A Week Back

Day 45: I sat in my car for a few minutes, enjoying the luxury of a few extra minutes of heat before killing the engine. Tucking my keys into my jacket pocked, I grabbed my bag and started to climb out of my car.

And I mean climb.

My back was an unyielding slab of painful twitching muscle. After one failed attempt, I set my bag on the ground, swung both legs out of the car, and tried again to stand, this time using the car door for leverage. As I stood, I made that groaning sound that old men with bad backs make. Unconsciously, my left hand stole beneath my shirt and rubbed at a spot at the base of my spine. A young man with carefully tossed brown hair, walked by. He made eye contact for just a second before casting his eyes to the ground.

I had made that groaning sound again. I'm sure that's what spooked him.

The sun hangs in a different place in the sky now that it's Spring, and I'd driven with it's light in my eyes all the way to campus. In the relatively dim light of the parking garage, I stretched out my arms, crucified on an invisible cross, groaning one last time before reaching down to grab my bag and heading for the door.

The woman behind the desk at the library smiled as she always does, and I smiled back, wondering as I always do if she could hear the music playing from my headphones - Rent-A-Cop by Ben Folds. As if on cue, a security guard rounded the corner and joined her behind the desk. He said something that made her smile again but I missed what it was. I was too busy enjoying the coincidence.

This is the 45th time I've done this. It's a strange sort of feeling to look back and see how far I've progressed already, and simultaneously feel as if this all just started. There are about 5 weeks left before Finals, but, so far as I'm concerned, this may as well be the end of my first week. . I'm nervous. I'm ok. I'm sweating a little. And I'm getting used to it.

Parallel to that, the kids (students [classmates]) are getting used to me. And I'm getting used to them. When they're not buried in their cellphones or hiding behind their headphones, we talk. And, sometimes, they have interesting things to say. I wouldn't say that I've made any friends (which is a topic for another post), but I'm certainly feeling much more comfortable talking with them.

I've gotten used to the repetitive studying and testing. Quizzes and exams don't scare me Not understanding something does. I can (and, in the past, have) easily pass exams by holding on to things just long enough to get it down on paper for the sake of a necessary demonstration of knowledge, but, this time, that's not very important to me. Sure, I'd love A's and B's but, this go around, I really want to learn something useful about the things that I care about. It's corny and idealistic but it's entirely true.

Given that, my midterms went off without a hitch and all indications are that I'm doing "well" - by which I mean all indications are decidedly vague, and that "well" is a frustratingly relative term. I'm still getting used to that.

And I still struggle with confidence. Things still move a little faster than I feel I can keep up with and everything is still just a bit confusing - I feel more like I'm being pulled than dragged, but *shrug* I'm still here. And, so far, there have been no major disasters.

The heavy lifting is yet to come what with the final weeks of the semester left to play out. I feel ready though.

Strong.

Just need... a minute... to stretch first...

Into the Wilderness

Day 40: And, just like that, I was let loose upon the world. Or "the torment was over". Or "[insert some ironic disquietedness at the prospect of no classes for the next nine days]".

I'm out. It's over. And, so far, I'm doing well.

I suppose some sort of midterm review/self-assessment/personal reflection sort of thing would fit nicely here if I cared enough to write one. Fact is, I'm tired.

Dog tired.

Pun TOTALLY intended.

Friday and I normally get along. But today, it's not even 11 AM and already:


* My vacation travel buddy canceled at the last possible minute, leaving me with the full tab for the room.
* Zippers on my bookbag broke while getting my things together this morning.
* My sneakers split open.
* My glasses broke WHILE DRIVING on the way to school.
* I burned the hell out of my hand with exceptionally hot tea and nearly scalded a stranger when I dropped the aforementioned tea to the ground where it exploded on impact.
* I carelessly misjudged a fart as a silent but deadly and foghorned in the middle of class.

Whatever. Spring Break, bitches.

I'm out.

*middle finger*

Burn Out

[Actual email exchange b/w Drew and Prof]

Dear [Professor],
I'm in class just now, and I'm the only one. I've been here for about 15 minutes. I've triple checked the syllabus and don't see anything about meeting someplace else. I haven't missed a class but don't remember you saying anything about class being canceled or being moved to another room.
I'm in [Building X, Room Y]. Is that right? Am I missing something?
I'm going to wait another 5 minutes or so and then leave if  no one else shows. I'm sorry for the misunderstanding. Please get back to me as soon as you can.
Regards,
Drew

Hi Drew,
Our class does not meet today.
[Professor].

Day 39?: This must be what it feel like to be disco; historically relevant and necessary, yet relegated to the unforgiving nether realm where culture saves all it loves to hate. We know it's there but we don't care to attend to it. We watch it wane and rot like that's it's point, like that's what it was made for, a parchment left yellowing in the sun embellished with instructions written in a language we've long forgotten how to read. It's old and faded and, therefore, forgivable. It's battered by design. It's a bicycle pump for a bike that was stolen from us. It's a pattern that's fallen out of use. It's a conversation piece who's story we've forgotten. We trade on the presumed intention of the thing. 

We'd tell us more but we'd only confuse us.

It is complex. It is interesting. It is expanding at all angles before our eyes, collapsing with a sigh and dissolving into a statue for everyone to smash. It is ugly and useless on purpose, ironically gauche and intentionally obtuse. It trades on its lack of function. That's what makes it so important. 

You wouldn't understand. 

We blink and sip our lattes, yawing that we've seen this all before, done better, probably in the 80's, probably by some French guy, bisexual, died ironically, requested that his body be made into low quality vegetable matter pressed into rectangles and sold as energy bars to middle class housewives. He was the hidden sub-divided backbeat your parents had sex to. He was elusive. He was bias-neutral. 

He was 100 % cage free.

We should be thanking him. We should be thanking me.

I am the object that once housed the objects you so desire, the creator's dusty storage bin, satan's cubby hole. There's nothing in me just now, but you imagine what might have been and wonder at its absence. 

It's my emptiness that makes me interesting. I am not trapped by content or definitions. I am capricious and whimsical and paralyzingly boring, a labyrinthine poem written in a secret language comprised entirely of middle fingers and mouth-farts. I am highly complex. I am expressed potential. I am a revelation.

You're curious because I matter.You wouldn't understand.

You return to your playthings, your soiled teenaged bodice, your filthy man-pants. The hem has come unstitched. Buttons are missing. It smells like Grandma's inappropriately white wedding gown but we still wrap ourselves in it when we drunk and feeling nostalgic. We summon the relics to prove we know they exist, which is the only reason we have not to use them. The dress was only white because it wasn't supposed to be. 

Concentrate. You're not getting it. 

I am pointing at footprints I have yet to make. It is high art. It is passé. It is instantaneous. It's hiding in plain sight. You've missed it. 

You would. 

Pay attention. It's right behind you. 

Everything is catching on fire, including the tinderbox. That is the point. That is its purpose. That is my purpose. 

Now, if you'll please excuse me...

Proof

Day: 29-31: This is just like before, only it's not. Everything is identical, and everything is different. Everything feels the same, but there's something else, something... different.
This feels like the beginning of something you can only describe in French.

I'm walking on the same streets, the same paths. The wind tastes the same, runs through my beard the same way it used to. The way the light is laid out over the grasses and wet brick and concrete sides of the buildings is familiar. The building standing like sentries, reminding me of something.

I've been here before.

Even the people seem like replacements, mock-ups, stand-ins. Not a day has gone by wherein I haven't almost waved or said hello to someone who was at both immediately familiar, and entirely new to me.

There's a phrase in Latin that can describe what I'm experiencing. I'm sure of it.

The classes are all the same. I've been in this lecture hall, that crowded room, this musky library. The seats are new and there a new blackboard but I'm not fooled. I see through the new coat of paint. I am experiencing the past in real time.

Despite the modest adjustments in landscape, this is still old territory. In spite of the repairs, the new paint, the updated awnings, this is nothing new.

There was a wing place there before, though it had a different name. That building used to have a side entrance. That group's office used to be on the 2nd floor. We called it something different. We used it in a different way. That wasn't there but it's just like the thing we used to do to make due. It was our before it existed. They've inherited our dreams and watched them come to life, but they're still our dreams. This is still our place.

This is just as it was before. And yet...

I bang around campus, surrounded and lonely. I say, "The weather is getting to me," and pull my coat tightly around myself, even with my zipper up to my neck. "I need sleep," I say, and chug a Red Bull. "I should have eaten breakfast," I say, ignoring my bacon breath and the bits of egg in my beard.

In class, I remind myself to pay attention, even though I'm surrounded by the stink of ink from my pen. I shake out my hand, rubbing and massaging my palm, reminding myself to keep up, to take notes, to stay awake. I arrive to my next class early and it feels like the first time. I take a seat in front and remind myself to do this every time, even though I always do. I feel the guilt of not having my homework, of not being prepared, of having missed so much class it's a wonder I remember where the room is.

And then pull my homework out of my bag. I contribute to discussion. I ace the exam and get a head start on my paper.

Just like before, only not at all like before.

I'm afraid of failing. I'm still haunted by a past that hangs over my vision like a veil, telling me the way things were and the way this ought to be, telling me that I'm lazy, that I'm a failure, that something is going to happen to ruin everything and that that's ok because I'm not working as hard as I should anyway. That is my mantra. That is my "proof". That is the only proof I have.

Yet, here I am regardless, feeling like a stranger possessed with another man's drive, another man's constitution. Whatever this is, this is the thing that is different.

And this has gotten me to the halfway mark. Just like before. Just like never before. 

* * * * *

"No way in, go in, measure"

- S. Beckett 

Ours

Day: 27/28: In my Poli Sci lecture, we watched a part of a PBS documentary series about the African-American Civil Rights Movement called "Eyes on the Prize". I'd seen it before in other classes and at home so I had an idea of what was coming. When the professor asked if anyone had seen it, I was about the only one who raised a hand.

He didn't see me. 

The video started and I had an immediate reaction: gut-sick, angry, sad, frustrated, proud - all of them at once. I sat up in my chair, eyes glued to the screen, mumbling under my breath at times, wincing at others. I'm not sure that I could ever watch that or any similar documentary without getting emotional. I wanted so badly to yell but bit my tongue instead. 

And then I heard laughter. It was the tittering politely dismissive sort of laughter you'd hear when someone told a joke that didn't quite hit the mark. On screen, we watched as the Little Rock Nine were accosted and nearly hanged by an angry mob. The laughter started when one of the women in the mob began pushing at a crowd control barrier. 

When I saw that very same footage, my heart about stopped. When the woman began pushing at the barrier, I almost stood up. The Little Rock Nine were teenagers - children, really. And, still, I heard laughter from multiple sources when the narrator explained that the crowd was begging to be given "just one" child to hang. 

I told myself that they lacked the emotional or cultural context to take what they were seeing seriously. They took it as a given that things would work out. They saw it as inevitable that, even though things were bad, the good guys would win because the good guys DID win. So they laughed, in the same way that anyone laughs when they see Wile E. Coyote trying and failing to kill and eat the roadrunner or when they see Elmer Fudd trying with all his might to outsmart and murder Bugs Bunny. It's an ignorant, expectant, and outright insulting point of view that necessarily ignores the visceral human costs. As far as they knew, they were watching characters on film,  avatars facilitating an inevitable evolution. The Little Rock Nine were no more "real people" to the laughing students than a cave man using a bone as a tool for the first time. 

I sat there, feeling grateful, and humbled, and shocked, and heartbroken, and FURIOUS, and many other things. And I was, by no means, alone in how I was feeling or reacting. But that laughter - that tawdry ignorant laughter - threw me off. And it made me wonder if I wasn't overreacting, if maybe I was taking this a little too seriously.

Later, in discussion, our TA advised that we'd have to watch two more parts of the documentary. A girl leaned over to me and whispered, "I don't know why we have to watch that crap."

"Because it's our history," I said. She looked at me, as if seeing that I was black for the very first time, and blushed. 

I leaned in a little closer to her and pointed; first at her, then myself, then a few other students. "Our history," I said.

"Right, right," she said, and took out her cellphone. 

I let it go.