Don't you love reflective moods?
I’m actively supporting an initiative to include gender expression and identity in our college’s non-discrimination policy. What this involved today was going directly from my morning class to sit at a table in the union and harangue passing students to devote 10 seconds to signing a preprinted statement of support. I printed the statements of support. I bought pens, markers, and posterboard and made a sign. I harassed anyone who appeared approachable to come and sign my papers. I explained fifty times what gender identity entails, and collected over 60 signatures and approximately 4 “maybe laters”- the college student code for “I’m uncomfortable saying no to your face”.
What I did not do is retrieve my backpack from my dorm room.
One o’clock snuck up and suddenly it was time for my afternoon class. And there was no time to go get the requisite books and notebooks every English class requires. So I went, unprepared. It’s one thing to go to class knowing that the right book isn’t in your backpack. You’re able to project the illusion that you have the book with you, you just haven’t bothered to take it out yet. But when you go to class without a backpack, you’re exposed. The fact that you’re unprepared is evident even before you lean over to borrow a sheet of paper from the girl next to you. You’re reluctant to meet the professor’s eye, but at the same time you can’t bury your face in a book like your classmates. You have nowhere else to look. So you doodle on the paper you’ve borrowed and hope someone else will say the first thing, the comment that you can then build upon insightfully, the question that will inspire a recollection that you can share. After that, you make more comments than you usually would to prove something to yourself and to the professor. You’re saying “See?I don’t need the book to be prepared.” Maybe it works.
Walking from class to work was the most challenging part of my day. I never realized how protected my jacket and backpack make me feel. They’re a part of me. Yes, without the added weight of my cumbersome backpack I can walk a little straighter and a little faster. But I also feel foolish and vulnerable, as if I were walking naked down the street. I’m not wearing a college T-shirt and I feel like part of my identity is missing. The backpack symbolizes student status. I can see that the people I’m passing belong on the campus because they’re wearing the trappings of academia. Not the robes of ceremonial functions, but instead the armloads of books and the heavily weighted backpacks that identify both student as professor as someone who is on their way to or from class. Without my backpack I’m no longer as connected. I could be heading anywhere, unprepared. I have no purse, jacket, backpack. I’m not concealing anything. When they pass me they cannot assume that I’m going to class, to the store, to the library. I wonder if they notice that I’m unprepared. That without my cell phone, without my wallet, I feel apprehensive? If there were an accident in front of me, I couldn’t call 911. If I needed something from Walgreens, I have no way to buy it. I wonder if the few holdouts who don’t own cell phones feel this way all the time. If they always feel a little free and a little vulnerable, both more and less connected to the people around them. If when there’s an accident, she expects someone else will make the call. If she enjoys how when her mother wants to reach her, she’ll have to track down the right number for her location instead of expecting her to be constantly available. Without my backback, I feel younger. Perhaps due to the unusually pleasant spring weather I’m reminiscent of the very last day of grade school each year, when you’d turned in all your books and grades had closed. You didn’t take a backpack to school unless you still needed to clean out your locker. Being unprepared today brings back some of that sense of freedom. For today, unintentionally, I’ve freed myself of the weight of my responsibilities. The literal weight of my books, folders, keys, and notes is secondary to the emotional weight of not having my cell phone. Completely unintentionally, I’m not “on call” for my mother, my organizations, or my friends for the first time in recent memory. It seems a little irresponsible, and a little selfish. But it also feels right.
And it is, after all, only temporary.
After work ends I’m finally free to go back to my room and shoulder again the burden of all my “stuff”. I can check my voicemail messages and attempt to muster the ambition write some overdue essays. And tomorrow I’ll be prepared for class, weighed down by my sack of student essentials. But today I was unprepared, vulnerable, and free. And maybe someday I’ll have the courage to do it again, intentionally.
To summarize, the weather was nice and I went to class unencumbered by the requisite books, notebooks, pens, etc. and the backpack that usually contains them.
As an additional disconcerting note to the day, my sandal broke while I was crossing Bagley road and I had to walk barefoot back to my dorm from North campus. I'm sure this is a sign, but I don't know what of? That I need new shoes, perhaps.
I also got a random request at one in the morning to play DD. On a Tuesday night. So of course, I went. Who can turn down a random request from their little and her roommate to drive for the first time in nearly a year so they can get their mid-week booze on?
What I did not do is retrieve my backpack from my dorm room.
One o’clock snuck up and suddenly it was time for my afternoon class. And there was no time to go get the requisite books and notebooks every English class requires. So I went, unprepared. It’s one thing to go to class knowing that the right book isn’t in your backpack. You’re able to project the illusion that you have the book with you, you just haven’t bothered to take it out yet. But when you go to class without a backpack, you’re exposed. The fact that you’re unprepared is evident even before you lean over to borrow a sheet of paper from the girl next to you. You’re reluctant to meet the professor’s eye, but at the same time you can’t bury your face in a book like your classmates. You have nowhere else to look. So you doodle on the paper you’ve borrowed and hope someone else will say the first thing, the comment that you can then build upon insightfully, the question that will inspire a recollection that you can share. After that, you make more comments than you usually would to prove something to yourself and to the professor. You’re saying “See?I don’t need the book to be prepared.” Maybe it works.
Walking from class to work was the most challenging part of my day. I never realized how protected my jacket and backpack make me feel. They’re a part of me. Yes, without the added weight of my cumbersome backpack I can walk a little straighter and a little faster. But I also feel foolish and vulnerable, as if I were walking naked down the street. I’m not wearing a college T-shirt and I feel like part of my identity is missing. The backpack symbolizes student status. I can see that the people I’m passing belong on the campus because they’re wearing the trappings of academia. Not the robes of ceremonial functions, but instead the armloads of books and the heavily weighted backpacks that identify both student as professor as someone who is on their way to or from class. Without my backpack I’m no longer as connected. I could be heading anywhere, unprepared. I have no purse, jacket, backpack. I’m not concealing anything. When they pass me they cannot assume that I’m going to class, to the store, to the library. I wonder if they notice that I’m unprepared. That without my cell phone, without my wallet, I feel apprehensive? If there were an accident in front of me, I couldn’t call 911. If I needed something from Walgreens, I have no way to buy it. I wonder if the few holdouts who don’t own cell phones feel this way all the time. If they always feel a little free and a little vulnerable, both more and less connected to the people around them. If when there’s an accident, she expects someone else will make the call. If she enjoys how when her mother wants to reach her, she’ll have to track down the right number for her location instead of expecting her to be constantly available. Without my backback, I feel younger. Perhaps due to the unusually pleasant spring weather I’m reminiscent of the very last day of grade school each year, when you’d turned in all your books and grades had closed. You didn’t take a backpack to school unless you still needed to clean out your locker. Being unprepared today brings back some of that sense of freedom. For today, unintentionally, I’ve freed myself of the weight of my responsibilities. The literal weight of my books, folders, keys, and notes is secondary to the emotional weight of not having my cell phone. Completely unintentionally, I’m not “on call” for my mother, my organizations, or my friends for the first time in recent memory. It seems a little irresponsible, and a little selfish. But it also feels right.
And it is, after all, only temporary.
After work ends I’m finally free to go back to my room and shoulder again the burden of all my “stuff”. I can check my voicemail messages and attempt to muster the ambition write some overdue essays. And tomorrow I’ll be prepared for class, weighed down by my sack of student essentials. But today I was unprepared, vulnerable, and free. And maybe someday I’ll have the courage to do it again, intentionally.
To summarize, the weather was nice and I went to class unencumbered by the requisite books, notebooks, pens, etc. and the backpack that usually contains them.
As an additional disconcerting note to the day, my sandal broke while I was crossing Bagley road and I had to walk barefoot back to my dorm from North campus. I'm sure this is a sign, but I don't know what of? That I need new shoes, perhaps.
I also got a random request at one in the morning to play DD. On a Tuesday night. So of course, I went. Who can turn down a random request from their little and her roommate to drive for the first time in nearly a year so they can get their mid-week booze on?