2003-09-22 - 10:59 p.m.
You are not the only one who thinks you still live at 7 Garden Street, that it would be more than appropriate for me to stop by and be greeted by a whiff of mac and cheese, tip-toe past the sleeping Josh, to better smells and times in the kitchen. A bunch of girls live there now with lawn chairs instead of the moldy smoke-filled couches you had to burn on your infamous departure. It is not right; but it is right. If you drive past the yield sign half a block and cross the street you find Madalyn's abode. I have stayed there enough hours to be entered into the quote bowl once, and barely escaped a second time when I thought out loud how I wanted to make my own honorary Hillsdale flag out of a blanket like their land-lord has done. Spending half the afternoon draped over the chair reading about tea, half for the purpose of pleasure and half for the purpose of study, then launching into conversations about food, culture, and the never ending girly topics, I know I am only pretending to ween myself from Hillsdale. I miss so much of the life here. There is something uncanny about the way Hillsdale food-nuts tend toward the Classical languages. I discovered another Latin-bound student who wanted to talk at length about his cooking out of a rice cooker. I promised to find him cardamom for his friend who wants to make chai. Meanwhile he is e-mailing two recipes for the cookbook since some day he will be in Eta Sigma Phi. Four years ago Madalyn and I attended an open-house for SAI as the quiet, inseperable Freshmen everyone assumed were roommates. Today I tagged along when Madalyn had to attend one of the rush events for a few moments. The room was full. Along one wall I could distinguish the rushees from all the rest, either from lack of recognition or from their timidity. Was it cute, sad, sentimental... or what was it that I felt to see myself from four years ago reflected in these faces? Like stepping back in time, I saw the same modest dress, the same long hair, and hair bows that I never see in Ann Arbor, but characterizes certain groups at Hillsdale. One already knew how their faces and postures would change in one, two, three years next to the upper-classmen; one relives the transitions caused by trauma in a split second; and I am glad that I have entirely new changes and sorrows to live through now. In the bookstore today I had to peruse the text book shelves. Upon reading "The Movie-Goer" by Walker Percy, I then checked the class information. I saw that Dr. --- will be lecturing about the book and my stomache went dry at the thought. I am relieved to be here in the capacity I am and not as a student, so relieved.
