I imagined coming out of this weekend full of stories. It didn't really turn out that way. This wouldn't be remarkable, except that these last two days felt so pregnant as they approached. This blog is partially to blame for my anticipation, because the next post I write with be the Hundredth, and that is an Impressive Number. I imagined myself crafting a story out of an experience, taking real life and immortalizing it in words for the Hundredth time.
The sun was out with a vengeance. A sweltering 60+ Fahrenheit drove the Reedies screaming onto the front lawn where they collapsed in ecstatic spasms with their cigarettes and six packs. Some fled into the highest branches of trees, fear of the shade driving them to where it couldn't reach.
I sat on a picnic bench, a piece of hash chocolate sneaking its way into my bloodstream. Smiles that were tucked in the recesses of my soul burst out all at once and fought for supremacy drawing my helpless lips into their game. I tumbled and spun; fans swung past my forearms, and my back bent behind my knees.
I drove with a friend to Safeway, where he got some beer and I went tipsily to softball practice Unable to differentiate between bases or keep count of hits and runs, I'm sure that I embarrassed myself terribly. My favorite professor is our coach. I had a great time, and if I giggled too much I had the excuse of being punch drunk off the sun. One junior batted with a lit cigarette in his mouth, and a PBR on the ground. A senior managed to drink and run at the same time, foam flickering along the path to a home run.
Disaster is a social construct.
Overwhelmed and tired, I took a nap. When I woke up, the chocolate had mostly worn off. OCNotes and Shabazz Palaces were playing in the SU as part of Reed Arts Week, so I went with a friend who was on 2CB.
The only important part of that experience was when S came out of the crowd and gave me a hug, and kissed me, and then left.
Classic. The next day I mentioned to someone that he spends a lot of time walking away from me. This is clearly a phenomena of perspective, but it's true. None of this to say that the kiss wasn't the highlight of the evening. Most of this to say that I should probably reassess my relationship with that kid.
I slept again. I was tired.
The next day, I woke up to an invitation for brunch with Liana. We went to Cup and Saucer on Hawthorne, where my eggs were overcooked. The conversation was perfectly toasted, however, and I am feeling closer and closer with Liana these days.
We took some time to wander and smell things. She aspires to smell of linden, cloves, and rose. At first I was skeptical, but as the day wore on the scent proved itself time and time again. I am a convert; it suits her.
When we came back to Reed I put on some comfortable clothes and went off to eat some mushrooms.
Lessons learned: Do not trip with someone you don't know. Do not be seduced by sadness while tripping because however pure it may feel, happiness is bigger. Tripping is personal and when you are tripping you do not owe anyone anything.
It started strangely. I felt two dark places in my chest and gut. They solidified into pods, or seeds. Dark and hard, they sat there inside of me. I couldn't tell if my sadness was grown inside me or placed there. Was it foreign or fundamental? All of the distinct things that brought sadness to my life fell over me like a second skin and burst out of me like tears. Well, some of it was tears. We moved to Chittick so that I could blow my nose. Then Edith came and I felt rescued.
We were going to do ceramics but I saw heaven on the front lawn and ran to it. The person I was tripping with was unconvinced but by this time I had realized that I couldn't make this what he wanted. I ran and tumbled. I held Liana and cried and bit her shoulder and laid on the ground and hit my arms against it. I felt the earth catch them and absorb the impact without flinching. I threw them down again, with equal abandon. After flopping around in the sun, giving my friends raspberries and expressing how much I loved them, I was coming down. The other person had taken a bit more than me, so he was still very much tripping.
We went back to his house to get a coat. I teased my friend who he lives with. I felt expansive and I wanted to take up as much room as possible. We left his house, back to the outdoors and the sun.
As I was in a better place, I helped him through some of his troubles. His heart was still a little broken, and he wanted it unbroken. I gave him some advice, the kind of objective things you can say when you've never felt that way. I also gave him some advice on how to connect better. He tended to assume that he understood people, which is dangerous. I told him if he thinks he understands me, then it makes the job of explaining me twice as hard. On top of telling him what I feel, I also have to change his mind about what I feel. He understood.
The rest of the night my body trundled from here to there. I slept again.
Who knows.
No comments:
Post a Comment