Except the window is closed. And I'm in leggings. And people aren't having parties.
A. is going to Paris.
T. is going to Seoul.
U. is going to Bordeaux.
And I am going to Jaipur and/or Pune.
But for now we're all still here, already putting off our homework and skipping a class or two, and planning for a party.
I skipped everything--everything--today and instead went downtown and applied for my passport. This was only mildly irresponsible. The post office is only open Monday-Friday and closes at 4PM. Things were going to be disrupted, no matter when I went.
It was a rainy day in Chicago. One of my favorite kinds, where the steady downpour lasts all day, so every time you enter a building you're relieved and earth-smelling and almost immediately cozy. This weather makes the skyscrapers disappear into a haze. It makes gray, polluted puddles appear everywhere. The El still offers free "heat"--while waiting on the platform for the train, in the little shelter (train stop?), you can push a button and everything will go bright yellow and heat will radiate from above you. Never enough to warm you, but enough to remind you that heat exists, and what it's like. People huddled. Today was huddling weather. I felt happy.
If I were a skilled photographer, today would have been an excellent day to photograph people.
I thought of a lot of things to write about, but now they're just collected and unused: the performer on the El. The thing about Chicago. The poor financial state I am in. My mother's infinite goodness.
I had an idea recently that I'd start recording things I remember. Just getting them down, to have them reserved somehow. Like the games Kristin and I used to play in her shed, which required crawling around on a precarious 1 and 1/2 ft width board about 20 ft above the concrete floor (usually involving ancient Egypt and lots of dogs). And the horses across the street from my Oma & Opa's old house in a little German town. And the desperate indifference I felt at volleyball games at 14, and the CD player and songs I clung to because nobody interested me (and I interested nobody). And the smell of the bus on the way home and how dark it got and how somehow this bred romantic ideas in me. And the popcorn wagon. And passing out in a bathroom some early morning hour in Maryland. And Joe, the white water rafting guide. And staying home sick and trying to write E.E. Cummings-style poems in my bed. And the puzzle I spent three days on in Leelanau last September. And washing my hair in the lake with Kristin that night in the U.P. and those blue tin cups we pumped well water into and sometimes made pink lemonade in with her powder. And the baby foxes. And the stone necklace I lost. And walking to the park in the summer to get into water fights with the guy I liked. And when no one passed me the football in 7th grade gym, which was good, because I didn't know how to play anyway. And Ravendale. And plastic bag kites. And Animal Island. And talking to his friend because I didn't know how to talk to him. And painting the church. And Amour, my first actual journal, and that cat diary which was my first attempt. And the one time I ever got into a physical fight. And the old playground equipment, which was wooden and not plastic, and the Cheese, and the time I convinced my neighbor to jump over the fence and she ripped her pants. And that song about "sweet potato pie". And the time I crawled into and fell out of the basketball hoop. And the time my shirt caught on fire from the sparkler. And when I got out of my kayak to pee and then fell in and it was deep. And the swimming hole. And that story about the Elvis-impersonating three-toed-sloth. And naming the class guinea pig Ginger and the decision walking home in 9th grade that "love" was an overwhelming word and concept. And getting called a "prep" in 6th grade and feeling instantly flattered. And that time on the phone at 3AM when I didn't say it back. And the basement karaoke. And getting drunk for the first time on red wine on the back porch while playing Shithead.
It's not that I'm nostalgic. It's more that I'm stunned when I remember the variety of things that have happened to me and how many different people I've been and how I'm still kinda the same. Going through it all in my head, after the process of active remembering, it takes a long time to place myself now. What I'm worried about and how I'm hurt or ecstatic and where I'm going tomorrow morning.
I am located at the University of Chicago. I am going to India. Why?
The disappearing Sears:
2 comments:
I think you and I may be similar in having an affinity for recalling the past. I tend to place a very high value on previous experiences, and often go over them in various fashions throughout the day. But, very often, I am only going over certain segments of my life. I recently come to the same point that you seem to have come to in this post, realizing the alarmingly massive accumulation of experience that is life.
However, even more amazing to me than this is just how much experience we have that we ultimately forget about, or at least lose significant details of. I really wish I could remember every moment. Perhaps this is part of what drives me towards writing.
Don't be too sure about that "and I interested nobody" part...
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