Enough

I just returned from a trip to Doha, Qatar care of Georgetown University – Qatar. It was an amazing experience: I got to teach a masterclass on Arab-Black cross cultural coalition building. I spoke my meager Arabic. I haggled in Souq Waqif. I had a chocolate cake the size of a lego. I feel refreshed and buoyed by the energy of my colleagues, the students, and my Sorors! Thank you all for your patience with the interruption to the newsletter schedule.

As I settle back into my routine, I realize that my work goals seem to feel like they are simultaneously too much and not enough. Too indulgent to work on poetry during political upheaval. Not enough focus on reality because my research is typically in the land of imagination. Too narrowly focused on word count when I should be more expansively focused on audience. Not enough time devoted to political advocacy. Too selfish. Not enough heft. Too irrelevant. Not enough grace. On and on.

There is a beautiful word in Arabic that means “enough.” Khalas. I have often heard it used to mean “stop it,” or “done,” or “OK.” I have always heard it delivered with an emphasis on that first fricative consonant, the compression of air at the back of the throat. When I speak it inside my mind to myself, I feel the disciplining power of it to stop my inner critic, its finality. That is enough.

After all, none of the critiques I offer above have anything to do with the work I actually do. They are judgements upon it. All of those judgements are rooted in a capitalist view of knowledge production: it must be commodified, it must be salable to others, it must use up the body, it must tax the mind. Scholarship can do those things. It does not have to do any of them.

As a poet, I believe there is always a time for poetry. As a lover of books, I believe there is always a time when literature will speak to or for us. As a teacher, I believe there is always time for instruction.

I have opted to keep going.