All That You Can't Leave Behind

Friday, May 9, 2003 (9:23 PM)

I'm done.

I wrote the 15 pager, I finished the late critical paper and dropped it off in Piskor. Half an hour ago I uploaded my final piece of work, my webpage for my soc. class. I blinked at the computer screen. Didn't know quite what to do with myself. When I went to log off, my breath actually caught.

"Log off stolcs37?"

I stared at the prompt. Is it really over? There must be something I've forgotten: a meeting, a response paper to dash off, an e-mail. It just can't be over.

But there is nothing.

I log off and stand up, slinging my red bag over my shoulder, knowing very well that I will not be back.

I walk upstairs, slowly, past my couch at the top of the stairs under the bronze plaque, my couch where I would sit and watch people walk through the revolving doors. I walk down the wall by Richardson, past the study tables, seeing reflections of myself everywhere in the picture windows that run floor to ceiling there. Past the hidden couch by the window in the back, where I would go if I wanted to hide and write, past the huge window that looks out on Herring Cole and the tree-lined walk.

I circle the second floor and head for the stairs. I sink down onto my couch and pull my knees to my chest like a little kid. Oh there are ghosts, don't let anyone tell you there aren't. But they're not the kind in the stories. I stare at the reflection of myself in the glass railing, and it's eerie, but I feel like, if I turned my head quick enough, it would be sophomore year.

But the thing is, if you want to live, you can't stay. You can't sit on a worn yellow and brown couch forever, picturing all the still-familiar faces that you will never see walk through that door again.

It's really over.

I gather my things, pull on my sweatshirt, and walk, looking around me as I go, looking everywhere. I gather, yes, that's a good word. I gather it all to me. I walk through the revolving doors.

And as I pass the library, outside on the brick sidewalk under a gorgeous purple sky, between the looming silver bleachers that have already been set up on the lawn for graduation, I glance up at the picture window and can almost see a ghost of myself.

And You're Tearing Up Your Photos 'Cause You Wanna Forget It's Over

It's 12:30 on 12/31/06, and she turns around and says over her shoulder, "I don't want to get married."

I say, "Me either."

"Let's just be freshmen," she says.

"Let's be freshmen forever," I say. "That is exactly what we need to do."

I was eighteen when I met her. We lived on the third floor of Whitman Hall in Canton, NY, and it was September, 1999. What happens to everything? That's what I want to know. I am telling you I could close my eyes and be there. I would go back in a second, in a snap of my fingers, no question. Back to the beginning. Back to stand there and wonder and worry and drink Blue and have angst and watch the snowflakes drift silently through the naked fingers of the trees. I wasn't cold then. I wasn't cold at all. Because the stars were stark and distant and reassuring, and the streetlights shone orange, and it sort of spun dizzily around you, and it was too beautiful to be cold.

But she is getting married tomorrow night. And this was seven years ago.

So we're telling this story tonight, a freshman year story, about how this one time I was partying in the track suite until 6-ish, and I make my way back to Whitman as the sun is hovering beneath the horizon and pondering coming up. I believe this is exam week as well. I knock on her door. She answers, and goes, "Where's my roommate?"

I say, "I left her there. She was hooking up with Ike in the laundry room!" [Brief detour while we crack up over how several people at the bachelorette evening also hooked up with Ike. In fact, I am not going to lie, a large portion of the night's conversation consisted of rehashing who hooked up with whom and falling into laughter over it.]

So we're standing there talking when Katie strolls in. It has to be at least seven by this time. She walks into the room, and nonchalantly goes, "So. I just left a guy naked. Tell you about it tomorrow. Good night."

But we didn't go to bed. We said, "Fuck it," and went to Dana and got breakfast. Never mind that we hadn't slept yet. It was just because. Because you're still drunk and it's 7:30 AM on a Friday morning, and goddamn is it fun to watch the good kids trek downstairs to breakfast before a rough day of studying. It was the end of my first semester, and I am still not convinced I ever managed to be more obnoxious in Dana in the next three years. But we went to Dana breakfast that morning. It was totally the thing to do. If you had been there, you would have done it, too.

Seven. No way is it seven. Two years, maybe. Three? Okay. But seven. I just counted it up on my fingers.

I am bad at these things. I let things drift. I mean to see people, and I mean to write about the moments I've never been able to get out of my mind, and I mean to really figure out what it all meant, really get it straight in my head, and I mean to call. I mean and I mean and I mean.

And then seven years.

Maybe it's the writer in me, but I feel this driving need to put my past in these little boxes, to get it down on paper, to fasten it in one place so it won't drift. I am telling you, the drifting scares me. Because I want it to be there if I need it. I want it to be there so someday I can look at it and think suddenly, "Oh! That's what this meant." I want everyone to be there. This is what he said to me. This is what she wore. This is what we did on this exact night. This is how it was.

Seven years! No fucking way. Sometimes I feel like I don't know who I am anymore.

"I'm gonna stay eighteen forever
So we can stay like this forever
And we'll never miss a party
'Cause we keep them going constantly
And we'll never have to listen
To anyone about anything
'Cause it's all been done and it's all been said
We're the coolest kids and we take what we can get
You're just jealous 'cause we're young and in love
Your stomach's filled up but you're starved for conversation
And you're spending all your nights growing old in your bed
And you're tearing up your photos
'Cause you want to forget it's over"

Thirteen Reasons Why Life Should Be Like Summer Camp

I was a Girl Scout from Brownies up through high school. We spent a lot of time in the Adirondacks, being based in Albany. I went to Camp Little Notch starting in, I think, 1992. I was a CIT in 1997, and was on staff there for two years. In 2001 and 2002 I worked on the sailing staff at Raquette Lake Girls Camp. In 2004 I was Head of the Small Crafts department at Camp Matoaka in Maine. Consequently, this is the longest time I have gone without summer camp since I was roughly... seven. And I miss it. I think a part of me is secretly counting down the months till I get a teaching job and can go back.

1. At CLN, we used to live on Girl Scout cookies because the food left something to be desired. We used to joke that there was a cheese element in every meal. In the walk-in there was, I swear, an entire freight truck's worth of Girl Scout cookies. We weren't allowed to have food in our tents because of raccoons and mice. We were NOT allowed to eat the Girl Scout cookies except when they were served for dessert at every lunch. But some nights we could not take it anymore. We would dash into the kitchen after dark in an oversized sweatshirt, raid the walk-in, shove four boxes of Girl Scout cookies up our shirts, and dash back to the staff tent, where we would share the booty. And hopefully, live on Girl Scout cookies until we were rescued by a passing steamer. Arrrrr...

2. Taking boats everywhere. This may not be everybody's cup of tea, but a place where one must take a boat EVERYWHERE is kind of my dream that I drool over at night. At CLN we didn't have anything with a motor on the lake, so maybe not so much there... except the way Tall Timbers, the camp unit where we ran the sailing program, which had its own dock, felt like an island cut off from the rest of the camp by a mile (OK, it was more like 1/2 a mile, but let me tell you, it was fun trying to get to meals on time). Raquette was way cooler, though, because there was a "boys side" across the lake. Boats were always zooming back and forth from boys camp to girls camp. You couldn't get to boys camp by road. We had a giant pontoon boat called Raquette One that used to cart our kids across the lake for socials (and carted the male staff to our side, where their cars were parked, for nights off). You could also take Raquette One to the bar at South Bay every night, but if you missed the boat back at 12:30 you were S.O.L. There was also a trash barge-- a real barge! On the 4th of July, they took the whole girls camp across for fireworks, and every boat was put into use. My girls and I got to ride on the barge a couple times... which I would like to say was as cool as everyone wished it was, but man, that barge was slow.

3. Real life doesn't have any wacky traditions. Ones that outsiders are slightly frightened by. A birthday song, for instance, that is screamed so quickly and with so much foot thumping that it takes years to learn the words.

4. Three words: Water. Ski. Boys.

When I was at Raquette, strictly the staff who worked at Sail were at war with the staff who worked at Ski. They were always pissing around in our moorings, upsetting our Sunfish with their sleek Mastercrafts... and we only had a Whaler. I think we may have been resentful because all we got was that crappy Whaler. And it was the crappiest Whaler on girls OR boys side. Even Canoe had a bigger Whaler, and what the hell did they need a bigger Whaler for? But the water ski boys were hot. Oh, they were hot. (At Raquette, I only dated Ski boys.)

5. I think I slept better on a crispy Adirondack night on my creaky metal cot with sagging springs and extra blankets over my sleeping bag than I do in my actual bed.

6. Canoe trips. So during my CIT summer we went on a canoe trip from Blue Mountain Lake to Raquette Lake. We spent the night at the lean-to on Utowana Lake, which is a sort of widening of the river about 2/3 of the way to Raquette. This particular lean-to had three priceless pieces of graffiti I will never, ever forget:
Cryptically, "Jake the Nightcrawler... Jake the Snake."
Hilariously, "The Shitter is Full-- Call 911!"
And, scrawled on the rafter, "THE BULLFROGS DROVE ME MAD."

I wonder what it says these days. And whether they took care of that shitter.

7. Covert Ops. At CLN when we didn't like the furniture that came in our tent, we used to try to surreptitiously exchange it for the furniture in other people's tents without them noticing. My CIT summer we got caught carrying a shelf across camp. Once in a while, as a prank, someone would get drunk and pass out, and they would wake up in their bed... except that bed, staff member, and belongings would be sitting, intact, on the floating dock. I think at Raquette, boys side stole all our canoes overnight once. The best thing we ever pulled at CLN was my last summer, when we made contact with the Boy Scouts. We had this horrible director, and she was so paranoid and mean that a third of the staff quit. This British girl and I had the sailing program out at Tall Timbers. Bordering our property was Camp Wakpominee, but we never had anything to do with the Boy Scouts. At night we used to have to check in with these stupid walkie talkies. We hated doing it, because the procedure was lame and the words we had to say were lame too. One night, we hear this male voice pop out of the walkie: "Get the chocolate sauce. That seemed to go over well last time." It occurs to us that the Boy Scouts can hear us on their walkies at Tall Timbers because we're so far out! So we started to communicate with them. It turned out their code words were lame and cryptic too, and we had great laughs over them. Then we started sending letters back and forth, and they called our staff house. They sent me this ridiculous package, and that was when the director caught on and gave us a lecture on "the frivolous use of emergency communications devices."

7.(a) Thrilling Near-Death Experiences. Twice at Raquette I was within ten feet of a bear. And I mean a really large bear. You would be surprised at the little thrill you get at being alive once you've looked a bear in the eye. Once at CLN we dark walked (you know, it is shocking how many of these stories involve being in the woods with no flashlight) from one overnight campsite to another... only to wake up and realize the next morning we'd been walking along the edge of a huge cliff we never saw!

8. Really, really great rolling-on-the-floor jokes. Once we wore T.P. to dinner at Little Notch.

9. Intrigue. Life is SO MUCH MORE FUN when you have 60 people stranded in the woods all dating everyone at once! It's like a microcosm. You can date for 10 years, have a harrowing breakup, and betray your ex with his or her best friend and shock the world, only this all happens in eight weeks and thus is fraught with immediacy and tragedy! So juicy.

10. I am so tan at camp. At Raquette I vividly remember that every day at shower hour I would take off my life jacket and my uniform T-shirt and lie out in my bikini on the bow of the O'Day. And the ski boats would go back and forth from the office to boys side. And the O'Day would rock in the wake. And the Adirondack air smelled of pine trees.

11. I have all these crazy skills that I desparately want to brag about but that have no place in the real world. Like once at CLN we lined up in order of who had gone the longest without a shower (I held my own). Like I can swim over a mile. Like I have a wicked sense of balance in boats. Like I build a very technically proficient one-match fire. Like I can beat you in eating a bowl of Jello with my face. I surprise people by my ability to right a turtled Sunfish in 5 minutes even though I weigh 110 pounds (it's physics, bless me, what do they teach them at these schools?). I can tie a bowline around myself with one hand in under 6 seconds. Also, I know a song called The Aardvark Song. Which goes to the tune of the Danube Waltz as follows:

"It starts with an A, aardvark, aardvark
And ends with a K, aardvark, aardvark
Not easy to say, aardvark, aardvark
But try anyway, aardvark, aardvark
It starts with an A! A-R-D-V-A-R-K, aardvark!"

It is very popular at parties... with people age 13.

12. I am, seriously, an amazing cook on the open fire. I have the well-honed ability to make anything out of ground beef, cheese, and a roll of foil. Unfortunately, these formidable skills are not matched in the real kitchen.

13. The songs are better at summer camp. I still know all the words to all the verses. Sigh.

"I'll return to the woodlands, I'll return to the snow
I'll return to the hillsides, and the valley below
I'll return as a poor man or a king if god wills
But I'm on my way home to my piney wood hills"

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Tags: thursday thirteen, camp little notch, raquette lake, camp matoaka

Do Not Open This Book

I need to have a sign like that on my diaries from college, or better yet, just duct tape them closed so I can't look. You would think three years would be enough time. You would think I'd be able to deal with that shit by now. Last night I went to look up the lyrics to some song I wanted, which I remembered I'd written down in my summer of '01 book... and it must have planted the idea in my head that the books were there, on the shelf. So of course this morning I couldn't resist picking one up. Just now I peeked at my graduation entries for the first time in, oh, it's probably well over a year.

I swear, I needed to go to the fridge and immediately pound a Blue before I was OK.

I guess there are things you never get over.

Tags: st. lawrence, college, SLU, memories, Labatt Blue

Holy Names Reunion Fun

Well, not an official reunion, but I met up with my high school friends at Maria's wedding yesterday. It was really good to see everyone, since I am frequently the one out of touch. (I'm the only one who moved.) So from left we are: me, Maria (bride), Kerry (maid of honor), Melissa, and Gretchen. I really loved the black in the dresses. Afterward we went to Melissa's house and hung out for a couple hours, until I realized that it was midnight and I had to get up at 5 AM to catch my flight. How strange that you can be in Albany at 7:30 AM, and back in New Orleans again before noon. I guess I am not suited to the jetsetting lifestyle, because this fascinates me every time I fly.

Why is it impossible to reminisce about St. Lawrence without a beer?

Seriously. I have tried, but somehow never managed to succeed. I randomly started scrolling through the college stuff on my website, and I found myself laughing out loud. Then I thought, "Damn, what I need is a Blue." But of course, I live in New Orleans, where Blue is not readily available, so I grabbed a nice cold Miller Lite in a can.

Sigh. Sometimes I suspect I go long periods without reading these things or looking at pictures because some part of me knows I'll miss it and refuses to let that feeling bubble up. For instance, I have all my diaries from my St. Lawrence years (put them in my backpack and carried them with me out of Katrina, in fact), but I won't read them. Sometimes I even feel reluctant to talk to my friends because it will make me miss it (and sometimes, it's just geography and how busy we are).

I am just one of those people who truly believes I had the absolute best college experience ever. It's almost hard to describe how hilarious, and fun, and real it was. Blows me away that 2003 was three years ago... Well. Those pages just cracked me up this afternoon. The in jokes of the girls, the crazy nights at the Tick Tock (funny note: Mike's mom went to SLU and saw one of my pictures and said, "Is that place still there?"), the antics of me and Packy... If any of you Larries ever want to come down to New Orleans, you have a place to stay. All of you are welcome. And you're welcome forever.

Tags: st. lawrence, college, memories, SLU

Musings on My Brown SLU Hoodie

Having noticed that postings on this blog have become extremely nerdy as of late, I now offer for your reading pleasure something completely different: A list of Reasons Why I Love My Brown SLU Hoodie.
1. It is soft, especially the cuffs.
2. It keeps me warm on Boston days. Brrrr.
3. It's scarlet and brown! The blood and the mud, baby!
4. If you wear it with the hood up, you too can give off that Obi-Wan Kenobi vibe.
5. When you spill coffee and other substances on it, you don't have to wash it right away... cause it's brown! Yeah!
6. It doubles as a disguise. Because it is baggy. And brown.
7. Sense of history. It has been to two Snow Bowls, the Hoot Owl, and many sporting events. It has climbed mountains, and spent hours at the Pub. It has been hungover on Sundays. Ohhh yes, it has been hungover.
8. All the coolest people have one.