Through her letters, Julia reveals the inner life of an artist, researcher, and teacher in her movement through thought in her passage of becoming. Through writing, Julia carries herself through the joy and danger Neilsen (1998) speaks about, reinventing herself toward new identities.
I admit, I am obsessed with Julia, who she was, is, and who I want her to become, as if she will suddenly materialize when I come to really understand what her letters are trying to convey. The love theme is strongly connected to the idea of Amelia Jones' process of reversibility whereby:
Julia writes of her love for Red while concurrently being loved by others. She lives in a space of feeling “going out” and simultaneously acknowledging the “coming in” of others' feelings. When she is disappointed in Red, she takes on the disappointment she simultaneously causes for those who love her, intensifying and exaggerating her disappointment in Red and thus creating a distorted view of Red. Key characters entangled in her letters include her husband-Luke; daughters-Jade and Savannah; dissertation committee advisors-Winifred Crates, Will McCarthy, and Jared Zeno; Red's partner-Clare; and a beginning teacher-Chris.
I am obsessed with this “recursive process translating thought to language, building the knowing on the known” (Neilsen, 1998, p. 40). This search “to engage in the deliberate structure of the web of meaning” (Vygotsky, 1962, p. 100) has consumed me. I have learned much already from the way Julia renders her work. I see