I remember the days when I used to dress up for Halloween. I would fall asleep the night before in this black sweatshirt that had this haunted house scene. The only reason I fell asleep in it was because it glew in the dark and I would hide under my covers and watch it glow all night. The next morning I would be already on a sugar high. After making my costume all month, I would be extremely excited to go to school and show it off in the parades we used to have. Halloween meant a day to goof off, when the teachers would dress up, give out lollipops and we would have themed crosswords to do, with words like “gremlin” and “witch.” Oh, the days of fun!
I know that I haven’t been updating lately, as Quig mentioned to me a few days ago. It’s hard to sit in front of a computer when the beach beckons and the sun is shining, but I can try. Amongst the end of semester projects and papers, I have been otherwise basically, doing nothing. I realized that I have to go back to work when I get back and my last semester at UAlbany, I am enrolled in 18 credits (6 classes), so I am not going to have time to just do nothing. After I finished all of my papers I had this past week to be lazy and read and catch up on a few pieces of writing that have been unfinished in my writing folder.
I can’t help but mention, one of my favorite professors in the past 4 years. It’s hard to believe I am graduating soon. It’s something you work so hard towards and when it finally comes you can’t help but ask yourself, “really?”
“What is special? Sacred, even? It all is. Your life. My life. Each experience each person has. There is truth in it all, and all of it is important, worth telling.” (Scott O’Callaghan, M.S., Prof. of English, Southern Vermont College).
Among the many insights Scott taught us, that always stuck with me somehow. I found it in my journal and rewrote it on a new page, because what it meant to me at 18, means something different at 21. All week I’ve been toying around with this idea that life, indeed, is sacred and those who do not see it should be told otherwise. It is dangerous in a way to forget what you have been given, the ability to see, to feel, to experience with the fogginess of routine, responsibility and minor issues. Your life is a powerful thing that if you take away your bills, your not so cool boss, papers that are due, whatever- you still have this thing idling there, knocking at your consciousness, saying “hello! Let’s go live!” And without that and that only, is it true that you are considered lifeless; dead. I can’t help but be caught up in the ills of society sometimes, we fall into the traps of not seeing tomorrow because of all the things that you have to do that tomorrow just seems not even fathomable. You always make it through and tomorrow becomes yesterday, yet a new tomorrow forms- making your worries still there, but on a new day.
You have to stand back and see that life and truth and experience, are like Scott said, special and even sacred. It is what makes everyone unique and beautiful in his or her own sense.
This isn’t exactly, “OMG, I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU’RE IN AFRICA AND DOING ALL THESE CRAZY THINGS!” Well… in South Africa, the days are not that much different than in New York. Of course, like in any country, there are going to be things that are cool and new, but after awhile, it all just seems like the same stuff. People have a hard time distinguishing the difference between Africa and South Africa, and oh yeah, all those other countries. Cape Town is beautiful. It has its days of rain and wind but days like this, where the sun is shining and the sky is picture perfect blue, make you look up and say, “Yeah, life is just fucking awesome.” But not because I am in South Africa. Not because of the things I have or don’t have. Not because of what I know or don’t know; the people I’ve met of have yet to meet, but because life was something I was given almost 22 years ago and it, no matter where you are, who you’re with or what you’re doing- is something that is a universal piece of happiness.
“But you cannot simply list all the moments when the world tickles your senses, only to seep away between your fingers and eyelashes, leaving you alone to tell the story of your life to an audience interested only in the fireworks or universal experiences, the roller coaster rides of sympathy judgment.”
I can honestly say that when I get home which is in about 22 days, I will be ecstatic to have a bagel and Starbucks. I want to be as American as I can be for about 20 minutes, and then share all my so-called new “worldly” views. Haha. Time here has flown by. The days have been exciting in the sense that I don’t have to DO ANYTHING other than just be. I have three finals, one every week starting this upcoming week. They’re only tests, questions on paper that see if you have been paying attention all term. I know I have, not sure if the grade of that exam will reflect that, but either way, I walk away knowing more than I did when I first walked into the lecture hall.
I haven’t worn shoes in a few days. They have turned into a sigh when I HAVE to put them on and that doesn’t necessarily have to be the case either. SA has no, “no shirt, no shoes, no service” law, so I have been grocery shopping, sitting in lectures and roaming the streets, barefoot. My mom probably just cringed when she read that.
So- as “uneventful” as things may seem, this has been the most relaxing and eye opening few weeks of my life, so far.
*mel
Saturday, October 31, 2009
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