On Waiting for Permission
After the final rejection letter, I hit the road.
I applied for two fellowships, a grant, and a writing residency this year.
Applying for funding was a lesson in itself. I learned a lot from the process and now have some of my project ideas written on paper. Some grant-funding agencies, like the National Endowment for Humanities, provide the review committee’s evaluations upon request. Here was one of the comments:
“I am sure that this proposed book about African American winemaking, one that centers Black winemakers, will find readers. The project is original. However, I am not certain how it adds to ongoing scholarly conversations in the humanities. Unlike the best proposals, this does not seem like an intellectually urgent project.”
The last sentence was a critique I kept hearing. Telling the origin stories of Black American winemakers wasn’t “urgent.” Luckily, it was the same proposal I pitched for the fellowship at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello and got the single “yes” that I needed to leap. I shipped my car to Virginia and told myself that if I didn’t receive more funding, I would drive back home to California afterward.
But when the third and final rejection letter came in late June, I wasn’t ready for the adventure to be over. No, I was tired of waiting for permission.
Something magical happened after that. When I announced I was staying, friends and family started opening their doors and spare rooms. From Charlottesville, I drove north. I visited the former house where Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia. I walked the hallowed lawns of Harvard and The Freedom Trail in Boston. Making up for lost time, I was suddenly present for weddings, birthday parties, and summer BBQs.
A friend recently told me that wandering was a part of figuring out what’s next. As I started leaning into my nomadic summer, the rejection letters felt more like blessings. And I’ll keep doing the work until the funding comes.
I have to get back to reality soon—which means searching for a job and housing—but since I was already in the Northeast, I figured I should continue the trek to Ithaca, New York, and rummage through Cornell University’s Eastern Wine and Grape Archive. I came across some exciting findings that I can’t wait to share.
Before returning to Charlottesville, I’ll be stopping in Brooklyn for the 5th volume of Anything but Vinifera, a BIPOC-led wine summit taking place on Tuesday, July 16th.
Maybe I’ll see you there?
What I’m listening to on the road:
Toward Living Memory, an interview with historian Tiya Miles, whose ground-breaking work intersects the histories of Black and Native Americans. Her newest book is on the life of Harriet Tubman.
More than a decade ago, historian Jessica B. Harris recorded a podcast series, My Welcome Table, recounting her culinary travels across the globe. I binge-listened to almost a dozen of them, but my favorite was the one on Paris.