Posts Tagged ‘college’

party girl

I did my best to participate in the debauchery and depravity that is college life. In all honesty, I went to college to…you’ll never guess…get an education! Really. No one forced me to be there. There were no parental units guilt-tripping me into attending. The cocaine-toting, binge-drinking party-goers sort of swirled around my book-reading, homework-doing college self.

I am definitely not trying to paint some picture of a good girl. That, I was not. But, I was studious. And, I took college seriously because I was genuinely interested in learning. I had always loved school. As an escape from home but also as a place to learn about the big, wide world outside of my small-town life. I wanted to know everything. I wanted to experience everything.

I spent much of my high school career focused on extracurricular activities — college was the place for learning, I decided. College was the place to finally get a sense of the world around me. The history, the culture, the literature. I was a product of shitty, small-town schools, with the occasional incredible teacher but mostly a sea of small-minded, right-leaning, mostly white, mostly christian people. I was caught in the middle of the conservative reality of the town I called home and the liberal, commune ideology I’d grown up around.

College was, for me and for many others, a place where I could finally be myself. Or, rather, be the self I always wanted to be. I could shed the reputation I had earned/inherited, get labeled with all new adjectives, stick myself into the categories and groups I felt best defined me or supported me, and make all new friends. Friends who knew nothing about my background. People with whom I could start fresh.

It was exhilarating for me. Moving 3,000 miles away from where anyone knew my name was the most important gift I could have given my adolescent self. The gift of anonymity–where I could feel safe and free and normal.

work // past

“You’ll get over him,” she whispered as she downed a shot of creamy, unfiltered sake. I’m not sad because of some guy, you twit, I thought as the 19-year-old waitress crouched down behind the sake bar with me as I sobbed. Something had set me off. Some movement of a plate or a gentle hand gesture, maybe it was the way that elegant woman had unfolded her napkin–something had unleashed the well of sadness that had been lingering just below the surface. I had turned from the table, plates in hand, a stream of tears falling from my chin, and silently slid down the wall until I was out of sight. I had planned on a quiet cry, just letting the sadness valve open for a short time–until I could find some way of plugging it up and getting back to work.

She offered me a shot, “If they don’t drink it, we shouldn’t just let it go to waste.” We had a policy of eating any untouched sushi and drinking any unfinished sake. “It’s not like they’re drinking from the bottle,” we’d told ourselves. “They didn’t actually touch the sushi. I mean, it’s on an entirely different plate. It’s totally not gross to eat off a platter of unfinished food,” we’d convinced each other. I didn’t have the energy to explain to her that I was mourning. Mourning my mothers slow decline into nothingness, watching her body finally decay the way I had watched her mind rot over the past five years–not the demise of some crush. I didn’t have the patience to watch as she attempted to grasp the seriousness of my situation, the weight of the truth. I couldn’t bear to politely nod as she fumbled around for some platitude that would serve only to make her feel better. You live in a bubble, I thought as I stared into her dark eyes, following the shine of her tightly pulled back ponytail, down her slender shoulders, over her perfect tits.

I was only a few years older than her but it felt like we lived on different planets. She, with her pressed black pants and heels, next to my threadbare Dickies and black sneakers–how did she wear those heels all day? We must have covered two miles during our 8-hour shift–not to mention all the bending down to place the bowls just so and the ginger to the left and the wasabi on the right and all the trekking back to the kitchen, carrying boxes of avocados and bags of shredded cabbage. I got a weekly lecture on how my shirts weren’t clean enough, “But, I washed them, I swear,” I lied. I had two shirts to wear to work, which meant if I worked 5 days a week, I’d have to do laundry twice during my workweek. I didn’t even have a car–I hitchhiked to work every day–how was I supposed to hitch (arms filled with dirty clothes) to the laundromat twice a week? Meanwhile, she looked like she’d bought a new shirt for each shift. I was fresh out of college–filled with sermons on feminism and class struggles, on systemic racism and the wealth gap. I had traveled Europe and the U.S., I’d lived outside our small town for four years and would never have returned had my mother not been dying. She was fresh out of high school, no desire to go to college, no desire to do much beyond wait tables and look beautiful. What a wonderful life, I thought, staring at her manicured hands. I’ll never feel that. I will never know what it’s like to be unburdened, to be young, to be free from responsibility.

“Yeah, he’s a real shit,” I said–creating the version of my life she could comprehend. “But, I’ll get over it, him, whatever.” I faltered. “Totally,” she said through her bright white teeth. “Now, let’s get back to work before Madame sees us!” She grabbed my arm, handed me another shot of sake and stacked my plates. “You’ll so find someone better,” she offered as a parting sentiment. “Yeah,” I responded. “Totally replaceable.”

 

alone not loneliness

I went from a commune–a house with anywhere from 20-25 people, where I shared a room with four girls–to a college dorm with a roommate and dozens of women close by, to roommates in a teensy city apartment, to living with my partner.

When my husband is out of town I don’t sleep. I don’t mean I have trouble sleeping, I mean I lose hours and hours of sleep.

On the first night we slept in our current apartment it became clear that we could hear everything from our downstairs neighbors. A cough, a sneeze, the telephone ringing. My husband very nearly cried. He was sure we would have to move immediately. I loved it. Noise. People sounds–all the time. It felt comforting. It felt like home.

The thing I love about New York is that you can feel like you’re in a giant community, surrounded by people–but, still be all alone. If I scream, I will be heard. If I’m in trouble, there will be help. But, I’m also anonymous and invisible. Alone with my thoughts, separate and individual.

The thing I was always so terrified of in the country was that sense of being all alone. Helpless and vulnerable. No one for miles. Just darkness and woods.

In the city, you almost never get that feeling. There is something so comforting about the 4am bar closing. It means people are out and about until the wee hours of the morning. You can ride the subway at 3am and it’s really not as sketchy as you might think. It’s still super crowded at midnight and even 1am can sometimes feel like rush hour heading into the city.

In 2005, we moved to Astoria, a crummy little apartment off of 30th avenue. We thought we were moving to this quaint little “suburb” borough of NYC but as it turns out, Astoria has it’s very own vibrant nightlife. It’s no East Village, in terms of ambience, but I might go so far as to say it’s more raucous and possibly more populated on any given warm, summer evening.

The sidewalk cafe’s turn into bars, the restuaruants all open their windows and spill onto the street–there is a legitimate and bourgeoning “Euro-scene” there. People come from Jersey, Connecticut, Philly and (gasp!) Manhattan even, to hang out in these places that feel a whole lot like the cafes of Europe. There really isn’t a Manhattan equivalent. All the restaurants are Greek or Italian, and let me tell you about the quality of seating you get if you speak neither Greek nor Italian. It’s a real bummer and the hosts have no problem being totally upfront about it. “You speak Greek? No? Okay. You wait.” The food is well worth the hour and a half delay. Especially since they bring trays of wine around to the dozens of loiterers waiting for tables. It’s a brilliant plan. You’ve already started on the wine, you’re tipsy by the time you sit down. You order way more than you can eat and, obviously, you have to have another carafe of the house white!

You can spot the regulars from a  block away. They walk, arm in arm, not a care in the world, strolling down the street. They breeze right in, kiss the waiters, grab glasses of wine, smile and are whisked off to their table. Eating at the Greek restaurants in Astoria is a little like showing up to a family reunion that isn’t your family. “Oops. I think perhaps my kin are in the hotel next door. But, what the hell. You’re food looks way better. I think I’ll stay.”

When we first moved to Park Slope I was actually kind of freaked out by the neighborhood. I mean, all those babies and dogs?! Well, actually that did kind of freak me out. But, really it was the dark, vacant streets. Seriously, this neighborhood is shut down by 9pm, even on a Saturday. And, unlike a lot of other parts of the city, the residential streets are really separate from the commercial zones so those sidewalks are particularly empty. It took me quite a few months to stop looking behind me every half a block, nervous I was being followed. Now, I laugh out loud thinking about my initial fear of this bourgeois hood.

I guess what I am trying to say is that the thing that a lot of people complain about–cramped living quarters, folks stacked on top of one another, busy streets, crowded sidewalks–those are the things that most endear New York to me. Those are the things that I would miss most. That feeling of closeness and family and belonging amongst strangers. The incredible ability to be both alone but never alone.

i’ve never heard my father’s voice on the telephone

“That’s a poem. Right there. What a strange thing,” my poetry professor said, breathing heavily, leaned forward in his gray, ikea swivel chair. We sat in his windowless office, each of us sucking in the same stale air. Beads of sweat ran down his balding temples as he wrung his hands, wiping them on his slacks every few minutes. It was the beginning of September but it was still hot. Swelteringly hot. And humid. Cicadas still whistled outside, the grass was limp with heat and I swear there were some confused fireflies still flitting about in the early evenings. Fall had not yet fallen in New York.

Why haven’t I taken a writing class? I wondered as I flipped through the course offerings the summer before my senior year. “You should really think about seeing one of our writing tutors,” my Environmental Studies professor had said after reading my first paper. I ignored his recommendation but continued to double or triple-load my coursework for the next three years. I agonized over which classes to take. I read and reread course descriptions, desperately trying to figure out which classes would be best suited to my particular interests at the time (environmentalism, social justice, policies and politics, latin american studies).

The start of my senior year of college hadn’t been easy. Summer had ended with the realization that my on-again, off-again boyfriend was a covert heroin addict. By mid-year my mother was actively dying from early-onset Alzheimers and I had undergone unsuccessful back surgery which left me in more rather than less pain. So, an easy course load, I decided, was the only way to get through the year. Poetry, photography and one more sociology course for good measure. One entitled, Protest & Art: How art has birthed movements and movements have birthed art. Or something to that effect. In my four years I had established myself as the social sciences darling. My professor had even asked me to sit in on the interviews and help him pare down the admittance list. But, this would be the year to take an art class, finally. And, a writing one too.

I spent my first few weeks of classes lying on the ground, having received approval from the office of Students with Disabilities. I hobbled in, explaining that lying prostrate on the floor was the only way that I could cope with the pain. I hadn’t responded well to the pain meds and was hesitant to pop pills anyhow. I’ve never been much of a medication person. I blame it on my hippie upbringing. A sacred physical vessel and all that.

“How is that possible?” Jeff asked, puzzled. “You have a relationship with him, right? By that I mean, he is in your life. You speak to him. You visit him when you’re back in California, yes?” he paused. “So, how do you make plans? Do you email him?”

“No,” I explained. “He doesn’t do anything directly.”

“What do you mean?” he asked. His interest piqued. I could see him floating ideas for his own poem. My strange upbringing and experience perfect fodder for his dark, human-experience poetry. “So…what would happen if you were to call and ask for him?”

“Well, I suppose that if he were available…and wanted to talk to me…that he would speak through one of the women.”

“Speak through them?! Like, a medium? Speak through them metaphysically?”

“No, no. Speak through them, literally,” I said, regretting having mentioned it at all. “No one would go and get him. But, if he happened to be in the main house when I called and felt inclined — for whatever reason — to say hello, then it would go something like this:

‘Say hi to dad for me.’

‘She says hello.’ the woman would say aloud to my dad who would be sitting down for lunch.

‘School’s going well. I’m really enjoying my poetry class,’ I might say.

‘She says she’s liking her poetry class,’ she would relay. Then she would either hold the phone up near my father so I could hear his response — provided he had one — or he would reply and she would paraphrase his words back to me. This would go on until our (very short) conversation came to a lull. At which point I would lie and say that I had to go and they would know that I was lying but be more than happy to oblige. And, I would say goodbye and they would yell ‘goodbye’ and that would be that,” I explained.

“Hmm,” Jeff squinted as he caressed his stubbly chin. His brow furrowed, hunched forward, dripping with perspiration.

“Yep. That’s what I meant when I said I’d never heard his voice on the phone. I don’t know, it’s just one of those weird quirky things, I guess. Not a big deal. I’m not sure how that gets worked into a poem. But, then again, what do I know about writing,” I admitted, biting the inside of my cheek and tasting the sweet metallic flavor of blood.

“Fascinating,” he continued. “Just fascinating. Do you have other stories like that? Other, as you say, ‘quirky’ tales from your childhood?”

“Um…I don’t know. Probably. Honestly, it didn’t really occur to me that it was weird until I said it out loud and you told me how strange that was.”

“Right. Right. Well, keep digging. Think back to a specific time in your life. Remember a smell. Or, a sensation. One word someone said. Poetry can come from anywhere. Read tomorrow’s headlines. Start there if you can’t come up with something from your own life. There’s always an interesting story. A beautiful headline. I want five poems by next week. Let’s pick back up in our conference next Wednesday.”

“Okay. Thanks,” I said with a half-smile and backed out of his door, winding my way through the dim corridor and out into the orange September sun.