On Harvard and Maggie Rogers
Learning science writing through creativity exercises.
For one of my classes at Harvard (ahem), we gather on Fridays and write for 15 minutes. It’s advertised as a science communication class, but we learn technical writing principles through creative exercises. I’m recycling what I’ve written over the past two weeks and passing it off as Earbelly content.
The first was inspired by a prompt by Saeed Jones. Heard of him? Poet, memoirist, of Vibe Check podcast fame, also an artist in residence at my program at Harvard (ahem). He recommended that we write an interview of ourselves, where we play both the interviewer and the interviewee. It’s an opportunity for play and revelation and dialogue.
The second piece played with form and voice. It was an invitation to write with footnotes as a way to show us how information can be in dialogue with our writerly selves. I’d invite you to read this piece first without referencing the footnotes, then to read only the footnotes in order, then to read them together. See what different stories emerge.
So, please state your name for the microphone. Then tell me, who is Bianca, and provide any other information that would help orient our conversation.
So, hi, I’m Bianca Garcia. I am an audio producer and a Master’s student studying, essentially, medical storytelling. I grew up in Hong Kong but in the past two years have lived all over the map. Like, San Francisco, Portland, ME, and now Massachusetts.
Where are you getting your masters?
In Boston, yeah.
Oh, are you liking the area?
Yeah, it’s super cool. I live in Cambridge but take a bus every day to my campus in Boston. I haven’t really gotten to get to know the area so much yet, because I’ve been busy with school.
So, what institution are you getting your Master’s at?
Harvard.
Was that so hard to say?
Haha, yeah. I hate the look that people give me. It’s like you can see their pupils dilate and their jaw slacken. It’s like I have to make myself smaller a little bit, in order to compensate for how big they see me. The other day, I was interviewing somebody for a documentary I am making, and he was the health inspector for all of the state of South Carolina’s dairies. Like, he was a wisened man. He had on Ariat boots and wide legged jeans and his liver spots on his cheeks showed that he had been in the business a long time. And he had. He has been in his job for 25 years, and was about to retire, and before that, he worked on a farm milking cows and then sold feed. And my main informant was making the introduction, and by way of setting me up, she was like, “This is Bianca, she’s from Harvard Medical School,” and this man literally gawked at me.
He was like, “are you really from there? And you came all the way down here?”
So yeah, in this practice where I try to bring myself closer to the people whom I interview… I am working so hard to get even the narrowest glimpse into their lives. Harvard is something that distances us. It’s this big thing that they feel that they won’t live up to. This man, the health inspector, sat so stiffly in the chair at first. It took half of our interview for him to trust that I was actually interested in a casual conversation, and that he didn’t have to perform for me. It takes a lot for people to trust that they’re the expert when I have this degree.
I mean, Harvard is impressive. Where did you go to undergrad?
In upstate New York. Like, the fingerlakes region.
I’ve wanted to watch Maggie Rogers in concert for years now. She’s on her Don’t Forget Me Tour. The titular song, Don’t Forget Me, is what I sing in the shower, what I sing in the car, what I sing when I’m hating my long run and I need to take a song and dance break to remind myself that I’m full of joy.
Maggie is coming to Boston on the 17th of this month, and will be in New York on the 19th. Funny, because I’ll be in Boston on the 17th, then I’ll be in New York on the 19th, too. I’m running a half marathon in Brooklyn that day with my boyfriend, who lives there (1).
I don’t think I can go see Maggie, though.
The 17th is a Thursday, and I have class the next day (2). So it’s not that feasible. I’d be really tired.
The 19th is the night of our race. We would have just run 13 miles (3). Once again, we’d both be really tired (4)(5). My days with him are always long and full
So I don’t think I’ll be able to go see Maggie Rogers this time around (6).
(1) Every exciting thing that we’ve done in the past two years, we’ve done together. We haven’t lived in the same place as one another for a while, so we take the greyhound. We’re actually celebrating our anniversary on the day of our race, too. That’s more exciting than the finish line that we’re about to cross. It’s a reminder that we’re at the beginning of the long run.
(2) I wish he would take the day off work and come down to see me, and we could go to the concert. We could dress up and go to TD together, and play the whole album front to back on the train. It’s like when we drove 4 hours to see Hozier. We sang in the car, and played I-spy, and sat in silence, and drank red bull, and fell more in love.
(3) His race time is a little faster than mine. He said that if I can get down to a 9-minute race pace, then we could start and finish together. This morning on my run, I was still plugging along at a 10-minute time. I don’t think I’ll make it.
(4) We need to save some steam for the housewarming party on Saturday night. He just moved into a great place with a huge balcony. He wanted me to be there for the party, because I’m not there otherwise.
(5) In this way of being together, across borders and sometimes timezones, we are always fighting exhaustion with passion. I look forward to the day where we get to rest together.
(6) She’s only my favourite artist anyways. He’d be doing it for me. And that weekend is not about me. It’s supposed to be about us.