On Minnesota
When I look about me, I see trees, and what used to be lush forest. The harsh cold of fall stripped them bare and now skeletons jut from the surface of the frozen ground, snowless and sickly yellowish. I'm home. And for the first time, it feels like I'm home.
There's much work to be done for classes, but there are many more people to visit and pay my respects to. A hair-trimming is in store for tomorrow, and for the first time in over a year, a professional barber is going to touch my hair. Barbette? Either way, her name is Barbie and she's been cutting my hair since I was born.
In class the other day, David was doing a presentation. He became Hubert Henry Harrison, the unknown Harlem Renaissance philosopher. He gave everyone a note-card with a question on it, and ran it like an open forum. He did a wonderful job. My note-card said, "Where are you from?" Hubert Henry Harrison was from the Dutch West Indies. David answered the question flawlessly. After class I looked back at the note-card. "Where are you from?" it asked me, suddenly shifting its target from Hubert Henry Harrison to Jesse Carrington Raub. I tried to answer it in my mind to the best of my abilities. I told the card I was from Minnesota. I tried to convey the emotion of the landscape. But I couldn't. I tried to explain my upbinging, but it didn't care. So I put it away in my school bag.
When I moved back in for break, I found the card lying on the floor of my room. I picked it up, and it seemed to be pressing me further - "Where are you from?" - in it's foreign scrawl. I know it's David's handwriting, but I block that from my mind. It's the card's handwriting, and the card wants to know where I am from. I folded it in six spots, and arranged it in sort of a semi-circle on the shelf above my computer screen. Then I left. This was two-days ago.
Tonight, as I was beginning this entry, I looked up at that card. I looked up and saw for the first time what it was really asking me. "Where are you from?" it queries, "Where are you from?" Well I looked up at that card, and as I read it I said to myself, "Why, right here." And it was so true it hurt.
There's much work to be done for classes, but there are many more people to visit and pay my respects to. A hair-trimming is in store for tomorrow, and for the first time in over a year, a professional barber is going to touch my hair. Barbette? Either way, her name is Barbie and she's been cutting my hair since I was born.
In class the other day, David was doing a presentation. He became Hubert Henry Harrison, the unknown Harlem Renaissance philosopher. He gave everyone a note-card with a question on it, and ran it like an open forum. He did a wonderful job. My note-card said, "Where are you from?" Hubert Henry Harrison was from the Dutch West Indies. David answered the question flawlessly. After class I looked back at the note-card. "Where are you from?" it asked me, suddenly shifting its target from Hubert Henry Harrison to Jesse Carrington Raub. I tried to answer it in my mind to the best of my abilities. I told the card I was from Minnesota. I tried to convey the emotion of the landscape. But I couldn't. I tried to explain my upbinging, but it didn't care. So I put it away in my school bag.
When I moved back in for break, I found the card lying on the floor of my room. I picked it up, and it seemed to be pressing me further - "Where are you from?" - in it's foreign scrawl. I know it's David's handwriting, but I block that from my mind. It's the card's handwriting, and the card wants to know where I am from. I folded it in six spots, and arranged it in sort of a semi-circle on the shelf above my computer screen. Then I left. This was two-days ago.
Tonight, as I was beginning this entry, I looked up at that card. I looked up and saw for the first time what it was really asking me. "Where are you from?" it queries, "Where are you from?" Well I looked up at that card, and as I read it I said to myself, "Why, right here." And it was so true it hurt.