Week 156

Written By Krista Harrison

Hello after a 5-month absence!

It’s been a big week(ish) here. I submitted my first solo-PI R01, passed the 10-year anniversary of my dissertation defense, the 3-year anniversary of the start of the pandemic, and the 4th birthday my dad is not celebrating.

I haven’t been posting in part because so much of my energy has been going to the R01. This is my first as solo-PI, and I had to work through a lot of intellectual and emotional …stuff… in the process. On Tuesday, after I submitted the grant to the people at UCSF who submit on our behalf, I felt like a wobbly-eyed hollowed out bowl of noodles in a broth of caffeine as weeks of adrenaline started to wear off. It got better after that, but the first time you do a new thing (for me, the solo-PI R01) can be hard. It helped me to state my goal (repeatedly) as being to learn as much as I could about the process (and myself). I’m intending to write another R01 later this year.

I’ve been proud of the boundaries I’ve set and the number of things I’ve successfully postponed until after the grant was submitted. I’ve kept a running list of postponed to-dos under a title of “parking lot” for the last month (so they’d stop running through my head). The first two items took a collective 25 minutes. Others are still unchecked. On the other hand, I had postponed my R01 submission from last November until now in part because I was working on grants for some of my service/leadership roles. I’ve now learned that those grants have scored well, likely in the fundable range (knock on wood). It makes the postponement of my own work feel a little more rewarded. It’s not like I have a time machine to change things, and if I did, work wouldn’t be at the top of my list. I’m pleased, also, that in this iteration of grantwriting, I not only managed to mostly maintain my daily exercise habits, but I also picked up knitting as a way to focus in meetings and conferences I otherwise would multitask in (presenteeism being mostly a waste of time). My future sister-in-law told me about Malabrigo yarn, which is a true delight with which to work.                            

This weekend we are planning multiple family celebrations. One of my mentors told me about how she always celebrated grant submissions as a family, to honor all the sacrifices the family made to help her get her grant in. Now that Theo’s 6.5, and I’m submitting the R01, I understand this. The last few months, I spent multiple weekends and nights working on the grant. We’ve had many Theo meltdowns that I suspect are partly not enough Mommy-attention-fill-ups. We’re combining grant submission celebrations with not-birthday celebrations, which means our dinner menu for Saturday is full of things that make me think of my dad: grilled chicken (weather-permitting), super-salad (what he called it, many ingredients, involves blueberries and romaine, celery and hemp seeds), cookie dough ice cream and snickerdoodles. I’ll wear his old shirt and sweater, or carry his old handkerchief, and wear the necklace with his thumbprint and signature. Maybe I’ll talk Theo into building with Legos, or I’ll watch Star Trek and do some wood carving after he goes to bed.

I also haven’t been posting as much because I’m allowing myself to evolve what I do with all these words. I’ve said before, in these missives, that maybe they will become a book. I decided to take a writing course taught by a psychotherapist who specializes in trauma and grief. I’ve finished one and am about to start on a next session. In the process, I’ve learned grief has changed for me in this fourth year. I’m finding poetry is the typical product instead of prose, but it’s been 20 years since I’ve edited poetry and I don’t know what to do with it. In addition, I’m learning there’s still plenty that my body is processing, but my energy and daily engagement is evolving. If you haven’t been through the type of grief that breaks you into before and after, this may not make sense. I hope it doesn’t make sense for a long time.

My final note of this week is that for those of you in the Bay Area, I’d love to plan an in-person get together soon. Stay tuned. This weekend is Daylight Savings, so all you parents of young ones out there – I wish you the easiest upcoming week possible.

Things I’ve sent to my “lab” over the last few months, plus a few more:

Krista Harrison
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