Visitors
I decided not to visit China this year with every other aware, opportunistic, engaged, escapist, middle-class American youth. Instead I'm having China come to me, metonymically. I asked President Hu to come. I told him I couldn't make it to Beijing or Shanghai, Nanjing, Guangzhou, Chengdu or even Taiwan. So he said, Well then, I think I'll swing by Yale. Mind if I drop in on you at home? At least this is what I think he said. It's what the translator told me, but it was hard to hear through his thick German accent. So I said, Who's coming home? And he replied, No, Hu's on first. And then we laughed, all three of us, Hu Jintao, Walter Benjamin (the translator), and I. But Benjamin sobered up because he was sad. He was dead.
But seriously, we've been having a lot of visitors lately. To start the week we hosted our former (or future, I haven't quite figured out this eternal recurrence thing yet–a theme, watch out, it's coming back, repetition with variation said Schiller) selves. If the sky is the brightest blue and the trees are rich with the expectation of blossoms, if a large balloon dog looms over Old Campus and lectures are invaded by seventeen-year-olds with name tags, it means Bulldog Days. A crafty trick staged each year when Yale is at the height of its most heart-rending, eat your heart out beauty. Bewildered things walk around with the same blue folders in small packs, over-aware of their relation to the transitory, two-day fluid groups. Embolded by their acceptance yet tentative. Watching them, self-centered, I saw myself. Three years ago. Same season. Actually twirling, skipping, walking on walls. Slightly anxious, excitable, curious. Prone to laughter. Bubbly. About to lose lacrosse captainship, already sad to lose high school. Despite my blatant joy, not quite convinced Yale could compensate. Thrilled and tragic to be trapped by time's unidirectional momentum. Observing these incarnations, wearing Class of 2010 teeshirts, I'm reminded of "eternal recurrency." An overeager prefrosh Tuesday in class asks a question about "eternal recurrency" like he wanted to buy something with infinity. And maybe he's not so off because maybe the doctrine's just some currency Nietzsche's trying to trade for self-mastery or a hypothetical used to buy up the ability to affirm life or just a pin to prick nihilism, deflate denial.
The trees are soft. I want to kiss their buds by the same impulse normal people feel for newborns' heads. On my morning run, the first green are gold leaves come between me and sky. The just about to burst trees want to crowd out students. In the wind they jostle in line to sign up for the summer session. HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME. Later, the heat says semester's ending. Ivan and I picnic on Old Campus. I am apparelled in Paris and the breeze flirts with the skirt. No Marilyn, but I catch the hem to hold onto it and modesty. And I am the hyacinth girl, my arms full. Clapping after last lecture, I walk out trimuphant for no reason. Except that never in a million years could I be a nonperson. The problem is I have too much, not too little, self and I want to share. Dizzy with night, kinetic from Thursday meeting discussion, I want to lay down on the flat flat stone of Beinecke plaza to make air angels in the embracing evening warmth.
But Beinecke's blocked off. I'm sitting here in the window of St. A's. Which is just inside the perimeter. We don't know if we will be allowed to leave or when the Secret Service are coming to have fun storming the castle. Supposedly they want our roof. By chance we are cattycorner to Sprague Hall, site of Hu's speech. Critics apeculate about what an easy shot it'd be from out any window. We have the perfect angle. From the ladies lounge window where I am camped out I can see the four police cars that have pulled up to harrass a boy chalking the sidewalk. I can almost here him defending his right to free speech. A couple Hall members step outside to support his case. One cop grabs Eric by his scrawny shoulder. David Weil waddles over. After argument the police let the chalker continue. He bends back down. By streetlight I can't read it, but the result of his furious energy, his frenetic scratching scars the pavement. One hundred lollypops say they hose it off before morning. There were protests on Cross Campus today, they won't be allowed so close tomorrow. Falung Gong and students with black gags in their mouth walking back and forth. Commentary on Yale's discouragement of protests and on the visitor's country. Unsure what to say, what can be said, I am watching.
But seriously, we've been having a lot of visitors lately. To start the week we hosted our former (or future, I haven't quite figured out this eternal recurrence thing yet–a theme, watch out, it's coming back, repetition with variation said Schiller) selves. If the sky is the brightest blue and the trees are rich with the expectation of blossoms, if a large balloon dog looms over Old Campus and lectures are invaded by seventeen-year-olds with name tags, it means Bulldog Days. A crafty trick staged each year when Yale is at the height of its most heart-rending, eat your heart out beauty. Bewildered things walk around with the same blue folders in small packs, over-aware of their relation to the transitory, two-day fluid groups. Embolded by their acceptance yet tentative. Watching them, self-centered, I saw myself. Three years ago. Same season. Actually twirling, skipping, walking on walls. Slightly anxious, excitable, curious. Prone to laughter. Bubbly. About to lose lacrosse captainship, already sad to lose high school. Despite my blatant joy, not quite convinced Yale could compensate. Thrilled and tragic to be trapped by time's unidirectional momentum. Observing these incarnations, wearing Class of 2010 teeshirts, I'm reminded of "eternal recurrency." An overeager prefrosh Tuesday in class asks a question about "eternal recurrency" like he wanted to buy something with infinity. And maybe he's not so off because maybe the doctrine's just some currency Nietzsche's trying to trade for self-mastery or a hypothetical used to buy up the ability to affirm life or just a pin to prick nihilism, deflate denial.
The trees are soft. I want to kiss their buds by the same impulse normal people feel for newborns' heads. On my morning run, the first green are gold leaves come between me and sky. The just about to burst trees want to crowd out students. In the wind they jostle in line to sign up for the summer session. HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME. Later, the heat says semester's ending. Ivan and I picnic on Old Campus. I am apparelled in Paris and the breeze flirts with the skirt. No Marilyn, but I catch the hem to hold onto it and modesty. And I am the hyacinth girl, my arms full. Clapping after last lecture, I walk out trimuphant for no reason. Except that never in a million years could I be a nonperson. The problem is I have too much, not too little, self and I want to share. Dizzy with night, kinetic from Thursday meeting discussion, I want to lay down on the flat flat stone of Beinecke plaza to make air angels in the embracing evening warmth.
But Beinecke's blocked off. I'm sitting here in the window of St. A's. Which is just inside the perimeter. We don't know if we will be allowed to leave or when the Secret Service are coming to have fun storming the castle. Supposedly they want our roof. By chance we are cattycorner to Sprague Hall, site of Hu's speech. Critics apeculate about what an easy shot it'd be from out any window. We have the perfect angle. From the ladies lounge window where I am camped out I can see the four police cars that have pulled up to harrass a boy chalking the sidewalk. I can almost here him defending his right to free speech. A couple Hall members step outside to support his case. One cop grabs Eric by his scrawny shoulder. David Weil waddles over. After argument the police let the chalker continue. He bends back down. By streetlight I can't read it, but the result of his furious energy, his frenetic scratching scars the pavement. One hundred lollypops say they hose it off before morning. There were protests on Cross Campus today, they won't be allowed so close tomorrow. Falung Gong and students with black gags in their mouth walking back and forth. Commentary on Yale's discouragement of protests and on the visitor's country. Unsure what to say, what can be said, I am watching.
