a new time

This weekend has been the first time in an incredibly long while that I’ve felt like I was living the parts of college I love most. I feel like I’m at school again, and more myself, more a part of the outside world, sensitive to its pleasures.

On Thursday night I had dinner with Julia, my thesis advisor and a grad student in the English department, at the Adams Faculty Dinner, along with Victoria Wang and her TF for Sex & Sensibility in the Enlightenment. It was so much fun to hear gossip about celebrities of the literary world, to share our infatuation with the absolutely gorgeous Zadie Smith, to find that people with literary lives also have normal lives much like mine. It was like a dinner with girlfriends, and books weren’t nerdy but instead the common thing to love, in the same way a group of junior high girls could bond over clothes and boys. Every profession or passion occupies its own little sphere, and it was nice to be a part of that.

On Friday night we went to Café India for Andrea’s birthday. The food was unbelievably heavenly. The sauce for the chicken tikka masala was creamy, rich and light at the same time, so full of subtle and strong spices and tastes. I can still remember lifting the spoon warmed from the heat of the dish, carrying just the slightest bit of sauce, to my mouth. I like introducing myself to meals by getting the hints of flavor where they’re most strong—in sauces, broths, and the like. That first taste is always the best, but it’s wonderful when each bite after that is almost as surprisingly good as the first. The naan was fluffy and warm, and so comforting, and so good with the sauce from my meal. The company, too, was warm and comfortable, and the evening was still bright when I returned to my room, making me feel spring very deeply.

On Saturday night Amy, Jen and I went to Maciej’s birthday party and Mather Lather. After Amy and I got dressed we looked at each other and just started laughing. I rarely wear shorts in California, and here we were, looking like we were heading to the beach on a cold East-Coast night. It actually wasn’t as cold out as I had anticipated, though later when we were heading back I felt like my unprotected toes in flip-flops were definitely going to get frostbite. We went to Maciej’s first, but we were early and no one was there (not even Maciej) except a couple of his roommates who were nice enough to make us (several) drinks. There ended up being a line for drinks later so it was nice to get first dibs on sake. Their music was amusing, a mix of cheesy dance staples, old old old popular songs and year-ago favorites. We went semi-nuts when they played Real McCoy. While there, Amy ran into a coworker from HSA and his friend—nice, endearingly dorky but somewhat sketchy people who became defining symbols of the night’s later craziness.

We headed to Mather Lather around 11:30, which is Harvard’s infamous foam party. Suds pour in waterfalls from machines high above, and the floors are soaked in bubbles. I love how we can be crazy but still prudish compared to everyone else. We’d been embarrassed by our shorts but we were surrounded by girls in bikinis. We all squirmed when we took off our flip-flops and stepped onto the slippery floor, and none of us liked the sensation of accidentally brushing soapy skin with strangers. Jen and Amy are without question the most fun girls ever, and the best protection from sketchy boys with Asian fetishes. Although at one point I was really frightened that they were going to leave me behind in an attempt to evade aforementioned sketchy duo, and I was not ready to be stuck with that. While this is bothersome, I imagine it’s much worse being a guy, and seeing girls run away from you. Anyhow, it was a much-needed release to drink and dance and laugh, all to extreme levels, and also to jog a little in the streets because it was cold.

On Sunday night, we had Yardfest with BEN FOLDS. It was an amazingly beautiful day, and the steps of Widener were spotted with people, and Sever Yard was overflowing with Harvard sweatshirts. We staked out a spot near the stage of Memorial Church, and wandered a bit before the show started. Amy got on a tire swing and went flying through the air, courtesy of my dorm crew partner who was kind enough to push her. Not much later the concert started, and it was so so wonderful. That piano live gave me goosebumps; he tears that thing to pieces in one song and puts it back together in the next without blinking an eye behind those dorky glasses. He made up a bunch of little tunes throughout the show, including one centered on Eliot House, moving between major and minor keys to convey different tones—so creative and talented. Favorites include Kate (!!), Bastard, Jesusland, Rockin’ the Suburbs, Cooler Than You, the incredible encore of One Angry Dwarf.

What I love most is how his blunt humor can melt into incredibly moving and delicate feeling. When he ended the show with “Not the Same” he introduced the song by telling us it was about a man who climbed up a tree while on acid, and after coming down, decided to become a pastor. He commented that we should look into using this tactic to revive Southern spirtuality, making us laugh. Then he taught us a three-part harmony, splitting up the audience into people with low, high and higher voices. The night was dusk-colored by this time, and the huge crowds had dissipated a bit, so everything was a little more solemn though no less energenic. The sound of all of us creating this music in the night was so lovely. A little surreal to think how nice it sounds collectively, even as I’m sure most of the individual voices (like mine) are not musically-inclined. Then he sang sweetly and poignantly, and at the end, stood up conducting us in our harmony, going back and forth between sections of the crowd and motioning for us to go lower, higher, faster, slower. With the backdrop of Memorial Church (which looks so beautiful at night) and dark blue night skies, with the many voices permeating the air, it did feel spiritual.

It made me think, feelings are so seamless.