bye charleston, hello richmond

What a difference six hours makes. I might as well come out and admit that I spent the first hour of my car ride today crying. Not to worry, this has been a recurring theme every time I've driven away from Charleston this year. I get into my car and I'm fine, but inevitably the second I get on 26, no matter how hard I try to ignore it, I start to picture what it's going to be like when I make the drive in August, when I leave Charleston. Cue the tears. It was especially hard today because again, as hard as I tried to ignore it, I couldn't stop thinking about the fact that this could be my last Christmas in Charleston (or at least the last for a while). It's an ongoing battle not to spend my senior year thinking in terms of lasts. All it's going to do is make me a blubbering and sentimental mess. I know this, yet I still have a hard time with it, especially with Christmas, because Charleston, while lovely year round of course, is especially lovely at Christmas.
And it's hard to describe; because what makes Charleston so wonderful at Christmas aren't the obvious things. That's not to say that the obvious things aren't great. I love the James Island Festival of Lights, the giant tree in Marion Square, the trees lining the block of King Street, the lit Palmetto trees lining Coleman Blvd. out in Mount Pleasant. I love when the Budweiser Clydesdales come (by the way where were they this year. Are they late, delayed somehow, off delivering Budweiser and cheer to some other part of the world? I guess I may never know) I love a healthy dose of kitsch and tackiness and glitter along with my Christmas festivities. Yet the truth is none of these things really suit Charleston. It's sort of like dressing up a cat in a Christmas sweater and a Santa hat. The end result is not what one would call natural or even all that endearing. Charleston to me is like this fantastic old broad, someone who has never followed a trend in her entire life and doesn't even know the meaning of tacky or gaudy. People might try to force these things on Charleston, but what's honest and true about Charleston at Christmas aren't the lights or plastic Santas. To me Charleston during the holidays is best captured at oyster roasts in the cold night air, people huddled together holding beers and prying open the big, salty oysters while laughing and talking. Or gas lanterns, because even though they are there all year, there's something about Christmas that makes you notice the lanterns in places you normally otherwise wouldn't. Christmas in Charleston is people coming off their boats to warm up with hot chocolate (or a cold beer) at a waterside bar or restaurant. It's real candles in windows, not the plastic ones, or simple holly wreaths on doors along the Battery. Over the years I've found that the best Christmas traditions in Charleston are ones that you have to find upon closer inspection. It's applicable to Charleston in general as well. On the surface Charleston is post card pretty, with tourist trap seafood restaurants (ones that deep fry their crab cakes and serve crap dip with saltines) and crowded shopping districts. But anyone who truly knows this city, anyone who truly loves it, knows that the real Charleston can be found in quiet patches of marshland weaving between neighborhoods or in hidden shacks alongside creeks where the seafood is no-frills and served with boiled peanuts. Charleston is a city of many layers, and it has been one of my greatest thrills to dig deeper and deeper into this place and find what is honest and untamed. Finding Christmas in Charleston is simply a continuation of that. Yet to bring all of this back to my point, it was extremely painful, almost in a physical way, to think that I may not see Charleston at Christmas next year. Thus the car crying. I've realized that leaving Charleston is not, unfortunately, going to be like tearing off a band-aid, all the pain in one fell swoop. This year is basically going to be akin to having said band-aid (one that was super-glued to my skin) being pulled of inch by inch. It's going to hurt like hell. My goal is to let the hurt come only in spurts so that it never stops me from enjoying every second I have left of this beautiful town. And life is unpredictable. I could find myself here next Christmas, feeling foolish for shedding tears over nothing. Who knows.
So six hours after I left Charleston I arrived in Richmond, and several simultaneous things helped to ease the pain of leaving Charleston. First the Richmond skyline all lit up. I never really appreciated the holiday skyline until I left home. Now it's one of my favorite things to drive up 95 and see it looming in front of me, all of the buildings clearly defined against the night. Second, the cold air when I got out of my car. When I left Charleston this morning it was 80 degrees. When I reached Richmond, I stepped out of my car in a short sleeved tee and sandals and had to run inside and pull on a sweatshirt. Finally weather to match the season. The third thing that made me blissfully happy to be in Richmond was being able to run to Ukrops to grab dinner (I'm sorry Harris Teeter, I love you too, but you simply can't compare to the 'krops). The fourth thing that made me ridiculously, cheerfully happy was driving through Carytown and down Monument Ave and seeing both dressed to the nines in their holiday finest. As much as I love Charleston, Richmond will always be my first home. And there are these instant things about Richmond that always make me feel safe and comfortable, no matter how long I have been gone. My deepest hope is that it will be like that with Charleston too. I'd like to think that even if I stay away for month or years (okay I take that back, I can never stay away from Charleston for years, even if I have to swim, climb or hike to get to the lowcountry), but anyways, I'd like to think that all it will take is the sight of our beautiful bridge stretching over the harbor or the view from Coleman onto Shem Creek to bring me back home again. I really need to believe that, and until I've been proven otherwise I will.


Incredibly Random Side Note: So Project Runway this season is killing me! And the problem is that for the first time I genuinely like all of the contestants (okay well Victorya is a little cold and Ricky is the cryingest crybaby that ever did cry) but other than those quibbles everyone seems good natured and decent. Reality show contestants aren't supposed to be likable across the board. It's why America's Next Top Model is so enjoyable because half those girls are either crazy, severely deluded or just plain idiotic. When one gets sent home I can giggle and change the channel. But since Project Runway involves talented and creative people with actual ambitions for their lives besides being on television, it makes it very emotional to watch. Just this week I started out sad because Chris was gone and I loved Chris. Then I got even sadder because Jack had to go home because of medical issues and I loved Jack (and this is not just because the producers occasionally throw in a gratuitous shot of Jack in his underwear, I promise). Then I got happy again because Chris came back since Jack left although I was still sad about Jack, and well can't you see how this is taxing on a person such as myself? I really need a good Santino or a Wendy to break up all the love. I guess I'll just have to keep watching with a box of tissues next to me for now, until one of them reveals his or her evil side (Christian I'm watching you, you're tiny and your hair defies logic).

selling back books

Is it just me or is there something incredibly demoralizing, perhaps a tad humiliating about selling back books at the end of the semester? Here you come, fresh out of finals, bursting, nearly skipping with end of the year joy, ready to rid yourself of the detritus of the past semester. And you stand in line for half an hour, finally make it up to the buy-back book table, after watching the students before you make major bank with their ginormous text books, walking away with fists full of cash. And you hand over your pile of books, watching hopefully as the sullen girl behind the counter types information into the mysterious, all-knowing college book database. And then the counter girl looks up at you and announces in a clear, loud voice (so that everyone in line can hear) "That'll be a dollar fifty." One dollar and fifty cents. And suddenly it isn't just counter girl, but the entire academic institution doling out your pathetic and meager sentence. I'll drop the first person now, because obviously this has happened to me on not one but many occasions. There's something so depressing about receiving such a trifling dollar amount on a book you spent weeks, sometimes even months on, a book that cost five or six times more money just three and a half months prior. Of course the text book industry is a scam, everyone knows that. Books go out of print practically every week, with a new one popping up in its place that is nearly identical except for maybe an added footnote. Yet I still manage to convince myself every time that I might actually get some substantial money. And time and again, I get one dollar, two, on rare occasions possibly four. I watch my books get tossed into a box, reach out for the meager amount of money, and walk away feeling like the college has just told me, in no uncertain terms, that the contents of my head are worth as much as a McDonald's value meal. Sigh.

Also, as I stood in line to sell back my books (the line happened to be right in front of one of the freshman dormitories) I watched the freshman girls go in and out of the dorm and I was struck by the simultaneous sensations of missing freshman year and of being so insanely happy that I am no longer one of those girls. Every girl I saw brought up an instant memory. The girl in pajama pants stumbling back from Craig Cafeteria, barely able to stand up straight after no doubt an interesting night. The girls hugging outside of the dorm doors, wishing each other Merry Christmases, inexplicably close to people they have only known for four months. All of the girls going in and out of the Hungry Cougar. I can remember literally hundreds of lunches from that place, poor quality deli wraps and make your own salads. I can't help but feel instantly affectionate towards these girls, because they are all so obviously thrilled with their relatively new independence but still very transparently unsure of themselves. My freshman year in college (especially first semester) is this insane blur, but underneath all of it was this undercurrent of utter terror, being in a new place with new people, everything heightened and surreal. I realize now that it's necessary to be scared shitless for a while, because it shakes everything up and forces you to become a new person, one who can handle living alone and making your own decisions. But when you're going through freshman year, it's all about disguising the fact that you have no idea what you're doing, because you're convinced that everyone else does in fact know what they are doing. The result is all of this faux confidence and loudness and bravado. So I see these girls (who by the way are starting to look impossibly young) and despite their somewhat annoying tendencies I can't help but feel for them. I was them.

Yet, on a related note, there is something about freshman that needs to be addressed. If you are a freshman, before you walk out the door you need to look down at yourself, and if your shorts are the size of boy cut bathing suits, they are un...acceptable. I don't care how skinny you are, no one (who is not a horny boy or a creepy pervert) wants to see that much of you. And the only way to make this more unacceptable is by pairing those shorts with Uggs. Short shorts and Uggs literally defy logic. Uggs are designed to keep you warm. Tiny shorts are basically equivalent to wearing just underwear in terms of climate protection. Put them together and you are threatening to make the universe explode with the sheer senselessness of your outfit. So do us all a favor and reevaluate this combination, put on some real pants that would not make your mother blush, and save the Uggs for when it's not 70 degrees outside. Thanks!

aching

So I just finished watching a wonderful and beautiful movie called "Paris Je T'Aime." It's a love letter to Paris disguised as a film, with eighteen tiny movies for each of the neighborhoods of Paris, all done by different directors. I had heard good things about it, but mainly I rented it because of my love affair with Paris, which began the day I set foot there for my semester abroad. I knew that with the movie I could gorge myself on images of narrow streets and stone apartment buildings and the gleaming Seine in the moonlight, all of the things I miss a great deal.
And of course it made me cry. The second the credits flashed over the sparkling Eiffel Tower I was a goner. Because I ache for Paris. I always will. It's why my room is covered in photos from the time I spent there, why a tiny post card of the Eiffel Tower at night hangs in front of my computer so I can see it as much as possible. And I guess it's a weird thing, to surround myself with all of these images and memories that make me ache. I rented the movie tonight knowing it would make me sad. But if it makes any sense, it's sad in a good way, aching in a good way. We all do it. It's why people look over photographs from childhood or take home videos. It's saving letters and cards, even the insignificant ones. Humans are weird creatures in our desperate, stubborn, incessant need to remember. If we were driven only by reason we would shed our memories because memories are illogical things. It's grasping at objects that are no longer there, reaching out, despite all common sense, for a place or a person or a feeling. And always, we will come up empty handed.
Yet as we grasp, for a moment it's there. I reach back in my memory for Paris and I get a second of Sunday morning in the Marais, flower and oyster stands on either side of me, motorbikes buzzing by, Orthodox Jewish men rushing past, people walking with falafel, tables set out on the sidewalks for Sunday brunch. And of course the second waivers and ends. I'm no longer in Paris but in my apartment in Charleston. I blink and then I ache. But it's worth it isn't it? Remembering is the most exquisite kind of pain. Because to miss something so much means that you once had something that great, something worth missing. I had Paris; for four beautiful months I had Paris. So for the rest of my life I will watch movies about the city, look at my photographs, buy pretty much anything if it has a picture of the Eiffel Tower on it, and as I do these things I will probably get a little sad. But sad in the best, most necessary way.
I can only hope my life will be filled with experiences that will one day cause me beautiful pain.

finals road rage

Oh finals week, that special time of the year when I vacate my normal place of residency and move into Addlestone library. As I sit here not studying, hopped up on caffeine and in full sleep-deprivation mode, surrounded by my fellow caffeine crazed, sleep deprived students, I thought I'd share some things I've learned about unacceptable finals behavior. This is my seventh go round at this whole shindig so I feel like I have some authority, right? maybe? anyone?

1) If you are going to listen to headphones in the library, that is fine, but you must, and I repeat must, keep the volume to a minimum. I know some people bring headphones to the library to drown out noise, yet if those same people really thought about it, how kind is it to drown out noise while in the process creating noise for the people around you without headphones? Yesterday for example, I was in the third floor study room and a girl two seats down from me was listening to her music loud enough for me to hear a repeated saxophone blast. I'm not even going to ask why she was listening to music with saxophones in it if not for the purpose of swing dancing. But the last thing I need when I'm trying to concentrate on African political theory is saxophone!

2) So this is one of my biggest pet-peeves. It's the last few minutes before a final. You've spent the last few days (or hours) studying. You get to the classroom, pencil ready, doing your mind stretches or whatever, and there will always be a couple of people loudly and frantically going over the material. I understand that for some this is reassuring, hearing themselves say it out loud. Maybe they are missing interior monologues. For whatever reason they feel the need to rapidly run through all of the information in a voice audible enough for all to hear. Yet one of these people will undoubtedly say a piece of information that is new to someone, or different from how someone studied, and bam - panic spiral. And then you start taking the exam and the panic spiral becomes a panic paralysis, and it's all just a panicky downhill slope from there. If you really need to speed study in the seconds before a final, do it outside the room far from innocent bystanders who just want to at least maintain the illusion that they are prepared.

3) Library gawkers. Okay so this one I probably do myself. But it's still creepy. People are at the library for hours on end. They get bored and distracted and a little on edge. So the first shiny object or random person that appears is going to get attention. But when the library is at full capacity, and you have to walk through it, all of those ope-mouth stares=un...comfortable. But again I'm sure when I'm in library catatonia I am the same exact way, so tis a bit hypocritical of myself, I will admit.

4) The rest of the world. Yes, you heard me right. I am making the claim that during finals week the entire rest of the world is unacceptable. And maybe this can only make sense to those in the midst of finals insanity, but whenever I venture out to a place that is not a library or starbucks during finals, and find myself suddenly surrounded by glowing, rested, showered people going about their lives, I always find myself taken aback and wondering how can this be? For during finals week we college students suddenly become a different species, jittery and nocturnal and unsure how to handle sunlight. We stumble around in our sweatpants or yoga pants (really pants at all is progress) clutching enormous cups of coffee, loaded down with an entire semester's worth of text books and notes, rubbing our bleary, usually contact free eyes. Yet in the confines of our world, we are not alone. We run into similar creatures, and nod and smile because we alone understand each other's plight. Far be it from us to judge the girl passed out on the library chair. We were her just the other day. Guy standing expressionless in line at Starbucks, like he somehow went in there by mistake. Check. We literally feel each other's pain. And so when I find myself at these times thrust into the real world, around people who coordinated their outfits that morning and haven't forgotten to brush their hair in three days, I just feel like these people, these people without pencil indentations on their fingers, belong to a different world than I. It is not until I find myself again in the safety of the library, watching the guy in front of me let his head droop ever so closer to the table, that I am home.

Or at least the florescent-lit, always freezing, overcrowded home that I have come to know (and well if not love than at least be on very polite terms with) these past few years.

moments of clarity and some side notes

As I stayed up until 4am last night to write a ginormous case study paper for my Politics of Africa class, hopped up on caffeine, a strange thing happened. I was grateful. This is not to say I wouldn't have rather been sleeping, or watching tv, or really doing anything at the 2am mark, but in one moment I suddenly realized that this year, (not counting a possible foray into graduate school), will be the last time in my life I am fully expected by all members of society to devote my time and energy to the sheer process of thinking. When you tell people you go to college, they're satisfied. They're not going to follow with a "so what do you do?" In a year I'm going to be 23, and people are going to start asking me what exactly I do, fully expecting some real answer. If I tell them, "Oh well today I read some political philosophy and tomorrow I'm going to dive into late 18th century British literature", they'd smile politely and walk very quickly away. College students complain all the time about work, trust me I'm one of them. But I think a lot of us just like to hear ourselves complain. Because really, we choose to go to college, and as much as we fight and procrastinate and bitch and moan, would any of us choose to be in a situation where at eighteen, or even younger, education ends and we're supposed to start making a living?
I spent twelve hours yesterday devoted completely to intellectual pursuits, and tomorrow once I've recovered from lack of sleep and caffeine withdrawal, I'm going to spend many more hours doing the same thing . That sounds pretentious, but maybe that's the point. With college coming to a close, I'm realizing that the window in my life where I'm supposed to be pretentious is rapidly shrinking. In college if you end up drunk at a bar talking about politics sure it's obnoxious to bystanders, but it's also earnest and well intentioned and expected. If I end up in those same conversations in a few years, ones unhindered by reason or patience, then I'm going to want to punch myself in the face. And of course I can keep learning. I hope I do. I'll always be a person who will read any book I get my hands on. But it will be different. I'm not going to write an analysis paper or listen to a lecture about what I'm reading, and if I do then clearly I will have some issues. I'll have bills to pay and a job to go to, a family not too long after all of that. For the last year or so I've often said that I'm ready for school to be over, but not college. But now I take that back. I've kicked and screamed my way through eight semesters of papers and busy work and lectures and articles. And in a few days, when I'm sleep deprived again because of finals I'll probaby kick and scream even louder. But for one moment at least, in the wee hours of last night, I received some much needed clarity. I lead a pretty charmed life right now if the worst thing I have to do is spend an entire day using my brain.

Random Side Note: I was watching TV the other day and flipped past the Christian network and who should I see but Kirk Cameron awkwardly standing at a podium, preaching about hell and fire and brimstone (well not exactly those words but that was his gist). Why is Mike Seaver doing this? Shouldn't he be living in his parent's garage with his inappropriately named friend Boner? I don't like it when my fictional characters so rudely intrude into the real world.

Another Random Site Note: The USA won Davis Cup!! and it was played on Versus, a cable channel most people have never even heard of....sigh...I know it's a losing battle about tennis getting the respect it deserves in America but it still makes me pugnacious when a respected, long-running international sporting event gets virtually ignored. Except for the US Open and maybe the final rounds of Wimbledon, I've seen tennis on the front page of the NY Times once, and that was because of a betting scandal. But all bitterness aside, watching them win was awesome, especially since I was at the quarterfinal against Spain in Winston Salem.

Yet Another Random Side Note: I went to an oyster roast to watch the parade of boats Saturday night with some friends, and I witnessed the most amazing thing. A lot of people brought their kids, and all of these children congregated in front of the band (the Blue Dogs who were awesome) I felt like I was at a Wiggle's concert. These kids either ran around in circles, dug things in the sand, tackled each other, or best of all DANCED. Dozens of little babies dancing on a beach in front of a band. Just picture this, and if you are even the smallest amount like me you will giggle. And the most awesome part of the awesome parts. The band started playing the Who's Baba O'Riley, and in like 30 seconds, nearly all of the babies stopped whatever motion they were involved in, stood silently, and stared at the band for a solid couple of minutes. It's like they were hypnotized. Oh babies, just like tiny drunk adults. And in the case of these babies, tiny drunk adults with an affinity for The Who.