The beginning of 2015 has been discouraging for me. A series of fellowship applications and interviews elevated my hopes for this year, but not one has panned out, and now I am left with a plan vacuum. After so many coin flips having landed in my favor in the past, I’m sure I had a bad run like this coming.
In theory, there is nothing to lose by applying year after year for these opportunities. Play the numbers, I am advised. Persistence will pay off. But in my case I simply detest one key aspect of the process: the reference letter.
In some other professions, it is common practice to write a reference letter for oneself and have a supervisor read it over and sign it for you. But when your referees are professional writers, they write everything they put their name to. They are also accustomed to being paid by the word, so when I request a long, polished letter, it feels like asking each for roughly a thousand dollars — for the sole purpose of my own advancement. Or, in this case, for a net result of nothing.
I ruminated this week on what dream I should choose next. Whatever I set my sights on, I thought, should involve results that depend more on my own efforts and less on committee selections. I filed away from sight the application packages I had been fine-tuning for months. But before they were put away I took a last look at the reference letters.
Obligatory praise, of course, is the name of the game in a reference letter, but one statement made on my behalf was unequivocally true: that over the course of a summer in Banff, Canada, I climbed a bunch of mountains, despite being – how do I put this – basically, not athletic.
Climbing a mountain is a rather tired metaphor for taking on a challenge, but in the referee’s view, some quality of character was revealed by my stoicism on the mountainside. The only girl in a group of experienced male hikers, I apparently made it every time and didn’t complain. (I should add that this was steep hiking, rather than rope climbing.)
I distinctly remember wanting to complain, but if the words never reached my mouth, that is probably due to my having discovered the euphoric combination of exertion and altitude involved in mountain hiking, compounded by the spectacular Rocky Mountain views. I even saw planes flying beneath me.
Plus, other people carried way more stuff than me, lent me walking poles and waited for me to catch my breath. And hey, tired metaphor or not, that’s been the way throughout my career. The patience of editors, the support of childcare workers and the inspiring work of writers better than I, have sped my progress up the mountain of, erm, the magazine industry.
If I still have that dogged persistence others saw in me, it shouldn’t matter whether I’ve been chosen for any particular opportunity. For instance, whether I’m paid for it or not, I need to take the time out to strengthen my grasp of basic science, so now I’m hitting the books at home, rather than at a prestigious university. All this Spring should tell me is that I’ve tested a foothold on the cliff face and found it unable to support me – now I either need to find some more crags around me or choose an alternate route. Either way, the goal direction is clear.
Thanks for the photos: Richard A. Johnson
Love it!