Sorry for the delay between posts. It goes without saying: I’m far too busy, far too often. That’s not to say I haven’t technically had the time to update this. As hectic as my current schedule is, I’d be lying if I said I never had a free hour in the week to devote to writing. But on the rare occasion that I am free, I find myself too exhausted to do anything that requires thought.
Every day goes according to the same routine: wake up at 8 and head to campus for classes and labwork, leave campus around 9 or 10pm, stop by the Asian Ghetto for dinner, walk home, start to work for my real job in San Diego, or start whatever homework is due in the following morning. When that is finished, I should sleep. After all, it’s well after midnight at this point, and my shot at getting a full night’s sleep is already forfeit. But instead, I invariably spend an hour playing guitar, or watching TV, or my newest Netflix acquisition. Not because I want to, so much as I need to. I need a moment of solitude — a part of the day, purposeless as it may be, that is singularly mine. It’s a chance to play the part of a person free of responsibility: the type who would have the luxury of wasting an hour in front of a television screen, with nowhere to be in the morning. Even as the actor stifles a yawn, his character is wide awake and enjoying himself. When I do go to sleep, it will be on my terms. Even if it’s only for a handful of hours.
Routine does strange things to you. This semester has flown by in a flurry of lectures, lab meetings, exams, presentations, papers, projects, and all-nighters spent with a bright, buzzing computer screen in a windowless lab. Everything feels nonlinear and fragmented. Yesterday it was January and I was at a Starbucks in Big Bear, learning “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” on a friend’s ukulele. This morning was February and I was leaving the lab after my third consecutive night, delirious and frustrated. Now it’s March, and I’m sitting in Cafe Med with a cup of coffee hoping to cram a post in before the midnight closing time sends me back to the responsibilities I’ve left in my apartment. In a few minutes my midterms will be over, and I’ll be driving past the sign for Pea Soup Anderson’s at 3 in the morning just north of Bakersfield, looking forward to a week-long break. Then with a blink I’ll reverse directions, passing the same mile marker and wondering where the time went. By sunrise, it will be May and I’ll be on a plane to Anchorage, reviewing my presentation and cramming for finals. Land, mingle, take off, land, and with the scratch of a pen and the close of a bluebook the semester will be over. A month-long break in San Diego should decelerate things a bit. Then in June I’ll be back in the lab, where I’ll spend the bulk of my summer in research. And everything speeds up again.
This would all be easier to accept if I had a vague idea of what I was sprinting towards — preferably a clear finish line which, upon crossing, would guarantee to slow everything down to a manageable pace. But so far, no luck. I don’t know where I’ll be a year from now, and certainly have no guarantee that it will be any less stressful than where I am now. And I get the feeling I should stop searching for it.
A few weeks ago, I drove to San Francisco with a friend for a concert. Since the artist isn’t especially popular, I assumed there would be tickets available at the door. Of course, I was wrong. (Never underestimate the hipness of San Franciscans.) But since I was his ride, I couldn’t go home without him. So while my friend enjoyed the show, I drove around looking for a way to pass the time till 1:00.
After dinner at Tommy’s Joynt and dessert at Mel’s Drive-In, I wound up at Pier 39. During the day it’s by far the most touristy part of all San Francisco. After midnight on a weekday, it’s a ghost town.
Past the shops, restaurants, arcade, and carousel, is a bench at the end of the dock. It’s hardly a typical place to sit and relax. Waves lap against the creaky pier, flags flap loudly in the breeze, and the wind is chilly and unrelenting. Not to mention the resident sea lions, which feel the need remind the world of their presence every few seconds with a splash, cackle, and hoarse bark.
Straight ahead is Alcatraz. To the right is a view of the East Bay, the Berkeley Campanile just out of sight. To the left is the Golden Gate bridge, the Presidio, Hyde St. Pier, and Ghirardelli Square. Any given afternoon, crowds of visitors would be wrestling cameras out of their fanny packs and desperately fighting for a view. Now there’s only me; and I love it.
If this seems reminiscent of another post to you, you’d be right. The busier I get, and the more worried about my future I become, the more I cling to moments like this. To reverse the platitude, it’s a much-needed chance to forget the forest and see only trees. Taking insignificant things (a sea lion barking, a wave lapping, lights in the distance) and letting them, for a moment, be all that there is. Call it existential if you’d like. It’s a sort of primordial joy in simply existing, free of all context. Or to take a cue from Joanna Newsom,
We could stand for a century
Staring
With our heads cocked in the broad daylight
At this thing:
Joy,
Landlocked in bodies that don’t keep
Dumbstruck with the sweetness of being
Til we don’t be
It’s a feeling I don’t get often enough, but one I would love to replicate. That sense of feeling “dumbstruck with the sweetness of being.” It comes to me most often as a strictly emotional response — but why is it limited to that? What if I could experience it sitting in a lecture hall, or slouching home after another all-nighter? Not as a response to my surroundings, but as an affirmation of an obvious truth. In a universe which is mostly comprised of the lifeless and the deterministic, being is an astonishing thing. And it persists in all circumstances. Taking it as the sole meaning of life makes for an insane philosophy. But ignoring it completely makes for a jaded worldview. I don’t know where I’ll be a year from now; but thank God that I’ll be a year from now. For the moment, that should be enough.
I find myself in the opposite situation but with the same result. I just don’t have anything to do all day and try desperately to cope with my boredom. When I start to feel like I have cabin fever, I find myself standing on the balcony watching cars go by and thinking about life. I really feel like I’m doing the best I can for the situation I am in and know it is all just something that I have to do before I can settle down into the rest of my life.
I often find myself jealous of people like you and others that seem to have the same type of schedule. My google calendar tells me everyday all the things my friends have scheduled while I struggle to put 10 items on my Remember the Milk over a 2 month period (most of which is bills). But I guess it’s one of those ‘the grass is always greener’ situations.