Words written at the end of my last day in England, back in mid-August, a lifetime ago. Half of my Berkeley time has passed. I've been here forever, and I've been here five seconds.
How to describe the feeling of today? The pastel skies from sun up to sun down, the dirty-nailed blonde boy smoking a rollup next to the No Smoking sign outside the doctor's surgery, the coffee under dappled sunlight and the feeling of swaying along the city streets, the oppressing heat of the central line, how the saxophone in Jungleland rips open the song just as the tube rips out of the tunnel into the sunshine, the pub garden held so still by the sunlight and the foliage behind the beer drinkers, and that wonderful moment when you're midway through a pint and plunged blissfully in enjoyment, the talking and the laughing, the heat burning through the bus windows, cheers with plastic glasses of prosecco, and burritos on the grass and catching up, and the sun falling behind the trees, and how the sky was so clear and pink all the way home as the LED streetlights winked on, and that city feeling returning so strong.
Thanksgiving rings change in the air. At work we tattoo turkeys on the coffee lids and everybody heads home for the long weekend. The campus clears and cools, the leaves turn and fall; everything's winding down. Thanksgiving morning begins with sunshine. Vesa visits, and we sit in the warmth of the sixth floor balcony with bagels and coffee until the narrow strip of sunlight is eaten up by autumn shadow. The rest of the weekend is spent pretending to study, buying secondhand winter clothes, eating bad Chinese food, and walking along in the Mission in the rain, as Robert Hunter/Jerry Garcia once put it. I'm yet to try pumpkin pie.
My final history lecture ends on the rise of hip hip in the Bronx in the seventies, and Rapper's Delight. Coincidentally I listened to this song a lot at the start of the semester, after watching Richard Linklater's Everybody Wants Some!! three times in a row. It's a neat and strangely emotional end to a great semester.
'And guess what, America, we love you / Cause you rocked and a rolled with so much soul'Sandwiched between the end of fall classes and finals week, 'Dead Week' is scheduled cramming time. The last three weeks of semester feel different to everything that came before. It all hits at once: papers, finals, Christmas, moving apartment, planning winter travels. It's as if I dropped my to-do list on the floor, it smashed into a thousand pieces, and I can't quite piece it all back together. That hackneyed John Green quote about falling in love 'slowly, then all at once' is annoying, but it describes this semester perfectly. Long sun-filled days, then after October, things get colder and faster. One professor tells us to treat ourselves right this week. 'When I'm so stressed I can't work,' he says, 'it doesn't mean I'm so stressed I can't go to a bar.'
It's a strange few days, like a 2D Mario World where all I can do is focus on the next obstacle looming on the right side of the screen. This world consists of my room, campus, and the stretch of sidewalk in between. Past the bank security guard, and the spectacled homeless man, who thrusts a Fat Slice Pizza paper cup under my nose for loose change. The library pulls me forward on a thread. Three papers, two exams, crisps and snacks for dinner most nights, and too much time under the harsh glare of the late-night lamps.
It rains a lot that week. The rain, the rain. Homeless men play chess in the downpour, under huge beat-up umbrellas. Occasionally, a passing train whistles repeatedly exactly as the campanile strikes the hour. I notice these sounds more when it is wet.
One mild December night I catch the bus into the city, to hear Maria Popova talk to the queen of my nerdy heart, Rebecca Solnit. They speak about Virginia Woolf, the election, hope in the dark, the tyranny of simplification, slowing down as an act of resistance, and how stories are instructions to us all.
'The future is dark,' wrote Virginia Woolf in her diary in 1915, 'which is the best thing the future can be, I think.' Solnit explains why she has circled around this quote in her own writing: because optimism and pessimism always generate certainty, whereas uncertainty is the only place where hope can survive. Hope in the dark. 'Throw comfort out as a criteria,' Solnit advises us. 'When you're not comfortable, you're not learning or changing.'
Now I am thinking about the final few days of fall semester, of gradually stripping my room back to its empty-prison-cell greys and creams. Of the final rush, skidding between packing, studying, and saying goodbye to friends. My roommate helps me clean, and plays Elvis as I fold clothes and rattle drawers. The Christmas lights along the wall are the final thing I take down. The books, clothes, Springsteen posters, and postcards from home all somehow transform into a small pile of bags. Zips bulge. My possessions have inevitably doubled themselves in the four months I've been here.
I'd expected to linger thoughtfully over these last weeks of semester, to sit in one of my favourite campus spots, listen to some songs and find some meaningful thing to say about it all. That doesn't happen. I'm too busy. It's unnerving after years of forcing my life to move very slowly, but at the same time, it's a good thing not to think too much.
Leaving Berkeley is hectic, but I step out of my apartment early on Saturday morning to head-clearingly cold blue air. I walk down to the subway station feeling like Llewyn Davis, laden with winter scarves and awkward bags. No ginger cat, though. On the sidewalks people load belongings into cars, or sit on suitcases waiting for a ride home. It's the first day of winter break, the first day of sun after days of dark rain, and everybody looks dazed. My bags take up two seats on the subway. I've been dreading getting them onto the plane, but I'm offered free checked baggage at Oakland airport and the whole process - checking in, security - is smooth. Americans are just better at flying, I guess.
I'm off to Baltimore and beyond.
Songs: month four
Lucky Town / Bruce Springsteen
Silly Me / Yeasayer
Rapper's Delight / The Sugar Hill Gang
A Whiter Shade Of Pale / Procul Harum
England / The National
Happy Birthday Guadalupe! / The Killers
It's Now Or Never / Elvis
* * *
California so far:
No comments:
Post a Comment