Recently I’ve realized that all the good and beautiful times here obscure
two concerns that have chronically put me on edge: the traveler’s black line,
and the graduate’s black hole.
Black line on the horizon
Tuesday September 20. It is still as hot and sunny as midsummer. I’m
biking across campus, two days before we’re all set to embark on another school
year. I feel a heavy weight settle on my chest. As exciting as all this is –
all my old friends are back in town, and new Piercians are trickling into the
house every day now – the beginning of Fall quarter also means the beginning of
my autumn here. For the first time in
months, after I’d managed to push it beyond my horizon with the extension of my
visa, that black line looms on the edge of my sight again. I came here alone,
but I can’t imagine how alone I’ll feel leaving this place. What will I do
without all these people? My life feels as it should here: people dancing
morning dances in the kitchen with me, holding me up for an hour or more when
I'm just passing through, people to cook for, brushing their teeth with me,
calling good night! from the living room, falling asleep in the bunk bed over
my head… Just people everywhere, intermixed in every other little moment of my
day. It’s unbearable to feel that richness slip away as the days tick by. I
have all these visions of arriving on the airport in Amsterdam, and lying on my
mom’s couch, lethargic and lonely, all these voices that surround me now still
ringing in my ears. This time it’s final, and I’ll have to come to terms with
my immanent departure.
For two weeks after that bike ride across campus, I walked around feeling
dejected and empty. A stark contrast to my usual mood. I was entering a process
of mourning while finding myself surrounded by so much newness and excitement.
I had a whole new house (11 out of 14 new Piercians!), and community to help
build and nurture. Amidst my resignation to letting go, I was still forging all
these new connections. It was a strange double life. What was I doing?
Shouldn’t I enjoy whatever precious time was left to me here? Why could I not
even find the motivation to try to be
happy again? How could I forget so fast what carefree happiness felt like? But
I didn’t want to rush out of that premature melancholy. I wanted to sit with
it, long and deep enough, until I’d figure out how I would want to relate to
it. Ignore it or embrace it? I journaled a lot, wrote and performed a song
about it, and talked to a lot of people. Interestingly, I felt myself increasingly
drawn to old co-opers: to their history, my legacy. I was very sensitive to the
realization of how many before me and mine had swept through this place, and
had their lives transformed by it and hearts broken when they had to leave. I took
to the Trico-ops’ history as I realized I myself would soon be history to this
place.
The Trico-ops biggest problem, in my view, is the loss of institutional
memory due to high resident turnover and lack of documentation. An opportunity
lay for me here to contribute. I have begun compiling a new Pierce hand book.
It will contain not only the logistics and practicalities of how to clean cast
irons and shop for 14 ravenous students, but more importantly, stories. Over the past few weeks, I have
been reaching out to a lot of old Piercians to collect anecdotes they wouldn’t
want to be forgotten. ‘The Pierce chronicler’, a friend called me, doing my
part in building that bridge between present co-opers and their legacy. It is
as much a gift to the community as it is therapeutic for me.
To top off my two weeks of intentional melancholy, I went on a trip to
visit a friend in the Bay who I knew had had a very hard time leaving the
Trico-ops three years ago. I figured he might have something useful to say
about my sadness. He did. By this time, I was starting to get impatient with my
sadness and was on the lookout for a word of wisdom that would pull me out.
Unexpectedly, it was a very nihilistic remark that did it for me: “You’re asking me what’s the point of it all?
There is no point. We were never supposed to have evolved this far. We’re a
fluke. But it’s still fucking awesome that we get to experience all of this.” When
I came home from that, I felt I had given my sadness the attention it needed
and deserved, and resolved to turning to life again. The next morning, I rose
early, worked out with my friend, and was dancing a breakfast dance for my housemates
in the kitchen again. ‘I guess we’re done being sad…’ I thought to myself, and
so it was. Done and ready to embrace the last round of countless precious
moments. All I can do is just be grateful for getting to experience all of
this. Staying active and daring to reach out for help showed me how surrounded by
love I am. What goes around comes around. I’m so thankful for all these friends
I’ve invested in so much, who were so ready to jump in with comforting words,
warm embraces and fond smiles that will echo inside me long long long after I'm
gone. Whether I'm here for another 2 days, 2 months or 2 decades, each moment
here lived in full surrender feels like it will fulfill me for a lifetime.
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Dinner at the Domes. Photo by Tanya
So why would
I leave?
From time to time people will blurt it out when we land on the topic:
“Stephanie stay forever!” I know they mean well, but for them it’s just a thoughtless,
impulsive remark. Their lives won’t change significantly whether I’m here or
gone. But me… It doesn’t make it easier to have them so casually drop that line
while I’m trying to convince myself that isn’t an option.
Now that I have graduated, there’s no real purpose to me being here
anymore. I’m already out of place, living amongst full-time students, having to
fill my days while they all study for papers and exams. I could find a new
purpose, like work, but my visa won’t allow me to get a real job. The only visa
I could readily get after this is a tourist visa, for only 3 months.
And we’re in a college town. This is inherently a place of transience,
the Trico-ops ultimately nothing but a backdrop to a few ephemeral college
years. Whether it’s 1 or 3 or 5 years, it ends. It was very comforting to hear
a friend tell me I’d probably seen as much in one year as he had in his three
years in the Trico-ops. I’ve been living my life in such surrender, cognizant
of every opportunity likely being the only one I’d ever get. I’ve really been
soaking it up, but I wouldn’t have if I wasn’t scheduled to leave.
And I know myself too well, I’m afraid, to know what trap is waiting
for me should I decide to stay. The same as what happened with University
College: I’d fall into my Curse of Comparison, wallow in regret, because
nothing could ever beat that magical novelty of the first year. Besides, all my
friends would graduate and disperse one by one. I can come back to this place,
but not to the experience. Time marches on mercilessly, and there’s no going
back, and no standing still. Another great comfort was my friend’s observation
that while my people may vanish from the scene, I will always be a part of this
community. Hopefully future Trico-opers will gladly receive me because they’ll
love me for loving this place. It reminds me of that Garden State quote: “Maybe that’s all family really is. A group
of people that miss the same imaginary place.”
And lastly, there’s a lot to say for leaving at my peak. I like to
leave parties before they die. I like them fluid, when I’m allowed to move
freely from scene to scene before I get bored and jaded. This is the same. Of course,
living your whole life like that is highly unsustainable. I hope that with all
that I’ve learnt here, I’ll one day find a community that I’ll want and can commit to growing with for an extended period
of time.
In short: yes, I would love to come back
to California. I have fallen in love with this land just as I have fallen in
love with its children. But it would have to be with a new purpose, and a new
life.
Creating your own meaning
Friends here – still in school – tell me how they would gladly trade my
freedom with me. Of course, it is such a relief not to feel stressed out or
guilty about school all the time. It’s as if summer break never ended. It surprised
me how quickly that chronic stress dissipates from your system and it becomes
harder and harder to fully empathize with others’ homework distress. It is such
a blessing to have all my time
available to fully experience rich life in the wider Davis co-op community. I
acknowledge and greatly appreciate my easy livin’, but there’s more to it than
that.
We have become so used to this giant structure that we can lean back
into and let create meaning for us.
All we need to do is follow the rules, play the game well, and we’ll end up
with a nice piece of paper at the end of those four years. And then the
structure falls away, and while your life still looks the same, you sense this
gaping nothingness. Your feet are dangling in it. People are scared of it, or
pressured not to venture there: they flee into grad school, or internships, or
a career. But if you take a minute to stare it in its terrible face, with unsteady
eyes, it’s definitely, undeniably there. And you realize that this time, you
need to create your own meaning. It’s in living in the face of the great nothingness
of existence that awesome, inspiring, unique lives are forged. Terrifying
though it is, that’s where I want to be.
People ask me all the time, ‘What are you going to do when you go
back?’ Well I don’t know. What even is a Liberal Arts degree? I feel very
qualified, but I have no idea for what. Work? What can I do? What do I want to
do? What opportunities are there? I didn’t learn anything about that in school…
And I don’t want to rush any decision about a master’s degree. Right now there’s
no one interest of mine that stands out enough to deserve my prolonged and undivided
funding and attention. What’s more, for years I’ve felt I would want a break
from college upon graduating, in acknowledgement of the many other angles from
which to approach life. I’ve been in school for almost two straight decades, the
very vast majority of my life! Time for a shift in perspective. Time for all
the other parts of my being that matter to me and I haven’t had time to explore
and develop: my art and music, my health and strength, craftsmanship, practical
life skills, engineering my own dwellings and transportation, knowing and
growing my own food…
Garden party
But before all that, I still have some time here that I need to create
meaning for. I keep myself busy, which is easy enough around here. I bike all
around town visiting friends in all the different co-ops. I spend entire days
just hanging out with people. And then in the weekends there’s always the parties.
Just in the last 5 weeks: at the Domes, under the Trico-op fig tree, at a farm
festival, in the Turtle House, a renegade dance party in the Arboretum, in a
Berkeley co-op, my graduation ceremony, Halloween, an ‘intimate house show’
celebrating our remodeled living room… With all that hanging out, and
absolutely zilch external structure or scheduling, I need to be very intentional
about blocking off times in my days to work on projects that will give my final
weeks meaning. Organizing events, painting murals, building a spiral herb
garden with the bricks of our old chimney, and most of all, compiling and
writing that new Pierce handbook. I want to contribute, make my time here
count, leave this incredible, transformative community better than I found it.
That would give me purpose. And after that? We’ll see…
