Life in My Years

Dan Kennedy didn’t look at all like what I’d assumed he would. If I had to guess, the voice I listened to in my iPod belonged to man in his early thirties—tall, brown hair, chiseled face, dapperly dressed, and quietly handsome in an intellectual manner. He donned a sophisticated pair of spectacles that rested high on his classically elegant nose.

In reality, he was rather short. I couldn’t tell how old he was because he had one of those faces that could’ve been 25 or 40 years old. His hair was the color of wet clay and much of it was force-swept over the right side of his face in long, greasy slicks. His chin was long, his cheeks a little pudgy, and he wore one of those hipster flannel shirts with tight cargo pants. His voice, reserved and distinguished-sounding in my iPod, drawled with dry sarcasm on the stage. Almost every sentence was irreverent, laden with witty or ironic commentary.

I sat on the floor, impatient. I wasn’t there for him; I was here for the stories. And after the one and a half block long line, the 45 minute wait, and the packed, standing-room-only bookstore, I was eager to begin. I perked up from my cross-legged seated position at the sight of the first storyteller and clapped wildly to welcome the first of, what I expected to be, some truly fantastic stories.

So, after standing in the one and a half block long line, waiting for 45 minutes in the autumn cold, and feeling the close, hot breaths of neighbors on the back of my neck, were they really, truly fantastic? No, not really. With the exception of one story, none were “fantastic”; but they were good. But even if someone wasn’t good, the novelty of watching an average person step out of the audience and into the spotlight on stage to tell a personal story made it well worth watching. To see them stand up there alone, exposing their inner-most thoughts and memories to complete strangers, it strikes you how vulnerable they are in front of that audience—and how brave. Details of a person’s body and mannerisms that our minds and ears miss or gloss over are suddenly magnified in a way that television or movies could never make feel that immediate and raw: his right hand imperceptibly shaking; the sound and cadence of her voice quickly adapting after being surprised by her first sounds through the microphone; jittery, long fingers dancing around the edges of his tie, curling and uncurling the silky fabric.

An invisible, almost primal, connection forms between the speaker and the audience. They share themselves with us and we listen and look at them with a focus and attention that the lonely seek from therapists. We’re invested, we feel their nerves, we experience their thoughts and share their excitement. One by one, breadcrumbs are dropped and we eagerly follow them down an unknown path and when the storyteller’s good, there’s nothing else like it.

The night was nearing its end and Haley and I decided the next story was to be our last story, since Haley needed to go back to Jimmy’s apartment. The storyteller was a woman who looked to be in her late 30’s, early 40’s. She wore dark pants and a long-sleeved milky white silk top that shone in the light when she moved. She stood tall and thin, possessed a mane of poofy dark brown hair–a physical trait that instantly endeared her to me–and she seemed very composed and calm.  Her voice reflected her appearance. It was a gentle, light, and soothing voice that sounded a little like music and each of her sentences ended with an upward lilt in tone that made everything she said sound like an uncertain question. Her body would move alongside her soft voice with little dips and gestures, and I was reminded of a willow tree as I watched her.

I was unimpressed after the first few sentences, however, when she started listing all the generic insecurities she had as a college freshmen. Coupled with that voice of hers, her long, self-deprecating confession list of adolescent aimlessness and low self-esteem made me feel like I was actually a therapist, listening to a middle-aged woman beating herself up sentence after sentence. It was slightly depressing and not terribly interesting. As she launched further into her story about a party she went to her freshmen year, I sat there listening dutifully but without much enthusiasm or curiosity.

I don’t know when exactly it happened, but at some point, I realized that I was sitting in that audience rigid with tension and completely transfixed in her tale. She had story-ninja’d all of us and we didn’t know what or when it’d hit us until everyone in the audience was dead silent and completely glued (and I say this only in hindsight) to this woman on the stage. All else was gone except for that woman and her story and the air was absolutely electric with attention. There were sparks of tension; I could almost feel it. With her tone never raising, never quickening, never quavering, she uncovered the terrifying details of that night of the party piece by piece as patiently and as gently as her voice sounded and I realized at one point that I was holding my breath and I felt so frightened for her that even though I knew she was okay and was still alive (obviously), I almost couldn’t bear listening anymore. I turned around to Haley who was staring at her with a look of concentration, shot him a look of panic, and squeezed his hand tightly. He smiled at me and I felt a little better, and returned into her world. The climax of her story was so strange and bizarre, but as I sat there listening to her, I never thought for a moment that she might’ve made it up. It just felt real. And then the story was over.

She walked off the stage and the spell was broken. Thunderous claps and cheers rang out in the room to her retreating back.

Is there anything in this world as delicious-feeling as arriving home after an eleven-hour-long trip, taking a warm shower, and then filling a hungry stomach with warm, deliciously marinated tofu and an icy cold, sweet, and slightly tart orange?

No, there isn’t.

The flavours of this orange that are currently bursting in my mouth as I type these words! No mortal words can describe this wondrous taste explosion! The juiciness, the freshness, the crispness, the joy that is a good Trader Joe’s orange! Sigh. Oranges–at their zenith of orange goodness–are the only fruit I’ve experienced in my life that has ever forced me to reassess my die-hard loyalty to the watermelon as “Best fruit in the world”.

But I digress.

The point is that I’m back from New York City and once again sitting in my living room in the Bay Area. I just got home after the long car ride from SFO and my body is still 3 hours ahead, making my eyes and brain very sleepy right now. But I thought it fitting that I should write this post to commemorate my homecoming since I made a post noting exactly when I left for New York 2 weeks ago.

So now, I’m back! I’ll make posts tomorrow and the days after tomorrow with more details about the trip, but for now, it’ll just suffice to say that it was a perfectly fantastic two weeks. It really was. New York was everything that I love about cities: loud, bright, noisy, crowded, and busy with about a million different places to go, see, watch, and eat at all hours of the day and night. And of course, the company couldn’t be beat. It felt so… nice to be hanging out all together again: Jimmy, Haley, and me. We were squished into Jimmy’s tiny bedroom, but it didn’t feel tight; it just felt very cozy and intimate. During the nighttime, the three of us would often be doing our own things in the room together, and even that felt nice and cozy like when we all lived in Vassar house.  The three of us did a lot of eating together, a lot of talking together, and a lot of eating and talking together; a lot of quiet “study-time” together, a lot of singing together, a lot of dancing together, and two very fun nights of drinking together. It was wonderful.

I miss the subways, the D’Agostino elevators, the grumpy black lobby man, Mamoun’s, Bleeker Street, and the Seymour Mark apartment B’s view of the city already. And, of course, I miss you.

After a month of anticipation, the night had finally come to take off: we were on our way to New York. As I watched my dad drive away in our blue Accord, excitement filled me like delicious crème filling. I grinned widely at Haley and let out several happy squeals. In just a few short hours, we would be standing in Greenwich Village, and best of all, I would get to see Jimmy again and we would all hang out like we used to.

“Okay Haley, be sure to get some sleep on the plane ride okay?” I said in a very solemn voice. “Otherwise, you’re not going to be able to make it through our first day in New York”.

I looked at him until we established eye contact for at least a few seconds, so he would know I was serious.

“Seriously, don’t stay up the entire night watching episodes of 30 Rock and reading the chronicles of Y, the Last Man on your netbook”.

“Yeah, I know”, he said in an uncharacteristically sincere voice.

I felt reassured by this; reassured also, because I knew he had stayed up all night the night before packing and he’d told me he was feeling tired when we were waiting in line to pass through airport security.

Sure enough, within a few minutes of takeoff, he was conked out with his arms crossed against his chest. I glanced at his suddenly unconscious form next to me with mild surprise, as sleeping in an economy-class seat on a plane was about as comfortable as sleeping naked on metal bleachers while it’s hailing ice. Of course, Haley could probably fall asleep standing up in the middle of a rock concert as long as he was in the dozing mood, so I wasn’t too surprised. I, however, did not manage to get a single minute of sleep that whole five hour long flight. Not one single damn minute. I did manage to watch Pink’s “Funhouse” music video at least 3 times. I never realized just how much I loathed Pink until the 3rd time I watched her strut her bizarrely masculine body to that horrible and theoretically-illogical blend of punk pop music. But now as I’m writing this, I don’t feel the complete detestation that I was hit with in waves while sitting on that plane, so I probably don’t actually hate Pink. On that plane though, I was sending her hate beams as well as I could with my tired and semi-glazed eyes. Then I sent hate beams to Zach Morris. Screech. Slater—especially Slater. Those stupid people that go on infomercials. Haley.

I just couldn’t fall asleep. The hours passed by one after another and finally, 5 positions and one last failed attempt of lying down on a sleeping Haley’s lap with my legs sticking out into the aisle later, I gave up. I sat up in my hard, perfectly 90-degree angled chair and clicked through the television channels on the little screen in front of me for the last, and longest, hour of the flight while dawn patiently lightened the black skies. By the time we touched ground at JFK, I felt like I’d just pulled an all-nighter because, well, I did.

New York City was grey. It wasn’t very cold, which was a nice surprise, and by the time we arrived at D’Agostino Hall, my cheeks were flushed from the brisk walk from the subway station. There was still some time before Jimmy got out of class, so Haley and I waited in the lobby.

I felt nervous. I hadn’t seen him since the night he left for New York two months ago. We’d sat together for a long time in small corner on the carpeted floor of a walkway that led to the security gate and when the time had finally come for him to leave, I’d cried and hugged him a long time.

I paced around a few times in the lobby and told Haley I was going to the bathroom. I splashed some cold water on my face and when I stepped back into the lobby, there he was, looking just as I remembered. I called out his name, he saw me and smiled, and I threw my arms around him.