In Which You Can Go Home Again

I would like to begin by saying that I hope this will be the last of the quasi-emo posts for awhile. That said, this is a blog in which one of the main intentions is to chronicle my immediate after-college life, so whether I like it or not, some of the posts are going to have that nostalgic, almost pathetic, "where-is-my-life-going?" quality. I guess it comes with the territory.

Now that that's out of the way: yesterday I made my first "real" visit to school as an alum to see the Old Shit Show (and attend the subsequent cast party). My father would probably call this visit a "Triumphant Return," and I am glad to say that I think in this case he would be correct in doing so. I admit that I was very nervous about it beforehand. I didn't know how I was going to feel, for instance, seeing the troupe I had been in (and for one year led) perform without me, about being an outsider looking in. Luckily, I didn't feel that way. The show was wonderful, and it was great to see some new talent on stage. They even did one of the sketches I wrote, which gave me the extra thrill of hearing people laugh at it all over again. Furthermore, I was received really well by the troupe - who are my friends, after all. It was an honor and a comfort to know that I have been missed.

Being on the actual campus itself, it was like I had never left. One of my greatest fears, in the weeks immediately preceding graduation, was that as soon as I graduated, the physical campus would no longer "belong" to me and I would never feel the same way again about being on it. But I guess that, inasmuch as the campus "belongs" to anyone who attends the school in the first place, it can never really not belong to them. Although both I and it will change, it will (hopefully) in some ways always be familiar to me.

I had a really great time. Perhaps a little too great of a time, as in addition to the memories and whatnot that I brought home this morning, I also brought a bit of a hangover. But what surprised (and perhaps pleased) me the most about the entire experience was that as I got off the T this morning and started the walk to my apartment, passing by the now-familiar shops and restaurants on the way, I thought to myself, "Oh. I'm home." I haven't yet lived here for a month, and already it has become what I wasn't sure I would be able to so easily find after leaving college: a home. I think most of the reason I can visit school without having too many of the "why-don't-I-still-go-here?" feelings is that at the end of the day, I have a place to return to. And while perhaps "you can't go home again," if you're lucky, home becomes wherever you are, and you never really have to leave.

In Which Metaphor Is Used As A Rhetorical Device

In the last post I mentioned my uneasiness with the transition between college and not-college. It's an uneasiness that began as far back as this time last year and has increased exponentially until now. Even at this point, when I've started working and pretty much completely removed myself from college life, there are some days when I wake up and can't believe it's over. There's a big part of me - the rational, thinking part - that knows I wouldn't even enjoy being there if I still had the opportunity; I started being bored with classes early during my final semester, so I can only imagine that my tolerance for them now would be nil. But there's another part of me - the emotional part - that longs for the order, the stability, the familiarity of being a college student. I have to remind myself, sometimes, of how scared I was when I first started college; how, for those first few weeks at least, (that first semester, even) I was grasping for something that would keep me grounded. And though I have to believe that what I'm going through now is a lot like that, I can't yet escape the feeling that this, what's happening now, is a whole new world - and not in a Disney kind of way.

There's a poem I love that I think really captures the essence of what I am feeling, maybe more than I can verbalize myself. It's by a poet named Tony Hoagland; for those who are maybe averse to poetry for the reason that it is difficult to understand, I would strongly recommend him. His poetry, while easily understandable, is also so poignant, so true. Anyway, here it is.

Two Trains

by Tony Hoagland

Then there was that song called "Two Trains Running,"
a Mississippi blues they play on late-night radio,
that program after midnight called FM in the AM,
--well, I always thought it was about trains.

Then somebody told me it was about what a man and woman do
under the covers of their bed, moving back and forth
like slow pistons in a shiny black locomotive,
the rods and valves trying to stay coordinated

long enough that they will "get to the station"
at the same time. And one of the trains
goes out of sight into the mountain tunnel,
but when they break back into the light

the other train has somehow pulled ahead,
the two trains running like that, side by side,
first one and then the other, with the fierce white
bursts of smoke puffing from their stacks,
into a sky so sharp and blue you want to die.

So then for a long time I thought the song was about sex.

But then Mack told me that all train songs
are really about Jesus, about how the second train
is shadowing the first, so He walks in your footsteps
and He watches you from behind, He is running with you,

He is your brakeman and your engineer,
your coolant and your coal,
and He will catch you when you fall,
and when you stall He will push you through
the darkest mountain valley, up the steepest hill,

and the rough chuff chuff of His fingers on the washboard
and the harmonica woo woo is the long soul cry by which He
pulls you through the bloody tunnel of the world.
So then I thought the two trains song was a gospel song.

Then I quit my job in Santa Fe and Sharon drove
her spike heel through my heart
and I got twelve years older and Dean moved away,
and now I think the song might be about good-byes--

because we are not even in the same time zone,
or moving at the same speed, or perhaps even
headed towards the same destination--
forgodsakes, we are not even trains!

What grief it is to love some people like your own
blood, and then to see them simply disappear;
to feel time bearing us away
one boxcar at a time.

And sometimes, sitting in my chair
I can feel the absence stretching out in all directions--
like the deaf, defoliated silence
just after a train has thundered past the platform,

just before the mindless birds begin to chirp again
--and the wildflowers that grown beside the tracks
wobble wildly on their little stems,
then gradually grow stil land stand

motherless and vertical in the middle of everything.

In Which There Is Hope In The Face Of Change

There has been a lot of talk about change recently.

Unless you've been living under a rock (or over the age of 30), you are no doubt aware that Facebook has changed its format. And from all the status updates I've been reading, this is a BIG deal. Apparently, people really, really don't like these changes. I guess I can understand why: if there is anything that binds us together as a generation, it is Facebook. But please: before we all resort to the ultimate act of Facebook civil disobedience and join the "1 million members against the New Facebook" Facebook group, maybe we should look at a few of the reasons why we should just move on with our lives.

Now, I should probably preface by saying that in general, I don't like change (see: leaving college, starting real life). I prefer things to be familiar. But if I'm given enough time to get used to the idea of an impending change before it happens, I can usually pull through alright (see: leaving college, starting real life). The point I'm trying to make in relation to Facebook is this: unless you haven't left the safety of that rock (or were born before 1978), you knew this change was coming. For at least a month now (maybe two, or longer?) Facebook has been advertising at the top of the page that it was going to make the switch. They even afforded us the opportunity to try it out. So even though everything is new and scary, we knew it was going to be that way. Let's chalk that up as a positive.

Also, this isn't the first time Facebook has changed. The way Facebook has been up until now is different from the way it was when it first started in 2004, and together we've made it through even the most drastic of changes, such as the addition of the News Feed in 2006. I know we can get through it this time around. And while I'm can't say I'm totally into the new format, I can say this: when my number finally came up a few days ago and I logged on to a whole new Facebook world, I felt at peace with the change. Yes, I'll have to re-learn how to navigate the site to find exactly what I'm looking for, and I'm not really looking forward to that at all. I chose to look on the bright side, though: maybe now that everything's changed and I don't know where things are, I won't spend as much time keeping track of the lives of people I haven't spoken to since high school.

But I wouldn't count on it.

In Which The Narrator Elaborates on Her Intent

"There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know until he takes up a pen to write."
-William Makepeace Thackeray, The History of Henry Esmond

For a long time I was vehemently opposed to the idea of personal blogging. The rise in popularity of such websites as Xanga and LiveJournal when I was in high school, with the angsty, teenage, I-hate-my-life kind of writing they sported, led me to believe that journaling should stay in actual journals, where it belonged, away from public eyes. I remained with the attitude that diary entries belonged in diaries, not on the internet. As an avid diarist myself (I began when I was 12 years old and continued regularly through high school, and less regularly through college) I couldn't imagine the things I wrote in those journals being broadcast on the World Wide Web. And that's the way it was.

It was only very recently that my views about personal narrative and the internet changed. It becomes more and more apparent to me that in today's world almost everything revolves around the internet (I realize I might be a little late to this party, but at least I've arrived). Additionally, I am finally beginning to see myself as someone who has something to say - not just to a piece of lined paper, but to whomever wishes to read it. And while I'm not exactly sure what that "something" is, I plan on finding out here.

And that, in short, is the premise for beginning this blog.


P.S. A word about the title of this blog and my reasons for it: The title comes from my favorite book, Vanity Fair, by my (subsequently) favorite author, William Makepeace Thackeray. (If you were paying attention, the quote at the beginning of this post also comes from a W.M.T. novel). The novel's heroine, Becky Sharp (that's her at the top of the page), is a social climber who through her wit, charm, and (above all) intelligence is able to rise from humble beginnings to enjoy an opulent lifestyle without actually paying any money to maintain it. Here's what all this has to do with me: as a recent college graduate just beginning the rest of my life, I see myself as, metaphorically, starting with nothing. My challenge is to take that "nothing," learn from it, and, by consequence, live well.