Day 13: A Last Hurrah

Photo Credit: Rachel Burke ©2018

I’m late to the blogface today as I am utterly spent! Yesterday brought The Thesis Is Present(ed) to its thrilling Finishing Line. And what a day we had, full of mystery, coincidence, ceremony and high and low Art with a capital A.

We began, just Rachel and me, pottering, playing, reading, but soon a first guest arrived. She was adventurous, meeting us both for the very first time, yet willing to step up to the lectern to deliver Litanies for the Forgetful as a soloist, and this then segued into an impromptu rendition of Missa Pro Venerabilibus, with me, RB, and our visitor presiding as Eldest, Elder and Youngest respectively, and featuring as many bells and whistles as we could muster. Music, lighting, the works. Two further congregants had arrived just in time to wit(h)ness this and they were pressed into service as lectors at key moments – such sublime readings the first delivered from an anthology of Australian Feminist Poetry, and later from my current read: Fabulous: The Rise of the Beautiful Eccentric, by Dr Madison Moore. Could the readings have been any more perfect? Could the readers themselves have been any more suited to the task? I think not.

There was dancing. There was singing. There was Yay Verily Yay. There was tea and cake. It was all utterly – I’ve just looked at that word properly for the first time and must say it again – it was all utterly uplifting.

As this trio moved on, RB and I settled in for some more quiet time and somehow, with Rachel reading the afterwords and in/conclusions from the couch, we found ourselves at the final page of the thesis proper. At this point we put in a speedy Skype call to Dublin, where my artistic twin and doppelgänger, Gina Moxley was standing by. From there, and with technical assistance from Rachel, Gina was able to read as coda the poem, Prayer, by the Australian writer, the late great Judith Wright. This she did, as a sight-reading, with virtuosity and due solemnity. I wept.

As this came to an end the non/fictionLab coordinator entered with glassware and snacks and we had about half an hour to prepare for the guests who were coming to celebrate The End. In they trouped right on time, and after brief speeches and rowdy toasts, four of them sat down, donned white gloves and took up the four actual copies of the thesis that were now present in the room. They (and others) proceeded to give us an hour long philharmonic, polyphonic tag-team styled improvised rendition of the full Reference List and all eight (possibly more) Appendices, followed by the Colophon and Closing Thanks. The vocal dynamics were brilliant; their capacity to listen in to each other and to interweave their voices as they gave us the full weight and texture of all words, all authors, all dates and places of publication and all titles was a re-sounding success, and more than this, a revelation. I am still trying to come to grips with what I experienced.

It was marvellous, indeed, in the full meaning of the word. (See your Dictionary app. I don’t have the energy to do it for you….)

And so the work is delivered. 437 pages in all. Every word uttered. My heartfelt thanks to all who lent time and light and voice and ear to this feat of endurance. I hope to write up at least one further reflection over the coming weekend, but for now, Lo, It Is Finished!