senior year

Felt the urge to write many times over the last month. After specific events, during walks to and from class, on shuttle rides to Children's (more so than on the way back to the Square. It's too dark on the way back, and a bit gloomier than when heading there). I've stopped writing after every event/outing, a long time ago. People's journals always evolve; even when what drives them to write stays the same, the actual content changes. I think my journal's evolved in a way that forces me to find a balance between finding release and becoming more drained. I haven't written mostly because nothing seems very significant. I always knew that livejournals aren’t the space for significance, and neither are the confines of my daily life. But I thought if something occupied my mind--that fickle place subject to image at hand and whim at fingertip--long enough, it was worth writing down. I defined "long enough" pretty loosely. Even so, not much in the recent past has made it to that unconscious requirement for being write-worthy.

I don't know why. Things have been really, really good. Maybe it's because nothing is related. I have these fleeting thoughts and they stop before I get anywhere. Maybe it’s because I’m tired. Maybe it’s because I can’t decide how I feel and for some reason this time writing isn’t helping me figure it out; it’s only making the confusion more obvious. Anyhow--there have been many small interactions, small thoughts, small moments. Many highlights, almost becoming routine in their frequency but not in their content. Senior dinner, the Navin Narrayan lecture. Halloween, of course. Drag Night was as entertaining as always. I forget sometimes what a strange, lovable community we are until I see the performers going crazy onstage with passerbys on the street glued to the windows, wondering what in the world is going on. I enjoy how many people in one room are laughing at once, and I like recognizing people, even people I've never spoken to. Then the long-awaited Heaven & Hell party, and Steph's arrival. The party was almost perfect (is that possible?) and I love my roommates’ dedication to quality. My angel blockmates were gorgeous, and it was so incredibly nice to have Steph with us again, chatting and dancing and drinking and laughing. It made me miss her more, and made me think of Chris. I remember saying goodbye to him, and saying to him that we'd probably never see each other again. He said that that's what we thought five years ago. I said that it's different now, and it is. He also said that he's known me since I was sixteen and that I'm exactly the same now as I was then. That made me a little pessimistic about my development as a person. Though I also think that there's no accurate way to evaluate another person's change as you're changing too.

We went to Jackie's Collegium concert awhile ago (fittingly--Contemplations). It's been awhile since I've been in Sanders Theater. The dome shape is conducive to becoming happily encased in sound, and it made me realize that I really just needed a break from thought. Sometimes I wish I didn't feel the need to write so strongly. Writing can be lonely. After going to Elaine Scarry's reading on Wuthering Heights I thought about the Brontes; I don't know much about them but I always imagined that only loneliness could have produced their books. Some people think that writing combats that solitude, but I think it must be more complicated and less one-sided than that. Then today we went to Houghton Library, which houses Harvard’s rare and old book collection. We saw contemporary editions of all the books we’ve read for the 18th Century Novel, including Austen’s Northanger Abbey. The paper actually wasn’t as fragile as you’d imagine because back then they used linen, which is durable and feels lovely. You can sense the textured lines of the paper and the work that went into it. Some pages and covers were marbled, most books had ruffled edges from where people cut them loose. The tangibility of the books made visible how much of people goes into the sharing of written words. I wonder if I’ve lost that a little.

This past weekend was Harvard-Yale. The Thursday before was senior bar, and it set the tone for both my past and current perspective on senior year. Sitting, not carefree but happy with cares, and slightly, vaguely aware. It seems to me that I’m very conscious of where these events are situated—that is, the punctuation ending a certain block of time and experience. I realize I should only think of the actual final point as the punctuation but somehow the whole year has filled that space. That point has widened and widened so that there’s very little I can do without thinking that it’s the last of something—my last Cambridge autumn, my last Halloween in Adams, my last Harvard-Yale game. During the game, when we were down 21-3, Randy mentioned that unlike high school this being the last year doesn’t make winning more important. But when we repeatedly came back and tied the game with three minutes left, and then won in triple overtime after false wins and anxious uncertainties, people said—what a way to end. Yes, it would have been exciting any other year, but it happened this year, and for once we were there at the right time and until the time to rush the field. The timing does matter. In this case it made it sweeter, but sometimes it’s harder. Tailgating before (and during) the game was distinctly different from last year—less crazy, more mellow and with that, a certain kind of comfort. Last year we moved around a lot. This year we spent a lot of time sitting in the Adams truck watching people stream by and connecting with those we knew, people we see all the time and some we hadn’t seen in forever. Amy waited impatiently for the warm fried turkey (which fell in the mud but was eaten anyway), it was a gorgeously sunny day and just cold enough to make the drinks’ warming effects appreciated, and it was a spectacle of passing antics. Last year when we were spastically going from place to place and everyone around us was doing the same, the flow seemed natural and it didn’t seem to have a defined beginning and end. This year staying in one place made every part of me feel the movement. It made me a little sad, and a little remote in spite of the nearness of people. And I can’t get rid of this unsettling notion of “last,” in order to enjoy things purely.

Except maybe this bittersweet melancholy is pure, maybe getting rid of it would make the experience less true. I suppose that I’ve always known that, and what really bothers me is that anticipating it doesn’t make it easier to face things and to value them independent of time. The other day I listened to Ben Harper’s “Forever” on repeat for over an hour, and I did something I always want to do but haven’t in a long, long time, just crawled into bed and listened to him. I wanted to listen to him believe in always. I thought then that maybe my realistic optimism had only been simple idealism, only plausible in theory and unappreciative of the elements of poignancy. But I think about how unsatisfied I am with this entry, how things don’t unravel quite right anymore, and how I’m becoming okay with that.

I think of the line I love most in the new Pride and Prejudice—when Elizabeth Bennet explains herself with “I’ve been so blind.” There’s a sudden commotion and she never has the chance to resume the thought but she doesn’t have to. Having done everything as guided by her incredibly admirable character, she still leads herself astray. It is possible to be at once, right and wrong. Things like this entry don’t follow a logical path of connections and transitions and relations, contradictions can be felt and not just known; forever can reside within a year and still lie ahead.