Tag Archives: Chun

2/4

Posted on by

Three or four times a day, a plane will fly over the University of Puget Sound. Professors will pause mid-sentence as they teach, waiting for the noise to fade, while students walking below will take out their earphones and search the sky. Sometimes they will see the plane, low over the campus; other times the clouds will hide the jet from sight. But no matter the type of plane or the time of the day, one thing never changes—the silence that follows.

I leave the library, head back to my dorm. It’s overcast, but the sunlight still peeks around the edges of the clouds. I think about what homework I have left to do. No, don’t think of that. I think that I haven’t posted on the blog in a while. Two weeks? That’s a while. I think, What can I write about?

Today the Finnegans Wake reading group recommences—that is, after a break for winter vacation. I remember just as I enter my dorm. It meets in ten minutes. So I say bye to my room and head back out. I’m convinced that Joyce is someone I will never understand. Reading his work is like trying to get to the center of a giant lollipop, lick by lick. And when you get there, you find a giant cricket; you prod it with your tongue to see if there’s something more, and then you vomit. Or else you’re just not getting it. We get through about a page each time we meet.

Then that’s over and I think I can go back to my room. But I remember that I have to meet with a group for a project that cannot wait, and that I’m late. I sigh, or groan, or do both at once, and fast-walk to the library, because what is life if you’re not tracing and retracing your steps? Out of the library, into the library. I take the steps by two and find the room they’ve set up in. I forgot my laptop.

But this isn’t a record of a twenty-year-old’s angst.

 

A plane crashes in Taipei.

 

I’m outside in the drizzle, talking to a friend I haven’t talked to in a while. He’s telling me about the snow on the East Coast, how cold it is right now. A plane flies low overhead; I am deafened to my friend. I raise my voice to speak, but I’m not getting through. I wait it out, try to walk in the opposite direction.

The plane passes and everything is silent. I sigh and tell him I’ll talk to him soon, I have to go now. A lamplight turns on above me. The sun sets behind a mountain; it has just risen in Taipei.

Back at my dorm, a suitemate of mine is eating a lollipop. He sucks it for a while, then bites, cracking it in two. He throws the stem in the garbage can. Want to go to the library tonight? he asks.

Maybe I’m just not getting it.

Night Showers

Posted on by

The first floor in Thompson, the University’s Mathematics and Sciences building that forms one-half of the frame of a quadrangle with Harned Hall, is one of my favorite study locations, if only for the conference rooms that it offers. These conference rooms contain tables that, mimicking the macrostructure of the building, are arranged in outline of a rectangle, framing a vacant internal space. But that’s not important.

One night as we were studying, it began to rain. This was not out of the norm, being the Pacific Northwest. But it came down heavily, testing the glass windows, which was enough to grab our attention. I walked over to the windows and pulled the blinds. The ground of the quadrangle glistened with the spatter of the drops under the moon. Across from us, I could see other students gazing at the rain.

I took a chair facing the window and leaned back. Water streamed down Oppenheimer Café’s crag-like glass sides. The quadrangle itself glowed, though unlike anything I’d ever seen before; I couldn’t pinpoint it.

I asked my friends if I could turn off the lights.

I wasn’t wrong. The quadrangle was glowing, but not with the light given off by the buildings or by the light of the hidden moon. Not exactly. Rather, it glowed with light refracted through tiny globules of water. As light passed through the rain that had accumulated on the window-glass into the dark room in which we sat, the shadows of the room gave way to shifting spots of diluted light. Like sitting in a snow globe or in the middle of an aquarium. And I imagined it was snowing or that I was a fish.

A crow landed outside the window to escape the rain beneath an outcropping. It examined the dark room and the spotted glass that lined it. Looking closely at the droplets, it saw three figures in the room. Seeing that they were upside-down, it flew away.

A Bit More Light

Posted on by

Some time ago, my friends and I bought a light-up Frisbee, which we played with in the dark at a park in Auburn. After that day, however, the Frisbee saw no activity, quietly taking up space on the floor of a friend’s room. Until one day, seeking a study break, my friend and I decided that we should enjoy the sunshine, and with sweatpants and jackets—for though it was sunny, it was cold—we exited Trimble Hall and sought a large, vacant place to waste time with a Frisbee.

We ended up in the Field House parking lot, which was relatively empty. I ran down the gravel, at first, outrunning, but then, running after, the saucer that arced above my head.

It fell about twenty-feet in front of me.

No worries, my friend said, as I picked up the glowing disc.

I flicked it back to him.

As we tossed the Frisbee back and forth, a little Chihuahua came into view and began to walk down the length of the parking lot. We watched it reach the side of the street, then turn and continue down the sidewalk. I thought it might have been lost.

I’m just glad it didn’t walk into traffic, my friend said.

We continued tossing the Frisbee, every so often, trying a more difficult maneuver, such as curving the flight of the disc or, unsuccessfully, throwing it with a forward-flick. Each time we did so, the Frisbee slipped through our hands or flopped onto the ground. Disheartened, however, we would not be deterred. Each failure became a lesson, until finally:

I reared my hand and flicked forward with my wrist, launching the Frisbee from my hand,

It flew low with a slight arc and halfway to my friend began to wobble,

My friend ran forward and with arms outstretched and hands open,

His fingers closed around the spinning Frisbee.

It was a bigger deal than it seems. We celebrated, affirmed that our efforts had paid off. Though it was only a minor victory, we knew it reflected a lesson true of college and of life. Tired, we started to walk back. Before we crossed the street, in the hush of a passing car, I heard a faint barking. I like to think that that dog made it home.

A Long Way Back

Posted on by

The flight from Hawaii to Washington is not very long, relative to the distances some of my friends on the east coast or in Asia have to travel, but as short as the five-to-six hour plane ride is, it can seem like a lifetime. Because I can’t sleep on planes, I’m usually bored by the time the plane lands, having exhausted one or two movies, two or three albums, and a fair amount of trips to the lavatory. Though, of course, a part of the reason the trip can seem so long is due to the fact that it is a trip away from home.

For me, the return marks a leave-taking that never seems to get easier. All I’m carrying is a carry-on, but the weight is somehow more. Did we know this when we were high school seniors looking to get away for a change? Maybe. So it goes.

But as sad as leaving one place is, the trip is also a return to another place, a place of learning and friendship, a place that pushes students to grow intellectually and personally. So that when we return home, we’re a little older, a little wiser, and a bit more appreciative of what it means to be back.

As I leave behind the setting sun, whose light illuminates every groove upon the glass window to my left, I know that, to return, we must first away. Flying to Tacoma, I know that no sooner will I have landed than I will be finishing finals and chasing the setting sun to get back home before it’s dark with more reasons to return.

The Long Return

Islands in the Stream

Posted on by

My friend and I woke early one morning, while it was still dark, to climb a mountain. A little early morning exercise to avoid the heat of the daytime and also because she was busy for the rest of the day and I’d wanted to see her before she left. She was a student, of course, home for break. But for all the time we’d had to meet up, this morning, before the sun rose, was the only time we could agree upon. And I said to her, I’m glad we’re doing this, as we looked up at the mountain peak silhouetted against the night. She agreed and then zipped up her jacket because it had started to drizzle, and took a step forward.

We climbed through thickets and under drooping branches, and slipped a couple of times here and there. Each time I slipped she would ask me if I was all right, and I would say I was, and then she would make some joke about how bad I was at hiking, to which I would reply that I hadn’t gone hiking in over six months. I commented that we should have checked the weather report. The rain had come and gone and was coming again. We moved as quickly as we could until we found a ledge, under which we waited for the rain to pass.

We sipped our water and watched as the rain fell in front of us. I asked her how school was. She said it was fine, How is yours? Fine, I said. She asked me about some of the things I’d learned. I told her what books I’d read, which authors had made an impression on me. I asked her if she was ready to be a sophomore. No. Time flies.

The rain stopped, so we put away our bottles and crept out from under the ledge. I almost slipped again, but planted my hand on the ground and caught myself. I removed it, shaking off the gunk. Softened by the rain, the mud held the imprint of my hand. My friend pressed her own hand to the ground, laughing, and we stood and admired the marks we had made.

Come on, she said. We’re almost there.

We hoisted ourselves over the top of a fairly large rock, which was mossy and wet with the dew of early morning, and, straightening, saw a light spread across the ocean. My friend turned and high-fived me with her mud-covered hand. The wind brushed her hair, which floated like a piece of driftwood on the surface of the sea. She smiled and said, I’m going to hate to leave this place.

An Almost Storm

Posted on by

Walking down the beach, despite the clouds overhead, I watched as my shadow and two others shifted on the sand.

So how does it feel to be back?

It’s really nice. Can’t beat the feeling.

Vacations are much-needed breaks to the school year—although I wasn’t expecting this type of weather in Hawaii.

The weather’s a bit odd.

I nodded. It’s supposed to storm. We chose the right day to go out.

We continued down the beach. We had a mile to go before we reached our destination, a mall with all the restaurants a food-enthusiastic duo could want.

Let’s just try to get there before it comes.

As we walked, I watched the weather. The wind at our sides was picking up and our shadows on the ground were disappearing. A much greater shadow was casting itself on the sand. At one point, I looked up. The sun had vanished. Swirling out of the top of the sky was a massive gray cloud, which descended in increasing thickness on the beach and on the sea. I turned. In the distance, from a point we had come not an hour ago, the cloud had crawled up the sand and was fingering between hotels.

Look at the cloud.

We hurried down the beach. Around us, we watched as swimming children were called out of the water by their parents. Hosts ushered their outside-dining customers inside. The wind detached a twenty-pound umbrella from its table, sending both into the glass side of the restaurant. At this, we ran, keeping our heads low and shielding our eyes from the sand that the wind had stirred. The sea shuddered. I watched in disbelief as a windsurfer toppled in the wind. We ran into a hotel, where lines of people had gathered by the windows to watch the storm.

It never came.

It rained a lot and the wind tested some of the especially dated buildings, but all things considered, nothing was irreparably damaged. There was a moment, however, as we made our way through the crowd, when the uncertainty was real—for a storm on the beachfront is always serious. But the moment passed when the clouds evaporated and the wind died.

That night at dinner, under a wan light, I remarked what a day it had been.

Are you still happy to be back?

I said yes without a doubt.

Later that night under a streetlamp, waiting to be picked up, I watched our shadows on the ground. In a second of silence, I saw my shadow shiver. Then I realized that it was only myself, responding to a cool breeze, or a feeling of relief to have escaped the storm or to finally be home.

Parting Glances

Posted on by

There’s nothing unusual about this.

Forks clink against ceramic plates. We’re upstairs, taking up only half of the circular table we’re sitting at. I look to see what everyone’s got. A’s eating a burrito, as am I. B’s eating chicken strips and onion rings, and C has a sandwich. For a moment, we lose ourselves in our food; then we lose ourselves in conversation.

We run through our list of conversation topics, turning toward games and television and keeping away from school. We start to imagine the different paths our lives could have taken.

“Guys, imagine if we didn’t end up living together. Where would we be?”

We all shrug.

“Life would be so much better if we didn’t live together.”

“What if we didn’t become friends?”

“Again, life would be so much better.” We laugh. We banter.

“What if we all chose to go to our second-pick school?”

There is a silence, filled only by the sound of forks on plates. Why did we choose Puget Sound? It’s a question we’ve all asked ourselves before.

“About that.”

We stop eating. There’s also a look in his eyes—an apology.

“I’ve decided to transfer out. There’s nothing unusual about this.”

He’s right.

But then something unusual happens.

The room becomes quieter. An emptiness is present that was not here before. There is a sense of loss, of an amputation. We are three missing one. We are one less than whole.

He’s leaving. It’s not unusual. But despite how happy we are for him—that he’ll get to go back home—there’s no helping the sense of emptiness that has suddenly befallen us.

 

This week, I have been stranded with my friends at a Sonics in a car with a shot battery at midnight; I have hurt my back trying to learn how to juggle; I have hurt my brain trying to juggle finishing essays with studying for finals. And now it’s done.

Tomorrow morning, I’ll wake up and take a shuttle to the airport. B will do the same in the afternoon. We’ll lock our doors and walk out the suite, wonder if A is home yet.

Frost forms on my window.

C locks the door and boards a plane.

Here comes the hard part.

Realization

Posted on by

I’m walking down the pathway to Collins Memorial Library. The sun is shining down on the obelisk before me, causing its marble to glisten. The trees ruffle their leaves; a wind sends them to and fro. It’s quiet out. People walk in various directions, off to Todd field or to North Quad. They go their solitary ways. And I am alone.

Suddenly, the court awakens into life. I hear the chirping of the birds from deep in the trees. Their song barely reaches me, but once I hear it, it doesn’t leave me.

The trees, too, come alive, slow dancing to the ballad of the birds. They throw leaves into the air, which float to the ground, sweeping back and forth like kites on the wind. The light and the shadows of their lush caps dance among themselves. The one seems to say to the other, “I wouldn’t be here without you.”

I look down to the ground, where, lining the path I walk along, countless blades of grass rise and bow. I watch them bend forward and straighten, only to kiss the ground with their tips again. Beads of dew crown some of them.

I reach the steps of the library. But before I open the large wooden doors, I turn around and look back at the world through which I have come. The court is empty, as it was when I entered. But where I thought I was alone, I see that I am not. The court is teeming with life of all kinds.

I realize then that people, despite what their circumstances might tell them, are never alone. There is as much life in the empty places as in a crowded room. All I needed was to be alone to see all the things that I had missed. I saw the revelry of the trees to a song of love sung by the birds. I saw the communion between light and shadow, and the religious bowing of the spears. I saw what many who have walked that path missed or have taken for granted.

I walked through the double doors into the library, and wondered how much of life I had missed.

Skipping Stones

Posted on by

On the first day of Thanksgiving break, a friend and I, having remained on-campus, seeing that it was a day warm enough for shorts, went on a rather scenic run through Proctor district, and from there, through an environmental sanctuary to the waterfront, where we lingered for breath and for beauty. Looking over the still water, we carefully climbed down the rocks and jumped onto the damp sand.

The water was still, its surface, smooth, so we picked up some stones and began to skip them. Rearing and whipping our arms forward, we watched as the pebbles ejected from our hands, like saucers across a starry night, over the water, touching down some distance away, and hopping from the momentum. Each step was marked by the appearance of concentric circles upon the glassy water. Two, three, four—we counted as each stone hopped farther, the water it splashed up raining in its wake.

“Here, try this one. It’s got a nice copper color.”

I whip my arm forward, turning my wrist slightly. A large splash means the stone has sunk, unfortunately, upon initial impact.

“Sorry, that was a waste. Here, you try this one.”

In this manner, we continue to throw stones across the water. When I get tired, I sit on a rock, and watch my friend lob stones. He’s on a roll, I think, as he approaches, with each attempt, a legendary five-hop.

On a three-hop throw, I watch the water ripple away from the place where the skip has died. A thin circle, vaguely defined, expands in all directions; it is approaching the shore upon which I sit and the shore opposite ours. In this latter direction, I watch it until it disappears, indistinguishable from the lines of movement on the surface of the water (which is a little less calm now). Still, I follow the circle as it expands, if only an imaginary one supplied by my mind, to the neck of the basin, and from there, as it bends around the promontory that obstructs its way, to the horizon, where I can follow it no more. But I know that the ripple is still travelling. It will travel until it reaches all the shores, which it will reach at different times—but it will never stop until it has touched land in 360-degrees.

If I subscribe to the belief that an action is like a stone in the water, that it creates a rippling effect, then I suppose I should think of everything I do as having the potential to carry me to far and distant shores.

Yet on Thanksgiving Day, with a slight rain gracing my window, I wonder if that ripple has reached home.

Skipping Stones

The Calm Waters

Posted on by

The semester is winding down, which means students campus-wide are preparing for final projects, tests, and papers—each worth a beefy chunk of grade percentage-points. While a few of us have already been hit by the assignments, most of the friends and peers that I’ve talked to are enjoying a brief moment of respite—the calm before the storm. At these moments when we can claim a little time for ourselves, I like to breathe the fall air and enjoy the slowness.

One afternoon, my friends and I got in the car and drove to the movie theatres, intent on making the most of the recent lull in schoolwork. But instead of going our usual way—which consists of traffic and roadwork—we decided to take an alternate route down a hill to a quiet road along the waterfront. The sky at that moment was beginning to darken and the air was beginning to chill. Yet, we decided we could take a minute to stop and enjoy the view.

The water was still. The sky was tinged by the light cast on it by the setting sun. It was receding quietly behind the horizon as the water whispered over the rocks. Some gulls flew against the deepening blue. And all was silent. If we walked out on the docks and looked down, we would have seen families of fish, crabs and plant-life being still or moving slowly, careful not to disturb the water.

We stood on the rocks, as the water flowed around us. We could step from head of rock to head of rock to get back to the car, back to warmth. But we wouldn’t yet. We would be still, like the water.

The wind spoke and sent our scarves aflutter. I pulled my beanie lower over my head, watched the warm air of my breath materialize and rise away, and settled in for another minute outside.

We took two.

The Calm Waters