You’re clearly winning when you wake up first
Or at least, that’s how it feels. I’m on my way to DC, via a one-day stop in NY (perhaps a little later than expected: my bus leaves at 6:30 AM and it’s 6:10 and I still have 8 stops to go). My backpack is abnormally light: I’m bringing one outfit.
Wake up before everyone else, and you’re clearly winning the day. I’m walking past establishments; learning things. Like, did you know that Starlight, the bar down the street, has its lights on at five twenty-two in the mornin? I do, now.
I like leaving places to go on trips. There’s always a clear sensation of division. This is what life and self were before this trip; this is what they became like afterwards. Usually I am very happy to leave. Usually. I think about how I’ll miss my roommates, who I’ve become increasingly close to over the last month: ever since I returned from California. So much happens in a month.
I saw my old TF yesterday in Hi Rise. He taught my postmodern literature class, and his dissertation is a literary analysis of war strategy in the Napoleonic wars. I like him; he is now living in Berlin on a year-long fellowship. For him, a lot has changed in two years (his pillow has moved) and not a lot has changed (he is still studying the same topic).
It makes me nervous, just a little, that I’m leaving for more than a weekend. Five days is a long time. My relationships may change. My body of experiences definitely will.
I’m being too serious. I’m a serious editor now, for a new online magazine. It’s called The Next Great Generation, and its purpose is to profile our generation. I think about getting writers. I think about getting my friends to write. I think about getting my friends to write in a publication that I run, entirely. What stories do they write? I would ask E to write about why he is polyamorous, and A to write about why he’s fundamentally opposed to the idea. S would write about making jams, and how it resembles performance art in her life. J would write about what it’s like to work with a glam yet quirky silver screen legend. Only semi-related is the thought that lately I feel like I’m wading through stereotypes, self-applied, a process of identifying a self that others are curating, if not truly identifying with.
I realize that all of my friends have some quirk, some contradiction or point of difference from myself that makes me want to study them. Or to see how they see themselves. This should be my dissertation project: gathering personal articles and accounts. That’s more like a life project. People ask me what I want to study, and all I really want to say is: you. Your friends. Your life. Your world.
I made the bus; 6:31 AM, I really can’t believe it. I ran up to it just as the driver was preparing to drive away; the door was closed already. I am a lucky bear. And yet I would have dealt with it, had I missed the bus. Being on a trip requires a trip mindset before you get on the bus; perhaps the trip starts when you wake up on the day of travelling. One has to say to oneself: okay, I’m on a trip. I’m going to take ever mishap, obstacle, and wrong turn as an adventure. Otherwise, I might mis-think that I don’t have any.
