As I poked the lens of my camera through the chain-link fence, an anomalous thunderclap persisted. I swung my camera left, focused to infinity.
In case it isn’t obvious, I really like taking pictures of birds in motion.
Though I completed this chapter of my pop music autobiography (20 songs, 80 minutes, mp3 for download) in late September, a few weeks into my first semester at Georgetown, only now in the more apparent denouement of my existential crisis do I feel compelled to write its intentions, framed in the context of two gifts I received in November.
When Indi greeted me a happy birthday, she told me she hadn’t yet sent out my gift, the Lost Buildings DVD. A copy of it arrived shortly before my pilgrimage to Fallingwater a couple weeks later, and I watched it with Shiella, Roanne, and Jerry in Pittsburgh the night before our tour of the house. When I called Indi to tell her about the trip and thank her for the gift, she apologized that my gift was still on her dining room table as she’d hoped to wrap it with a card before sending. The copy I received in the mail the week before didn’t include a receipt; the return address on the padded manila envelope was the NPR store in Chicago. I wondered who might have thought to order a copy on my behalf, who in the world would know how this slim volume occupied the intersection of my interests in architecture, the work of Chris Ware, and This American Life, know such an object existed, and feel inclined to buy me a birthday gift. It was a short list.
After some talk among friends I might have an admirer, I called my parents and discovered it was from them, something they knew I’d like from consulting my wishlist. I asked if they knew how it ended up there, and in the midst of explaining why I wanted it, my mother asked, Why does it matter? I began to think that document of stuff I want is like an answer key to a test, a series of questions about my taste, interests, and aspirations. The maxim it’s the thought that counts found relevance — though it’s a gift I love and something I plainly wanted, the material possession of the gift did not, as I realized gifts are supposed to, signify an understanding of the receiver by the giver.
The Friday after that road trip, I took lunch with Christina. Waiting for our table at a sofa by the bar, she drank a cup of tea and I ordered coffee. A waiter set a tray with a French press and accoutrements on the low table before us. At a break in our conversation, I leaned forward to add cream and sugar, and in my periphery, I noticed she was leaning too.I want to know you take your coffee, she said.
As it’s Christmas morning somewhere in the world now, gifts seem an appropriate subject. I wrote once that though it’s my spoken ambition to calibrate my existence to the basic unit of a transcontinental flight, my worst-kept secret is that I’d like to land somewhere and know, quietly, sincerely, that I’ll be understood. And it could be my fault that it took so long to feel I was approaching what I wanted: although I gave away the answers, perhaps the questions were too obscure. Maybe nobody really got me because I didn’t give enough of myself.
After the Fallingwater trip, Roanne and I discussed the appearance of our mutual interest in architecture in the conversation that prompted the pilgrimage. I observed that I tend to conduct my relationships around a specific range of subjects and that conversations rarely extend into my other interests. We agreed that we owed it to ourselves to have whole relationships, to let networks mingle and see what happens, to make commonplace these moments we are at once comfortable and complete.
And I guess that was the existential crisis — the struggle to be comfortable and completely myself in an existence where so little of myself was applied, among people who really couldn’t be bothered to appreciate with half my zeal a building, public radio, graphic novels, road trips, and everything else. When I say it’s the thought that counts, I mean the thought is everything — a gift without it is scarcely a gift at all. Sentimental as it sounds, these may be the best we have to offer each other: the curiosity, perception, and memory of how we take our coffee, and the space where, without first asking forgiveness, we can be completely who we are.
To those who celebrate it, merry Christmas.
Argument: “Everything tastes better on a stick.”
Counterpoint: “No, everything tastes better wrapped up burrito style.”
Countercounterpoint: “No, everything tastes better mini, regardless of impaled or wrapped.”
Countercountercounterpoint: “No, everything tastes better with bacon, butter, or maple syrup.”
The first point, typed by Roanne in reference to yakitori quail eggs in bacon, was quoted for humor as my GTalk status. No more than a few minutes passed than Christina seized on this, argued the second point, and added that by virtue of the quail eggs being wrapped in bacon, this was in fact a burrito-style food. An hour-ish later, Patrick chimed in that mini foods taste better (Matchbox sliders, please), and (in a telling example of how much overlap there is in this arena) cited “mini burritos” as evidence. James then followed with his assertion, which I admit is the most specious because it refers to specific ingredients instead of a type of preparation and there would certainly be substantial evidence against it in food from other cultures.
Content of the four arguments aside, what I find amazing about them is that they took place in four different conversations with four people of whom only two know each other and that the original argument only had to exist in my GTalk status in order to spur three additional conversations, parrying a varied range of perspectives in the manner of IRC while enjoying the intimacy of a phone call.
More amazing: yakitori quail eggs in bacon are sufficient evidence to support all four points.
Last Thursday night, over dinner at Eat First with Lou, Mike Lee, and Aaron Watkins, as the conversation meandered from information architecture, young designers, microcelebrity, Movable Type, the Ted Kennedy question, the information networks of museum collections, and raising five-year-olds, a billboard on the back of a truck rolled past the restaurant window on rain-drenched H Street. Dozens of bullet holes were painted on it, and printed in all-caps Impact were the words “FREE RANGE TIME.”
In the space of the last several weeks gliding recklessly above the clouds, papers and case studies and Movable Type templates disconnected from the earth, it was tempting to call that dinner a reprieve or a distraction. But these experiences are also indispensable for perspective, the necessary context for independent professionals toiling, certainly underappreciated and often alone, in a nigh boundless profession. That night, it was free range time (I once knew it as free-association hour), and while it lacked the structure and rigor of the workplace or the seminar, to deem it a euphemism for loafing is naïve and disrespectful of the range of thought and power of metaphors. In that alighting with a plate of Szechuan beef and three colleagues, with the yawning chasm between the day’s labor and my professional pursuits in full view, I remembered the relevance of these lofted abstractions, remembered why the work is worth it.
(I should note the word interdisciplinary peppered this conversation with unsurprising frequency.)
I
When reflecting on what I wanted to say about the end of last month, I read the first in this series, written in 2003. It started: It’s that time again—when I stay awake for 98, 73, 61, 55, and so on hours on end, barely snatching sleep in car rides provided on someone else’s dime as they’re worried I’m too far beyond needing sleep to safely maneuver a motor vehicle on my own … .
This was the first late November of the last five where I’ve been forced to acknowledge I’m no longer 21 and capable of such feats of sleeplessness. And for what it’s worth, though I’m too familiar with the frayed edge for my preference, at least I’m better now at recognizing it.
II
In case you missed it:
III
A tour of Fallingwater was the birthday gift I couldn’t give myself for the last three years, and I’m glad I waited to share the experience with friends.
The trip inspired me to spring for the 50mm f/1.4 lens, to take better pictures, to re-learn how to focus.
IV
I spent my first Thanksgiving away from family with classmates under similar circumstances. I baked cookies, drank beer, slept in.
V
The toll for November 2008: two scarves — vestiges of my first DC winter, two USB drives (one recovered), a debit card, the truck I grew up with, five pounds of fat, innumerable hours of sleep. As much as I regret starting graduate school during an election year, I’m glad I’m making the commute, skimming 300-page books every weekend, fiddling with WordPress, and writing papers where I have to cite my references.
I’m also in the market for a new scarf.
VI
There is no number VI.
VII
That said, December 2008 may yet be worse, roiled by more conflict between things that have to be done, things I’d like to do, and total time in which to accomplish them both while maintaining my mental and physical health.
While I know some classmates are living in dread these next couple weeks, I’m sincerely enjoying writing my final paper. I think it’s because — even though I scarcely plan what I learn — I’ve long known why I write, why I force my language into and upon that accrued knowledge. When people ask what I intend to do once I’ve earned my degree, I answer it’s too soon to tell. The career isn’t the point, and though I acknowledge that the lines on my résumé are helpful, the degree isn’t the point either.
VIII
To a degree, I know what I’m after in life, and I know that it just doesn’t happen spontaneously.
And I know I’m almost demonically lucky. Still, I burned — worked tirelessly, desiccated emotionally — to arrive at this point.
I believe that when opportunity knocks, it knocks quietly and leaves quickly, like a shy child selling candy. It is incumbent upon us to listen intently, to recognize that trembling door. And when we greet opportunity on the other side, rarely does it enter. It expects us to follow.
IX
Friday morning now, and my typing for the remainder of the day ought to be spent on CSS rather than introspection.
That first paragraph written five years ago ends: So much has come and gone in four days. I don’t really know where to start or why I’m writing this. Same reasons I’ve always written, I suppose.
For now, back to work.
