There is a particular horizontal row of tiles in the bathroom at about belly-button
level that stand out against the white walls. They're small, about the size
of scrabble letter tiles. I like them because they are copper colored, sparkling with
penny-tone glitter. That bathroom is nice because it doesn't have stalls -- it's just
one room, where you can look in the mirror without other people there to see you, and you can
fart without others there to hear you. Last spring, during a class break I opened the door
to that bathroom and accidentally stepped in to find someone sitting on the toilet with a
surprised look of embarrassment on her face; the door's lock was broken.
Every Thursday I get depressed. Every week builds up to Wednesday afternoon for my
Modern Comp. Lit. seminar. Everything just comes
crashing down on me the next
day when the pace suddenly stops, my adrenaline worn off and my work pressure at a low. Then
I see what I've been sweeping to the backburner at increasing levels all week when my time was
devoted to reading Dostoevsky, Freud, Nietzsche, Kafka and others. Everything feels chaotic
on Thursdays as my mind refocuses to the reality around me. I feel lost. I can't find me.
Where did I go? I'll watch my behavior in daily interactions, and I feel like I'm passively
sitting
in the back of a bus observing the people a couple rows in front of me. The words that come
out of my mouth are formed from habit. Why do they ask me how I am doing if my answer
has to be summarized into a millisecond soundbyte?
aaaaahhhhhh.
Today when I was walking to my multi-media sculpture class, I caught a whiff of
an enticing breeze. I couldn't pinpoint what it reminded me of, but I liked it. The air
felt clean and almost warm, fluttering the wet leaves that stuck to the ground. I stopped
in my tracks, standing outside the door into Beardsley; I closed my eyes and took a deep
breath. For a second I forgot where I was. I smelled a change of seasons, though it
didn't necessarily seem like a transition from winter to spring. Fall's personality somehow
got mixed into the flow of air that traveled up my nostrils. It felt good to just stand
there with my eyes closed, using my other senses to process what surrounded me. In Intro
to Psychology a couple semesters ago, we learned about the stages of sensory development
in human babies; at a certain point, little infants can think that as soon as they close
their eyes, the things around them no longer exist. That's how I felt today, standing there
on the campus path with my eyes closed. I could pretend like nothing was tangible anymore.
Only the smell of the transitory wet air.
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