ages, never isolating themselves to a single theme or period. Often memories were intensified by the presence of multiple affects, suggesting we experience life through many emotional lenses simultaneously, a point I hope I conveyed through my writing.
What does this have to do with running? For much of my life, running helped me metabolize the energy of raw emotion. Running never led to emotional alchemy (at least not intentionally). Instead, running was a process of avoidance. To be clear, I am grateful for running. There are worse ways to self-medicate. My dilemma with running was that it didn’t exist solely as a form of exercise; it was a physical manifestation of how I was taught to deal with life’s problems—I was taught to run away. Ironically, running away saved my life. A fact that seems to speak to the ability of our passions to work for and against us. Another point I hope I conveyed through my writing.
“Into Me, I Run” is a reworked collection of nine vignettes from the book I penned in 2016. I retold these tales from an embodied state using the effects studied in this course. The affects are not explicitly named but are all present, sometimes juxtaposed to one another. After all, this is how I experience emotion in real-time. Some context is needed to understand the depth of the flashbacks shared, the complexity of my upbringing, and the highlighted relationships. Still, I believe the affects convey what’s needed. The stoic philosopher Seneca said, “what is required is effectual words, not many.” I think I have offered you enough effectual words.
(B. Perkins, 2022)
Invitation:
I created a public playlist on my Spotify channel to accompany the reading. You can listen to it here: Into me, I Run. I hope listening enriches your reading experience.
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