A Little Month

Four weeks ago I boarded a plane, and cried as I watched the east coast disappear into the distance and under the clouds. Four weeks ago I got my first look at the apartment that would become my home. Four weeks ago I arrived ready (or not) to begin my next grand adventure. And yet, this grand adventure really began far more than four weeks ago. It began before apartment hunting, before graduate school applications, and even before I had any clue it had begun.

Come with me now on a journey through time and space, to my senior year of high school. Normally this is not a time that I look on with particularly fond memories, but it was in this time that I made decisions that would shape my future in ways I could only imagine. I would have said that my choices of college and major were entirely too influenced by a certain young man, except that even then, in the height of high school foolishness, a plan was afoot. Fast forward two years - spent in Physics labs, traveling across the country to present my research, and generally discovering exactly what I did not want to spend the rest of my life doing - to my sophomore year of college when, on a whim, I decided to take a class on Chaucer. It was then that the course of my academic career, and my life, changed.

I would spend the next two years carrying my Norton Anthology of English Literature to Modern Physics lectures and my Biophysics text book to poetry seminars. It was an insane life, but it was mine, and I loved it. I had discovered that the diversity of my passions and interests was something to embrace - though how Schrodinger and Shakespeare harmonized was not always clear. Until now.

The journey that began all those years ago, with all of its twists, turns, and tangents along the way, has lead me to where I arrived four weeks ago. If I have learnt anything in the last six years, it is that there is a plan and that I, sure as anything, am not in charge of it. Lord only knows where I will be in another six years, or even in another four weeks. For now, mine is not to question why, mine is but to do and dive into what is before me.

Of Arts and of Letters

Today I had the immense joy of rediscovering the beauty, and I would argue the art, of letter writing. In my experience, there is something deeply alienating about modern communication: the more connected we are through the Internet and social media, the more isolating and superficial our relationships seem to become. With a letter, there is a personal quality that transcends the content. It is something ineffable: something that lies not in the lines on the page but in the very page itself. The tactile experience of receiving a letter, seemingly so insignificant and ordinary, has the power to collapse 1,200 miles into something I can hold in my hand. 

Not only does a letter serve as a physical bridge between friends separated by great distance, it also serves as a lasting representation of the time, affection, thought, and sentiments of its author toward its recipient. In this representation and manifestation of something higher and outside itself, the once simple piece of paper becomes imbued with the artistic vision. It is no longer a piece of paper, it is a work of art. It is the medium through which one intellect quite literally communicates an idea to another intellect, but the multifaceted nature of that idea is brought to richer fruition by the physicality of the medium. A letter from a lover to his beloved, from a mother to her child, or from one friend to another, carries within it all the tenderness and immediacy of their relationship because it is a physical symbol of the unity of two persons. 

But couldn't the same thing be said about any form of written communication? I argue, no. The blog post you are reading, though it is written with affection for each of you and in the hope of offering some insight into my life and ruminations here in Minneapolis, remains impersonal because it does not breach the barrier of the physical. I mean in no way to cast aspersions on the forms of modern communication we all use everyday: they each, for the most part, have their uses and their values, and I will readily admit that I prefer texting when making plans and that I would be lost without FaceTime to see my family (and most especially my dog). However, the convenience with which we can send texts or make a FaceTime call in a sense impedes true communication and connection. Yes, it is a technological marvel that we can speak in real time to someone on the other side of the world and even be looking at them through a camera while we are on the treadmill or at the grocery store. But how much more meaningful is it to intentionally set aside the time and the effort to compose a letter, with care toward both form and content, phrasing and penmanship, without the conveniences of spellcheck or auto-formatting? To pour one's quality time in a tactile entity encapsulates, in my opinion, the most substantial gesture of affection possible from a distance. 

Upon Beginning a New Chapter

This, my first week in Minneapolis, has been a motley assortment of trials and successes. Perhaps more trials thus far than successes. My emotions have run the gambit from ecstatic joy at finding a welcome package waiting for me at my new apartment, to sheer terror whilst attempting to find my building's laundry room. In the last seven days I have moved approximately 700 pounds of stuff up two flights of stairs, assembled bookcases and dressers, and managed to resist all but two cutesy items in Target's homewares department (seriously, though, my salt and pepper shakers are adorable). 

The reality of living away from home -- actually living and not visiting or studying abroad -- is sinking in by degrees. I had all sorts of hopes and expectations about the newfound freedoms I would enjoy and the adventures I would relish in a new city. While there certainly has been some of that, my day to day and hour to hour life has looked rather more like distracting myself from the weight of homesickness that seems determined to set up residence in my subconscious. 

The kettle really boiled over on Saturday night when I decided to be brave and attend a contra dance in the south of the city. Going in I felt great: I had succeeded in using both the bus and the light rail, and had arrived early enough to have a pleasant conversation with a nice older gentleman and even run into a handful of Catholic missionaries out for an evening's entertainment. This feeling of lighthearted enjoyment lasted no longer than it took me to walk through the doors to the dance hall. Immediately I was hit with an overwhelming sensation of loss. It wasn't that the dance hall at home dwarfed this one in comparison or that the band consisted of misfit musicians, it was that I had not realized just how much of my heart I had left behind. This dance hall could have been as grand as a palace and the band could have been the President's Own, but they were not my home and they were not my family.

Each day, though, has been an opportunity to learn and to grow. Even the hard days. Especially the hard days. Saturday taught me that it is okay to be sad and to miss home, but to not let that stop me from being bold and trying new things (or old things in a new place, as the case may be). 

I can't say for certain when I will feel it, but I know this one thing to be true: there is a plan for all of this -- a plan to give me a hope and a future.