Writing with Juliet Iwelunmor

Some moments, like air, are for everyone. The rising sun, black birds in flight, buzzing bees, bloom of hibiscus flowers and the rise of a woman who knows her worth. These days, I am living for moments that open up the possibilities hidden with ourselves. Things that make us human too. The other day, my 11 year old daughter and I went to my old office to clean it out. We talked about endings and why it was time to leave my prior institution. She wondered what would happen to programs she attended like the summer camp I ran or staff she had grown accustomed to. I told her the program would continue, though in a new form at my new institution and while all my staff were fired at the old place, they were immediately hired at the new place with a much better salary and outstanding benefits. Still, she wondered why I was leaving and what memories from the old place would I keep. I told her when you have been in a place that never valued or understood your worth, don’t stay, run as your life and sanity depends on it.

For the past six years, while I was busy working on some outstanding grants with some outstanding team, few saw the decayed space I was privileged to call an office. We never complained because we were reminded always about how lucky we were to work in a space that valued a higher glory. That my office was never cleaned or the roof leaked was an understatement. So since the pandemic, I worked from home. When we arrived, the dust was everywhere, seeping into everything. The writing was literally in the roof that leaving was the best gift I could have ever given to myself. Despite it all, this isn’t what I still choose to keep today. It’s what my daugther asked, what memories would you keep and why.

My answer, all the activities that allowed me to remain true to my calling. See, this space, no matter how rotten or decayed it had become over the years and still is, was where I discovered my gift for grant writing. I failed and succeeded and failed again with every grant I wrote in this space. They were like dreams to me, growing within me, speaking to me, teaching and reaching the highest possibilities within me. The struggles along the way were mostly unrecorded. Grant writing has depended heavily on the success stories often told. But in this space, I accumulated a collective understanding and practice of grants as an art form that can only be described as grace.

Certainly, the struggles people often note with grant writing is real. Two people in my old institution are ripping my grant writing lectures as I type this too without my consent. You will have that as a concern always, the potential of your ideas with grants being stolen by others. Still, I will keep the memories of what it means to embark on a journey through perfecting the art of grant writing in this space. I will also use my stories, rather tentatively overtime. But most of all, I will keep the collective action all my students engaged in, to chronicle their own grant writing journey in a space that can only be described as eloquent.

Grant writing is the memory I will keep. I knew I would not teach it this fall, when I taught it last year. Anyone who paid attention, knew that I mentally resigned from the old institution last year, even though it may come as a surprise to many now. When you are not valued, when you are tossed around like a rag, even though your know your worth, the only thing left is to run to a space that will value you. I have been in such a space for three days and the change has been stunning. Today, I was introduced to my very own administrative assistant, someone who asked how she could help and support me through this thing called academia. It’s the small things for me these days, moments full of old memories with grant writing, sad endings from decayed spaces, but sterling beginnings with graceful support. Most of all, the knowledge of what happens when a woman rises…