Hi world.

How are things?

It’s ninety degrees out and raining in San Diego, but if you light a pumpkin candle and turn the air conditioner on, it almost feels like fall. So from Dante’s inferno of Septembers, I come to you with some thoughts on the real world, someone I used to know, and my secret dreams of fixing up a historic home.

ART KIDS

I cut through the art building on my way to class this morning and discovered a whole new part of campus that I didn’t know existed. There were murals and pottery wheels and paint-covered aprons hanging on open lockers. Students scurried around me, clutching giant pads of watercolor paper or life-sized canvases. Each had blue or purple hair and that manic sparkle in their eyes that I know all too well. It’s the one that comes over me when I just need to write something.

But what I loved was the clear distinction that this building had from any of the others. Just as the engineering building is full of nerds discussing quantum theory and other things I can’t even pretend to know about or how my own classes are dripping with kids like me who fell in love with books and the art of language and can never stop asking each other what they are reading—these kids belonged. They found their fellow paint-covered people and they all hang out in this one spot, sharing visions for their next project. I think that’s really beautiful.

THE REAL WORLD

I used to say my college campus reminded me of a microcosm of the real world, but I have since learned that there is no real world. There’s just the one and you don’t magically get access to it the day that you graduate. It’s already here, under your feet and tangled in your hair. It dug its nails into you the day that you were born.

So it’s not a microcosm of anything, it’s just the world. The one where we all flock to the spaces that make us feel most understood, most alive, and most like ourselves. The only difference is that in college, we pay for that luxury, whereas, hopefully, if we’re good enough, one day someone will pay us for doing the one thing that we can’t not do. That’s my plan anyway.

My professor told us today that he doesn’t understand why some other professors are counting down until the end of term from the day that a new one begins. He said that he tries to just enjoy the moment while he still has it because another semester gone is, in his words, another semester closer to death. I found that really funny because he is not particularly old, which makes it even better. Better, because he still has a long career ahead of him and not only is he not dreading that, he’s looking forward to it. He’s already grieving that it cannot go on forever. He loves what he does that much. I want that. More than anything, actually.

TO OR NOT TO

On a different note, today is the birthday of someone that I used to know. I know this because I can never seem to forget the birthdays of people that I have known, even if we haven’t spoken in years. So I am thinking about him, and how much he hated his birthday, and how strange it is that we don’t talk anymore. I wanted to send him a text, a happy birthday, a something to let him know that I remembered and that he is on my mind, but I can’t. At least, I don’t think I should. He loved me a lot and I broke his heart and there seems to be something kind of cruel about letting someone go, about making them go really, only to drop an unsolicited message one day because you felt like it.

On one hand, I’m a strong believer in being honest. I think that if you are thinking about someone or falling in love with them or just think that they are some kind of extraordinary, that you tell them. You just tell them because what else is the point? But on the other, I’ve been in his place. And while that text from the person who broke my heart might have appeared to have been what I wanted, I don’t think it was ever what I needed. I don’t hold any illusions in wanting to be with this guy again, in case things might be different. I know that they would not be. But I can’t exactly attach that as a footnote to a happy birthday text. I can’t exactly say, hey, thinking of you, have a great day, but not too great because I still don’t love you. You know? It would feel like some cruel reminder of what happened. So I’m writing it here instead as a kind of broken ode.

OLD BONES

In other news, I found this new show called In With the Old that I am completely obsessed with. Like, thinking about it while making breakfast or driving to school obsessed. Which, you might as well know, is how I measure my love for shows. Though, I suppose that is how we measure love for people too. Anyway. It’s all about restoring historic, abandoned or neglected homes, maintaining their old charm. I grew up in a historic home with parents who love nothing more than to go walk through the open houses of other historic homes on Sunday afternoons. It’s part of the reason why I fell in love with the east coast the first time I remember being there. There was history hiding under the ivy and behind the bricks that I could almost see. Those streets whisper stories as you walk down them.

So naturally, I love old homes. I’m always dreaming of buying one to raise a family of my own in with a garden for my children to touch the earth in and creaky old floors for them to dance on, just like I did. I talk a lot about New York, but my mother is holding out hope that I will come back to California and fix up the historic charmer that I always point out as my favorite. If an old Brooklyn Brownstone doesn’t get to me first, that is.

Anyway, the show. I love it for the same reasons that I love walking through the art building on campus or listening to my professor ramble on. It’s a display of true love and passion for something random that not everyone understands or loves, but that they do. I watched one last night where a cute couple in Texas was fixing up this gorgeous old home so that they could get married in their backyard. It was stunning and inspiring and all of the things. It made me dream of owning my own home, further isolating me from other twenty-one year olds, but while giving me something to look forward to. We need things like that.

What are your things?

Love always, m.

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