So this post is mainly selfish. Actually, it may have started for selfish reasons, because I wanted a chance to be able to see words skitter across the screen and to feel important and reasoned and emotionally balanced. But it might be an opportunity for you to understand what is going on in my life.
In the three weeks that have passed since I have returned from choir tour in England, I haven’t really had the chance to slow down and process the events of the past three months. Heck, the past year. And as soon as I got off that plane in San Francisco International airport, I started to make a mental checklist of all of the things that I needed to get done or had neglected to do since the end of school. Things like unpack, move things into the temporary room, call friends, answer emails, pick up music, return camping gear, practice violin, upload photos, and get a grip on life.
It was surprisingly easy to become busy all of a sudden, surprisingly easy to tell myself that I should go into work the next day, and I did it. I got right back into the swing of things. I woke up early. I had breakfast. I went to work. All on the day after I got back home. It was too easy to try to get my life back on the upswing, to make it appropriately busy, social, and demanding. Because that’s what inevitably happens, and that’s what I want. (or wanted?).
So I signed up for the half marathon in San Francisco, which I promptly started training for. I began practicing with a friend some violin sonatas that we picked out. I started in earnest to study the Vieuxtemps concerto (a beast!). I cleaned my room, rearranged furniture, and checked out a bunch of books from the library. I called friends and scheduled lunch/dinner get-togethers, sent emails to those I neglected, and tried to catch up with my sisters’ lives.
But still, I feel unsure of myself. Why did I make my summer so busy? Precisely so that I wouldn’t have to have these moments of uncertainty, ones that I feel right now. Summer time has never felt so scattered. People are moving in and out of Palo Alto and the Bay Area. I am moving between two college residences. I work at Stanford but live at home. I thought I could ground myself with the work that I would do in the political science department. Instead, it has almost become a decentralizing force that causes me to miss college life and to remember that I am not part of it.
The little kids that run around on campus remind me especially of the fact that I am not at Stanford, currently. The entire dynamic of the campus has changed with the influx of kids attending summer school, tech camp, math camp, acting camp, EPGY, sports camp, yadda yadda. Suddenly there are high school kids with People to People or Junior Statesmen of America lanyards round their necks marching around campus like they own it. (I’m not saying that I don’t do that from time to time.) But their youthful confidence is something that I almost had a year ago (well, not really).
Fortunately, most of my work is done in the library. The library is like a church – large, magnificent, sobering, quiet, wonderful, and an institution. As I walk among the rows of books, I feel sad that I will never be able to access all of the knowledge that the library offers. I will never have the time to read about the way science was viewed in post-war Poland. I can never read all of the books Russian, Japanese, and Arabic. I will never be able to study Carribean film artists. But at the same time, it is uplifting to know that I have the possibility of accessing some of the library’s information, and that others can as well. It’s almost crazy to think of all of the man-hours devoted to the study of one subject, or the relation between many subjects. It’s wondrous to think that someone had the patience, the will, and the interest to study some of these subjects. I’m not trying to imply that some subjects are not meant to be studied or are not worthy of interest. It is precisely the value that is placed on knowledge that is fascinating.
This may or may not be a good phenomena, but I think it is an awesome one. That the minds of humans are geared towards curiosity and that they have the tenacity to pursue this curiosity humbles me.
And at this point in my post, I have reached what I selfishly set out to do.
