Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Ode to a community bathroom



When I really sat down and thought about my fondest memories of late, at least in this past year/season of my life, the first thing that came to mind was the bathroom.

At first this seemed strange. I wasn't really sure why this was the first thing that came to mind, but then after I thought about it, I couldn't think of a better answer. This space has contributed significantly to my sense of beauty and place and belonging. 

Okay let me explain. 

The bathroom itself is nothing special; the cracking yellow tile from the 70s on one side, running onto the white tiled walls and rusty mirrors on the others, mirrors that reflect the four yellow bathroom stalls, and me when I come out of those stalls early in the morning with a squinty face and a grumpy disposition.

The other people reflected in those rusty mirrors in the morning are the freshman that I am in charge of loving for the year, girls who will spend anywhere from 5 minutes to two hours in front of those rusty mirrors every day.

Blow-dryers, hair straighteners, washcloths, mascara, eye shadow and toothpaste litter the countertops every morning, while other sleepy faces emerge from the stalls to begin their regimen for the day. Girls transform themselves from puffy-faced, tired and vulnerable freshmen to confident, made-up and fresh-faced women ready to take on the world. These same women come back later, tired from long hours of conquering and strutting their way through their day in confidence, to take all that make-up off and shake out their hair, their newly tired eyes now glowing from the adventure of a day just past.

I have a personal belief that the way a girl gets ready in the morning is like a micro-anthropological study, and is a fascinating way to get to know who someone really is. 

I get to watch these micro-studies every morning and evening. Girls whip out this or that product, brush their hair in this or that way, or not at all, brush their teeth spitting every few seconds or every minute, and go about their habits they are so used to without realizing how interesting it is to observe.

One girl may shower in the mornings, blow-dry and straighten her hair while brushing it, put on foundation first, then eyeliner, then shadow, then mascara, then go get changed and come back for a final check and a teeth-brushing. Another girl may have showered the night before, do nothing with her hair and only put on a small amount of mascara after getting dressed first, then brush her teeth when she comes back after lunch. These girls have been doing their routines for their whole lives, and never take much notice to each other’s quirks and special rituals.

At night, when the make-up comes off and the sweatpants come out, the girls open up and empty themselves of all the vulnerable thoughts they had been thinking all day, but couldn’t let out through the mask of make-up and nice clothes they’ve donned to seem perfect. I do love seeing them this way; is so much more special. The most honest conversations happen immediately after these facades come off, when they are tired from a long day and bearing their honest selves, outside and inside. Some of my favorite conversations have happened barefoot in front of the mirror with mouths full of toothpaste.

It is so unique to get to know someone in this way. Even though these girls may never be best friends with everyone on our floor, they will know one another in a way that no one else can know them. Living alongside someone and seeing them in all facets of their life, not just during the day when they are at their best, is a privilege and has been taken for granted for most of the year so far. This is one of the most unique experiences, getting to know someone like this, and is something that I will cherish for a long time.

When I first came to college, on of my biggest fears was using a community bathroom with 25 other girls. I was afraid that I would never be able to get a shower or a sink, that everyone would be too in-my-business, and that I wouldn’t get any privacy. 

Now as a senior, I consider this time living and using a community bathroom with 25 other girls to be one of the most formative experiences of my life. I will never get to share this space with this many people ever again, and it turns out privacy is overrated. 

As much as I desire to be known in this way and accepted by other girls, they want this just as much. It is a privilege to get to love them in this way and in this space, and I will be thankful for this forever.


Saturday, April 18, 2015

In defense of honesty



"  We know that labels are for jars, and we know that we are not jars.  "

Hey, ain't that the truth. That's something that has been laid on my heart lately, so to speak.

Life is about living in the midst of contradictions. A friend of mine recently listed out several of life's contradictions nicely: 

. Be humble, but not too self-depricating
. Be confident, but not too prideful
. Be authentic about your struggles, but don't complain too much
. Be always striving, but be okay with not having it all together
. Be fierce about holding yourself to standards, but don't feel like a failure when you fall short

The list goes on. Life is full of contradictions, and there are several ways to live in the midst of that pretty well. 

Likewise, we ourselves are full of contradictions. We present ourselves one way, and maybe it's even authentic, but we are entirely different in the vulnerable and lonely moments. Here's me for example: 

I'm an extrovert...
  ... but sometimes I need a lot of alone time.

I'm very illogical and spontaneous, and let my life be run entirely by my emotions...
  ... but I can rationalize and logically analyze my way out of having a crush on any guy. 

I'm an art major...
  ... but today I went to the studio harshly bent on procrastinating my way out of making anything.

In some of my more honest and vulnerable moments, when no one is watching, I have: 

. winked and blown kisses to myself in the mirror
. talked out loud to myself about what I'm going to eat for breakfast
. cried at car commercials
. tried to lick my elbow, cross my eyes and move them apart, put my feet behind my ears
. attempted really high and out-of-range singing, ending with vicious squeaks
. done some really ugly dancing
. sprawled on the floor laughing at myself for falling over nothing
. sat cross-legged on top of my desk, eating a bowl of cereal and conducting a symphony of violinists with my spoon. 

No one sees those things. They only see 145 characters of my best-presented self, a sliver of my best moment from the day, presented as much more enjoyable then it actually was, my most staged photos of my food, a rendition of my "favorite quote" that I definitely found on the Internet seconds before. 

We live in a society that makes it so easy to see selectively. 

But we are so much more complex than that.

We are the A+ students who go to see Indie concerts by themselves on the weekends, we are the jocks who play Monopoly with their parents, we are the broken and beautiful people who are still deeply capable of loving because we all have flaws and honest moments. 

We can take our labels off and put them back on our jars, if we are type A (my type B friends, throw them away and relish the hodgepodge of jars you've collected). 

We can be one thing and also something totally else, and we can let people see that. We have permission to be flawed, because those people are way more interesting. 

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

On running with a knee injury



Something is wrong with my knee.

I don't know what it is, and I don't even really remember how it started. It could have been this past October, the fall of my senior year of college, when I ran my first half marathon. Or it could have been 8 years ago in the spring of my freshman year of high school, during my first season of track and field, when I got a stress fracture. Somehow this was caused by uneven hips, or by cheap running shoes. Nevertheless, I ran on the same shoes, and the same hips, all four years.

Now, I change my running shoes every 7-9 months, maybe because I'm a shoe snob? Or maybe because the swelling in my knee and in my heart from running are growing stronger. I don't care about small shooting pains. I'm addicted to running.

When I'm having a bad knee day, I can usually sense it during the first mile. A small pain shoots under my knee cap, and a sigh and eye roll prepare themselves for the next one.

The worst of it is, after it gets unbearable and I have to stop and walk, it gets better. But the second I start to run again, I'm a collapsed mess on the ground in the fetal position. The little stinker strikes again, and I'm left to walk again. But I keep trying again every day, maybe because I'm an idiot? or because I'm addicted to running.

For the past eight years that I've been running for pleasure, I've really only actually enjoyed it for three of them. In high school, it was only bearable with other people by my side. Then freshman year of college rolled around and I thought I was invincible, and I didn't think I needed running. Whenever I tried, it only ended with me thinking to myself "okay, half mile, good to go."

Whenever I went far, though, I felt it the rest of the day. There's just no beating that feeling of your lungs opening with a joyful chorus, your smile forcing itself wider on your face and the sweat falling off your body making you feel 100 pounds lighter. It's an indescribable feeling of being emptied and purged, nothing negative remaining. But, you know, I was an ignorant freshman. What did I know about happiness?

Sophomore year brought the shedding of my freshman 15 and the secret love affair with 8 miles of road. Junior year my running buddy and I did crunches post-runs and talked about half marathons. Senior year brought me through the longest I've ever run, and the most unbearable and most wonderful I've ever felt. My legs were sore for a week and my heart was happy for a month.

Here I am, several months later, bearing the brunt of my obsession. Shifting from road to treadmill and back again is always the worst transition. This is when my knee tends to act up the most, when it's confused about the surface we're running on. Wait, there are contours in the path now? Oh, there are hills? We haven't trained for this. Get thee to a weight room and an elliptical, commands my knee after about a mile on the freshly melted snow on the road. Really, get over yourself. Outside is much better than inside, I say in return.

Once my knee and my lungs acclimate themselves to the outdoors again, who knows what's next for me. Full marathon? Triathlon? We'll see what my knee is up for. I can usually convince him.

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

I have unrealistic majors and my life is important


I've been thinking about this lately:

Today I spent a ridiculous amount of time painting a large canvas white. 

Some people may look at that fact and think oh, what a waste of time. But I found this really productive. It was something I needed to get done. 

Yesterday in class we learned about putting together canvas and stretcher bars, and in another class we looked at drawings and talked about them for about an hour and a half. The rest of my day was a flurry of interviews and research for stories I'm writing and getting lost in the writing itself. Some may look at my day and think how are these skills you can use in real life? 

I love making art. I love using my hands to produce something that wasn't there before, that came out of my mind and was translated into something tangible. I love looking at other people's art, and learning from the way their minds work. I love learning new ways to make art, and exploring all the realms this major has to offer. 

I love to write. I love learning new interesting things about people and getting to tell their stories. I love reading other people's writing and learning from the way they think. I love when people let me into their lives to see and hear about intimate details about the way they live. 

I am incredibly blessed to get to study art and journalism in a place like this. 

My schedule as a double major in art and journalism is kind of hilarious. I tend to lose sight of this in the midst of all the things I need to get done (like painting things white) but I never have a typical sit-in-a-lecture-and-take-notes kind of day. Every day in these departments is different, and I love it.

Last Thursday my day looked like this:

I started my day off at 8:30 am with two hours of drawing from a real life model. (lol wut)

10:15 - 11am was spent talking with other journalists about things happening on campus to write about.

After another short class and a lunch break, I spent a long time talking about other people's paintings and reflecting on my painting practice for the last week. We talked about techniques and studio practices, and we were assigned to pick another famous painting to copy for our next assignment.

These things might seem trivial to some people, and there are some who would say that there is no way this can translate into a job. But let me tell you.

I have learned a ton about thinking visually, about gathering information, about building relationships, about consistency and productivity, and about and doing what I love. You can't tell me that wasn't worth all those dumb general ed classes.

My homework for that night included:

-Make 3-4 drawings
-Pick a famous painting to forge
-Interview people for a few stories for the newspaper
-Do some research for a more in-depth story, including reading other published work

Making art and writing stories. This is what I love to do, and I get to do it for homework.

I honestly feel like the luckiest person in the world.