"Untitled" (2006)

You know how there are those days when you just want to get to a quiet place, wear a fluffy sweater, drink something warm, and listen to "Everybody Hurts" and "Colorblind" on repeat? I've kind of had a string of them. Except that tonight's the first night I'm letting myself actually vegetate. I did, however, replace REM and Counting Crows with episodes of Felicity, in which they music is just background to collegiate angst. It's almost more fitting this way. Music is the best backdrop to an emotional state; somehow it makes it easier to figure out what you're feeling. Though there's little subtlety in listening to "Everybody Hurts."

Now that I have a computer again, I feel this burden to catch up on everything I disregarded over the past few weeks: tax forms, mutual fund forms (I have no money, but my dad says I need to invest. ok, sure...), publishing stuff, emails, etc. Every day I determine to make an indent in the pile, but every day around 6, I just want to crawl home in the cold and cease to exist for a few hours. I had a talk last night with Yorgo and Luis about knowing what you want to do with your life. According to Yorgo, every day has moments of doubt and anxiety in which he questions his life and career decisions. Luis said that he depended on his friends and loved ones to get through the most difficult periods of uncertainty and disillusionment. Some days I wonder if I'm doing the right thing. In part I guess it's because so many of my friends, or just people I know, are applying to grad schools. Major props to Katy, here, who just got into Berkeley. !!

When I heard that Katy got into grad school, I felt a big well of emotion bubbling up in me. It's not that I read and commented on her personal statement, or that I tried to issue comfort during the application process. It's that for almost five years now, I've known this amazing person who loves Russian lit so much, and who has wanted for so long to be a Russian scholar, to speak and live in the world of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. Katy's practically family, but she's also my peer, and in that sense her successes are linked to mine.

It's exhilarating yet frightening to see people move closer to realizing their hopes when you haven't even figured out what yours are. A few years ago we were worrying about getting papers in on time, about making it to Tom's on Sunday. Now I worry about eating vegetables, reading enough books, and trusting myself to make everyday decisions without feeling like I failed at life. The toughest part is no longer being entitled to that collective "we" mentality. Amongst other things, college was about creating and sustaining companionship – with people, with literature, with ideas, with New York. I’m so proud of one of my closest friends for her accomplishment, but I miss that I’m not there, that “we’re” not there to toast her and share in what is kind of an amazing moment for our little clan. I’m a bit lost without either companionship or my own sure footing.

SoCal Writes

I got this amazing letter today from my friend Weylie in California. We went to high school together, and we've always stayed in touch since, sharing similar paths of making our studies into a medium of self-discovery and reflection, horribly dorky as that sounds. Weylie braved the change and left DC to go to California to work as a curator in an artist's workshop in LA. It wasn't until recently that I got back in touch with her. I sent her a letter on Gustave Klimt paper, with a gorgeous nude - Herodiade? - on the cover. Weylie says it reminded her of me with my long tresses. She wrote back on pieces of thick card that have prints (genuine prints – save for tiny imperfections, these sell for thousands of dollars) by Richard Serra, Ellsworth Kelly and Elizabeth Murray. Wow!

The reason I love Weylie’s letter is that she isn’t afraid to be honest about struggling with life after college. She wrote pretty genuinely about how hard it was/is to adjust to a place where you don’t know anyone, and to hear about how your friends are also trying to figure it all out, distributed as they are across the world. Lately I’ve felt kind of distanced from colleagues, from some of my housemates and my old friends. I hope that the isolation is temporary; I know everyone I care about is caught in a similarly liminal space.

Way to Segue

There’s this amazing piece of art by Cy Twombly, “Untitled” (1970). I just love it. I saw it for the first time when it was exhibited at MOMA, where Bogdan and I were hanging out. We must have stared at it for 20 minutes, which, in Bogdan’s anti-art-lover time, was infinity. We were both enraptured by the vigor of the crayon strokes, but I remember telling him that the reason I found it so fascinating was because the chaos was deliberate, almost manufactured – all I could see were patterns building under the surface: legible script and repetitive motion.

Lately I haven’t been in that same empowering position of deciphering things and of seeing something coherent beneath the randomness. I’m hoping that in terms of the moments of clarity, if I had them once, I’ll have them again. But I also realize that while individual moments are nice, not everything has big meaning. And when you’re a romantic, it’s kind of heart-breaking to have to let go of big meaning, to stop looking for something grand and revelatory in the everyday world.

Studying Cy Twombly's art was an instinctual exercise. I guess what I’m saying is that I hope figuring yourself out is a similar process - one that involves both instinct, and a sudden flash of insight that can't be wholly defined.