First Report from the Homestead

I'm back in the 'burbs, until further notice. I will hopefully have a job back in New York in July, through Tisch working with high school students, but for the next six weeks at least I'm back in the house I've lived in my entire life.

Today I took my dog for a walk (because that's the only way I really get to do any walking here), and as we were walking through a field by the park I always played at when I was little and always walked home through in junior high, and took a couple boyfriends to in high school, I was thinking about having been stationary for so long. Literally in the same place for 18 years of my 20-year-old life. (Oh right, I turned 20 on Monday. But more about that later.) For as long as I can remember I've always been restless. When I was in elementary school, I couldn't wait for junior high. When I was in junior high I hated it and couldn't wait for high school. I hated high school less but by halfway through freshman year I was ready for college. High school, like everything before it, bored me. Forgive me if I sound pretentious for saying so, but I only had about three or four classes in high school that really challenged me. For those classes I am thankful, but even with 8 AP classes over the course of 3 years, I still managed straight A's in high school and I don't feel that that's as big an accomplishment as it sounds.

The thing I loved most about high school - and to some extent junior high - was my conversations with teachers, and that has crossed over into college. I have always seen teachers to be incredible resources that most students leave untapped beyond the classroom. Still I have learned as much if not more from having individual conversations with them than in their classes. I still meet with a group of my teachers when I come home each year; two English teachers and a math teacher, all of whom know my family pretty well at this point because they all had my brother as well. What I frequently talked about with them, though, was my need to get out, to get away from this place - by my freshman year I had articulated that I wanted to get away to New York. We talked about frustrations with students who didn't understand how valuable the opportunity to learn is, the chance to be in school and gather all the knowledge you can before you have to go out into the dreaded "real world" and work for a living, not just learn.

My desire to learn is part of what made me such a successful and serious student, which is still true in college, almost to my detriment. I can do the work, sure, but in art school it's about more than doing the work; it's about having heart and emotion and letting things breathe. It's ironic that, for such a voice and speech junkie, I have a hard time physically breathing but also letting my work breathe. I'm too concerned about getting the work done to give myself time to think about it and just let it happen. Now that is partially a product of my personality but also the result of the structure of second year at Playwrights. There is simply too much to be done, to some extent on purpose. I'm hoping in the third year I'll learn to breathe. After our panels with our second year faculty we had to fill out an evaluation thing for NYU about what we thought the teachers said to us complete with our goals for improving on each of their critiques. I literally wrote on my overall goals for next year: have fun, laugh, and breathe. Among other things. But I'm sure that will shock/amuse/concern some NYU administrator if they actually read that paper. But I was being serious. As always.

So here I am, desperately pushing forward, but still back in my little hometown. It was a fine place to grow up, but I've always had bigger goals than these streets. I don't need a lawn if I'm close to a city park. Definitely don't need to drive on a regular basis. Prefer to walk and bump up against strangers. One of the bittersweet blessings of Joel breaking up with me and the unfortunate fact of having to sleep in my distant bed every night was the frequent walks from my dorm to class or elsewhere. I loved looking down streets I had never walked and wondering what I might find if I had the time to wander in a new direction. I truly believe there is magic in the streets of New York. Something is very special about this city I love so much.

I'm trying to enjoy my time at home. I'm enjoying sleeping, and the comfort of my bed and my own room, and not having 8 million things to do or being stressed out by homework assignments. I'm loving having my dog cuddle up in bed with me while I read a book for fun. But at the same time I miss my friends and I miss the pace of the city and the stimulation of school. And I'm stressed about finding a job for the summer, because living in my dear city requires money.

I was going to talk about my last days in New York, but I don't feel like it right now. I'm going to escape back into the pages of The Lost Symbol for now. Maybe another post will appear later to continue to distract me from unpacking my too-much-stuff in my not-yet-clean-again room.

I miss Joel, and I miss Colleen, and I miss my teachers and my friends and the booth of the Moss and walks home past midnight and 2 Bros and 16 Handles and David on the corner and Kmart and rooftops and friends' apartments and drunken subway rides. And I'm carrying around a little sadness, a little hole in my heart for those things. And I'm breathing.