intellectual properties

a good reader

i read this short bit in the new yorker about coming of age via Great Books and he reminded me so much of me and how i was and am (i think i even dreamed of going to St. John’s College in New Mexico) and it provoked this thought train:

the summer of 1996 was the first summer i did not spend at home with my family in the woods of Northern Michigan, the first summer i lived completely independent of my parents.  i was 19 going on 20.

mentioned here, 1996-1997 were some of the most confusing years of my life. i was somehow totally unprepared for so many things, and on top of that felt a constant exclusion from much of my collegiate culture for reasons i couldn’t quite pin down. i had friends (much beloved, like sisters), but i don’t think they understood how i fit in to that time and place and scene, and neither did i. i know this is not uncommon, but that makes it no less significant to my personal history.

for the summer of 96, i had signed up to be an intern at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington DC as part of UofM’s Public Service Intern Program (PSIP). i remember getting off the train in Washington DC, and my roommate, who had corralled me into going into the Program with her, greeted me there.  i was so confused/relieved.  i had stayed up most of the night in the smoking car on the ride from Toledo, Ohio reading and talking to randoms and watching the streetlights of the midwest and appalachia roll by, and as i got off the Amtrak, exhausted, i realized, pulling my trunk through the massive, chaotic train station, that i had no idea where i was going.  absolutely no idea. perhaps i had an address?  i seem to remember panicking that i didn’t.

so when Aimee appeared out of the crowd all i could say was “how did you know to meet me here?!” because i had absolutely no recollection of telling her what train i was on.  but she was (and still is) smarter than me.  she figured it out.  and if she hadn’t been there, in those days before internet and iPhones, i have no idea what i would have done. retrospectively, that was a bad start and an omen. and then on my first day at work i found out that my stipend was half what i thought it was, so i was also basically broke too. i remember Aimee saying she had budgeted a meager $20/day to live on, and when i did the math for 60 days, i realized i had nowhere near enough money and had to call my mom.

besides that, there were (at least) three things that contributed to that experience being depressive for me and not the rollicking good time it might have been for others.  First, almost everyone else, including my roommates, were interning at large government orgs and legal firms and had to be at their jobs by 8am.  so they all got up early and commuted early together and sort of traveled in packs.  my job didn’t require that, and so i was usually alone by the time i got up and commuted. i didn’t have their jovial comraderie all day long.  secondly, they would also then go out after work together, but me being only 19 and without fake ID meant that I couldn’t go out for beers after work or go out with them most of the time on the weekends either.  so i spent a lot of time alone, wandering the Smithsonians or watching TV at night. third, my internship was kind of a bust in that i did little to no work and learned almost nothing, but i don’t know if that is because they weren’t really organized about their intern program or if when i showed up they were like “this girl can’t help us” and i basically sat the bench for 2 months. so i spent a lot of time alone, and my internship was mostly pointless except to teach me what i did not want to do and how woefully unprepared i was to venture out into the world alone to find something i did.

that following year, my Junior year at Michigan, i grew into myself a little bit more, and i signed up to do something totally different the next summer, the summer of 1997.  i applied and was accepted to be a participant in the New England Literature Program, moved to the White Mountains for the spring semester, and like the author of that new yorker piece, that was where i learned to read. this changed my life in that i learned that being literate is one thing, being a good writer is another, and being a good reader is yet another, and a valuable skill.  so while i think my writing is average, i do think that i am a very good reader, and i am starting to wonder now, at this juncture in my life and career, if i can do something more than entertain myself with it.  i have been looking into (*gasp*) graduate programs in Critical Reading and Writing (example). it will probably take years before i can imagine actually committing myself to applying or enrolling (the money! ACK!), but at least i think i might have found a path to focus on.

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