A Pile of Dirt

The person who steps in quicksand does not realize that the ground is not solid. When I was a child in the first grade, I was walking home on a grey, cool, and misty afternoon from school. As children are often playful and glad that school was finished for the day, I cut across a field on a corner lot. In the middle of the field rose a large pile of dirt, and childhood compulsion rather than adult reason or experience drove me to run up to the top. About halfway up the incline, I began to sink into the pile. Quickly, I found myself trapped in the mud up to my waist. Hours seemed to pass, and I could not escape. As the evening sun was getting ready to set, lights were seen flickering in the distance. I screamed for help, and Wilbur and his dog, the man who lived down the street with a basement full of model trains, came and rescued me. Apparently, a worried and terrified mother had called for reinforcement when I did not return home. Wet, cold, covered with mud and dirt from head to toe, I was whisked into the bathroom with a hail of condemnations and scrubbed, then beaten with a wooden spoon ( the learning technology of the day), reprimanded, and sent to my room, but as the reader can surmise, I survived my childhood. Whether I can survive my adulthood is yet to be determined, for the mud is still in my ears.

            I tell this tale because one asks if I feel my methods are constructed solidly. I learned a lesson as a child: to never foolishly run up dirt piles and never to presume. The methods draft that I have presented is solid on the surface but is fluid underneath. The construction, like the pile of dirt, is material to be used, but not in its final form, and its fluidity is a property of the material as ice is to water. It is a moldable, changing, morphing substance that will eventually be sculptured into a form to dry and become solid when the composition suits my satisfaction. Currently, it is not complete, nor should it be, for it is a work in progress. The plan has been visualized, and the structure has been outlined. Academic clay has been placed on the armature and is being sculpted.

            Unfortunately, the slides that were made as directed were never seen by my peers for review. The discussion undertaken did not provide feedback that would improve my method development. I was left where I started, as it should be, working as the creator of a created thing. At the end of the journey, the dissertation will not be a team project but a single signature of my work alone. Nary a Monet can be found signed, “Monet et équipe.”

            A person in the darkness only needs a point of light to have hope. I see the light and am heading toward it. I may trip on unseen obstacles or wander and fall into unknown crevasses, but I will continue forward regardless. I crawl, rest, anticipate danger, and run up dirt mounds cautiously, all with the belief that Wilbur and his dog will come and rescue me when I get stuck.

“The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won’t.”  — Henry Ward Beecher