Once More to the Breach

There is something both unsettling and gratifying about charging into a project that you've left idle for a month. Never mind the explanations for your idleness — a research paper due, the holidays to prepare for — the work itself has been left behind, and it lets you in on its annoyance. 

Surely nothing else can account for the way a once-admirable essay shrinks in power and perceptiveness. Nothing else explains the inelegant phrasing, the lack of insight.

And yet ... with the power of time and distance, suddenly there is potential again, too. A new overview, perhaps even a revised table of contents. It's a good way to enter the new year, with rolled-up sleeves.