Rain

He didn’t care. He just opened the door and walked into the pouring rain. There was no sign of surprise in his eyes or a break in his step to indicate that he felt the rain. But he felt it.  Every drop on his face felt fresh and relaxing. And although he continued to speed through the rain as if he had someplace to be, he was headed in no direction. No one was waiting for him, no appointments to make, no pressing issues to resolve. All he wanted was in the rain. In the most cliche of ways, it washed away what was behind while obscurring the future, leaving him in this gray and wet present. But atleast it was the present and atleast he felt it and for now, that’s all he needed.

Morning on the Lake Shore

It wasn’t worth it anymore. He’d already woken up a number of times because of the sunlight. He had tried to guess the time every time he woke up but he refused to look at his watch. Might as well look now. It’s 6 in the morning. He’s awake now and there’s no falling back to sleep.

He gets dressed quickly in his sleeping bag before grabbing his wood-smoke scented fleece that acted as his pillow. He likes to think the smell helps him sleep despite the rocks digging into his side and the eerie sound of trees in the wind.

He slips his boots on, unzips the tent and enters the morning. The cold air hits him hard but he likes it. The burning in his nostrils, the instant redness in his knuckles and the look of his breath dissolving into the air. He ties his boots and takes in the scene. The still lake before him, the gray sky above him and the dry trees around him. Its early enough that the clouds haven’t lifted and that the water lays undisturbed. He carefully slips his hands into the lake, making sure to minimize the number of ripples eminating from his hands. Fuck that’s cold. He squeezes his eyes shut and splashes some of the near-freezing water on his face. Wow. He’s awake. But now his hands are wet and freezing. He wipes them on his fleece which brings out the smell of the wood-smoke even stronger than before. Fire, that’s a good idea.

Soon, he stands above a modest fire warming his front. The heat on his chest feels good against the dull chill on his back. He sits and takes the scene  for a second time. There are few other places he wants to be, but something about the moment makes him feel strange. Maybe it’s the 6 AM wakeup or the over-saturation of fresh air in his lungs or maybe it’s odd the assortment of people that lie sleeping in the tents behind him, but something is strange. Not wrong, just….off. The moment is ethereal, seeming only to last seconds but still existing. Detached. Removed.

Maybe it was sharing a tent with her that made him feel this way. Why? Nothing happened.  Nothing was even hinted, intended or  even contemplated. But something….maybe it was her. A curiousity, an objective fascination. The way she interacted so smoothly with everyone yet kept herself distinguished and removed. What was it about her? He did have a clue. But it was something. Maybe it was the way she said goodnight or the way her hair fell on her face while she slept or her calming, rhythmic breathing that helped him fall back asleep time after time throughout the night. He had no idea. But the intruige was there. He didn’t know what it meant, what he felt or why he felt something at all. But he felt it, just as surely as his chest was almost uncomfortably warm in front of the fire.

He stands and changes positions to cool off his front. The tent flap opens and she sleepily walks towards him, her dark hair peeking out from under a white woolen hat. She sits down next to him and smiles, staring at the fire as if answers lay in the embers.

“Good morning” She says with a light perkiness that hinted at how many minutes she had been awake.

“Morning” He replies steadily. He smiles. She pulls her coat around herself tighter. He is very aware of how close she is sitting to him. She looks at him and smiles.

There is definitely something, even if neither of them knows what it is.

Rememberance

On the most basic level, humans exist to procreate. But taking one step forward, that definition translates into something far more profound: we exist to be remembered. What do we want more than kids, success, wealth? We never want be forgotten. Maybe that’s the reason we have kids or we horde money or we parade success, we have a deep, unsupressable desire to be remembered.

And what is wrong with that? Memory is the closest we will ever get to immortality. Even though we know that our names won’t be recited for millenia likes the heros of Greece and Rome, we still act that way. Conciously or subconciously, that is why we, that is why I think I exist. That is the reason I give myself when I write. That this is a piece of me that will be remembered, no matter how ridiculous that notion sounds as I say it outloud. I want to be remembered. Please don’t forget me.

Sobering

We walk. We stumble. We laugh. And we keep walking. We have a destination. Our end point is set but not for any particular reason. It’s there, it’s happening and so, we walk.

It’s cold but we don’t realize it. The rum in our blood has crept into skin and so we are warm, shielded from the reality that is the nipping Autumn air. Despite the distant bite of the weather, we are excited and expectant. You see, it’s been a tough few weeks and this is our reward. Finally we are out with the other youth of our generation: living, loving and drinking all the way there. We cling to each other so as not to fall, but when one of us walks astray, we are all pulled along for the ride. We laugh. We walk, and we stumble some more.

Our destination nears and expectations rise. The distant roar of a subwoofer rumbles the suddenly uneven pavement beneath us. A few less fortunate than us begin to trickle in our direction. Alone or in pairs, these wanderers no longer are enjoying their weekend reward, or if they are, the morning will unabashedly remind them that no, they’re not enjoying it.

The scene is getting stranger as we approach. More people are lurching around in the street, one is leaning over the trunk of a stranger’s car, getting the sidewalk familiar with the contents of his stomach. Primal noises emanate from the backyard of the house as we turn into the driveway. The smell of beer, sweat and unchecked passions pervades our nostrils. We plow ahead, though I am no longer smiling. I walk slower, I stumble less and I check my laughter.

The backyard unfolds before us like an exuberant riot or a violently dying fish, it is difficult to tell which. The crowd is dancing vaguely to the steady beat of the bass but it is hard to determine whether or not the scene is happy or just simply drunken. We all see friends and split up to give the obligatory inebriated hugs and receive the standard status updates. I am still standing at the end of the drive-way, breaths away from the pitching and heaving crowd but it is very obvious that I stand apart. I inhale and take it in, all the criticism and judgment running through my brain, even though I am in position to do so. I am not standing on a pedestal, I am standing on crushed red cups and the foot of a cute girl to my left. I apologize and then return to trying to quantify the many reasons why I am not a part of this crowd of questionable decisions and 12-hour delayed regrets.

But I am no better, I tell myself. I’m just sobering up and realizing where I am. Amidst a crowd of drunk 19 and 20 somethings all trying to forget a week. I know I am no better, but I still feel uncomfortable and out of place. I turn and walk down the driveway back out onto the street.

As I walk away from the house, the stale smell of beer fades and the thud-thud-thud of the subwoofer quickly dies. I just left my reward behind but I’m not sure what kind of reward it was. I try to remind myself that I am no better and that I am no worse but there is something that I can’t shake. What did I want out of tonight? I don’t know. Maybe it’s just the alcohol leaving my body in favor of reason, or maybe it’s the realization that the place I thought wanted to be was not what I wanted at all, but it’s cold outside now and I’m feeling it.

Nostalgic Ramblings on the Concepts of Comfort, Home and Peace

I’ve found myself defining the difference between “being comfortable” in a place and “feeling at home.” In retrospect, I feel as if the difference is fairly obvious. Its the difference between being my dorm room and my room at home. It’s how I feel when I step outside in Los Angeles versus back home in Newton.

There is also an addendum to the concept of feeling at home in a place: being at peace. On campus, I am comfortable. In Newton, I am at home. And in Vermont, I am at peace. Maybe it’s just how the three locations smell or maybe its the weather that creates the differing feelings I associate with them.

In Los Angeles, there is a mixture of concrete, exhaust and pollen-gone-wrong in the air. Combined with the monotonously beautiful weather, there is something sickly and yellow about Los Angeles. All these factors mean that I am not at home here, though I do feel comfortable on campus and walking down the busy streets of Pasadena. It’s the sort of comfort that comes with familiarity, as opposed to the comfortable feeling I get when I stand behind a camera, which I associate with natural interest and excited focus.

Newton, for the most of obvious reasons, is where I feel at home. I’ve spent 18 years living in the same spot. There is nothing that I know better than my home and my neighborhood. Yes, I do get bored of it at times, as any upper-class suburb will become. But the seasons keep me interested. In the Fall, it smells of tree bark and crisp air. Settling in for the long winter, amongst the flannel sheets and multiple layers you don for school, there is the beautifully cold, neutral smell of snow accented with harsh hints of car exhaust. You step outside and your hands, toes and nose hurt just a little. Cars roll by almost silently, leaving tread marks down the center of the road. The front steps are slippery and everything glows at night. Finally, the spring arrives and the smell of flowers and fresh mulch proliferates the green lawns of New England. The summer brings highs in the nineties and the smell of gasoline mixed with cut grass. I miss the seasons, the unpredictability of the weather, the bitter cold. When I get there, I fall in love and then I fall into routine. The wonder and excitement wears off quickly as I rapidly return to the life I had before college, before the West Coast, before permanant weather and endless sunsets. But maybe that’s what “being at home” is, a place that you can pine away for every day, but when you get there, you are so comfortable, you forget to appreciate what it is exactly that you love about it.

Moving 2 and half hours North is Vermont. I think what I associate with Vermont the most, more than the endless rolling green hills, the constant murmer of creeks, the smell of fresh bread and fresh cow shit, is the moment when I get out the car at 10:30 on a cold night. The car is stuffy, wart and smells like dog hair. Then you open the door and the cold comes rushing in. You can smell the trees, the snow, the leaves, the river, the wood smoke, the floors of the house, the dried flowers, everything. I guess this is where I am at peace. I realize here, in Los Angeles, that I have nothing to complain about in Vermont. It’s beautiful, quiet, clean and quantly nostalgic. For those who have never been to Vermont, I strongly urge that you make a trip out there every season, because it is such a different place every time I go back. From mountains of snow to summer lakes to Fall hikes to Spring picking.

My reminiscence has taken over my train of thought, so I apologize for the rambling words that lack focus, but that’s what feelings are. Feelings, smells, memories are vague. Here at Oxy, I always look forward to the day when I return to the places that I feel at home, but when I’m there, I begin to miss the sun and the open friendliness of California.

So who knows where I belong. Between my exaggerated dislike of Los Angeles to my overzealous New England pride, I often feel lost somewhere in between. But here I am, experimenting with geography, attempting to create my life where there was none before. So once again, my apologies for my drifting thoughts, but I just can’t help imaging what it feels like to step out of the car and into the snow.