dead leaves and the dirty ground
It's gloomy and rainy today and it's the first day of school here in Sarasota. It's hot out, but I'm inside where it's cool and quiet and all I want to do is layer up in hoodies, wrap a scarf around my throat, and walk the 12 blocks of New York City in between U-Hall and CAS - I mean, the Silver Center. Once I've shown the guard my ID, I'll climb the three floors to the Fine Arts library, where I'll find a table packed with my Greek art classmates. I want there to be a tiny space at the corner of the table, just big enough for me to pull up one of the boxy wood chairs. I want to balance my three thick textbooks on my lap, carefully hide my contraband cappucino from Space Market between my feet, under the table, where the library monitor won't see it.
I'll pull out my notes and stacks of notecards ('completed', 'needs more info', 'the virgin unused'). Then I'll dig into a daunting stack of blurry slides, lay them flat against the illumination table and try to uncover their secrets. I want the day to melt by outside the large bay windows while my classmates and I slowly groan and joke and mentally fumble our way through half a semester's worth of ancient (4000-700 BC) Greek art. None of the slides are accurately or completely labeled, our text books will grow more and more dog-eared with each passing minute as we flip back and forth, searching for hidden answers. I want to feel the sleuth's and the excavator's triumph of finding that one missing currant of information - this is not the work of a Mycenaean, that is a funerary votive - and know that, yes, I am learning. And then I want to move on to the next slide and do it all over again. And when I go home, the sun will have already set and Manhattan will glow with the gentle diffused light of its own electric breath.
It's hard to wrap my brain around the idea that this is a part of my life that is over forever. It's difficult to believe that this day only exists in my past.
I'll pull out my notes and stacks of notecards ('completed', 'needs more info', 'the virgin unused'). Then I'll dig into a daunting stack of blurry slides, lay them flat against the illumination table and try to uncover their secrets. I want the day to melt by outside the large bay windows while my classmates and I slowly groan and joke and mentally fumble our way through half a semester's worth of ancient (4000-700 BC) Greek art. None of the slides are accurately or completely labeled, our text books will grow more and more dog-eared with each passing minute as we flip back and forth, searching for hidden answers. I want to feel the sleuth's and the excavator's triumph of finding that one missing currant of information - this is not the work of a Mycenaean, that is a funerary votive - and know that, yes, I am learning. And then I want to move on to the next slide and do it all over again. And when I go home, the sun will have already set and Manhattan will glow with the gentle diffused light of its own electric breath.
It's hard to wrap my brain around the idea that this is a part of my life that is over forever. It's difficult to believe that this day only exists in my past.