Let it never stop

Shanzeh’s going on a pilgrimage. I was doing that thing in English class where you start asking generic questions to the people around you (at this time: “what are you doing for spring break?”) and pray that someone’s got something interesting up their alley to get the conversation flowing. Luckily for me, college is full of interesting people. And I learned (and my eyes practically bugged out of my head, because this is not a typical spring break response) that Shanzeh is going on a pilgrimage.

Does one do that… alone? I asked. Uh, no, with family. How long are you going? Two weeks; I’m taking some a few days off before break. Has this been planned for a while? Usually it is, but our family decided pretty recently. Is this your first time? Yup. So… what exactly do you do on a pilgrimage?

We had a good time puzzling it out :). Shanzeh was informed that her dad would tell her about it on the plane, but she had clues—it was going to be a lot of walking, she had no time to bring her laptop, it was going to be a lot of walking, and her younger brother was totally going to whine.

The rest of the class filtered back in—our five-minute break was over—and I sat back in my seat and shook my head. “I’d like to hear about it when you get back,” I told her, Shanzeh being the student I sat next to every English class. I’d had a chemistry class with her first year, but hadn’t seen her since then.

How much I don’t know!

…

Caitlin’s an EMT. She’s officially an EMT now (that stands for Emergency Medical Technician) because she just passed the national test which is required for state certification which is required to ride and run the M.I.T. ambulance. Caitlin’s an MIT sophomore, and when she’s not in class, running various Brain and Cog Sci events, or cooking, she’s working in the ambulance.

If you’re an MIT student (or staying in the MIT frat houses for the summer, for example), you call the ambulance before you call the Boston police. The ambulance is run by students who put in rather astounding numbers of hours for the pleasure of helping out their peers. Caitlin trained over Wintersession and has been working more than 10 hours a week in order to become an official member. She tells me it’s a very tight community. An undisclosed friend tells me all the EMT students are fit and good-looking, just F.Y.I.

Things like this as so astonishing to me because there’s so many things people do with their time, and do so well, and no one knows. I was working on my math homework with Caitlin in Stata (that’s the main student hub on the academic side of campus) when someone with a MIT Swimming and Diving jacket slid into the seat across from us. I have to admit I stared a little. The MIT Swim and Dive team is legend for Wellesley. They are fast, they work their butts off just like the Wellesley team does—we put in 20 hours a week into swimming. But I see athletes walking around both Wellesley’s and MIT’s campus, and no one knows. What it’s like to pour a good portion of your life into training and the team and meets and coaches and the inevitable drama and closeness that comes when you spend too many hours with the same people fighting through pain and satisfaction. Athletes are just students with special jackets. EMTs change out of the neat, black pants and white shirts that classify them before coming to class. People just look like people. It’s astonishing.

…

Ika’s a senior on the swim team, and she and her mother love exercising. Ika swam the English channel last year—it was published in the Wellesley magazine—and Ika runs, swims, bikes, hikes, skis, kayaks, anything that involves working hard under the power of her own body. Her mother does it all too—she’s a Dartmouth lab professor, and lives up in New Hampshire in a house where she can walk to work. It’s the third time I’ve been invited up to Ika’s house, and every time they remind me of the joy intrinsic in moving.

This most recent weekend, a whole crew of us: Tiffany, Leah, Ika, Erin P., Keelin, Theresa, Kate, and me, went cross-country skiing in the white mountains. I used to be on the cross-country ski team in high school, but it had been three years since I picked up some poles. After some initial falls, and one hard one that left me more cautious, I realized with pleasure that the rhythm of it, the shifting of weight and strength, is not something you forget. Ika and I skied ahead sometimes, as the only ones who had both skied before and were wearing skate skis (the faster version compared to classic skis), but most of the time we skied along with everyone else, covering over 8 miles with butt imprints and laughter.

It’s beautiful in New Hampshire, and Ika’s mom kept on pointing out where we could ice skate, kayak, climb this mountain or that, swim, all within these winding trails in the forests and rivers and sun. She told us the story of when her other daughter had been dating a boy from Vermont, which was across the river, but that it was a pain to drive to the bridge that connected the two states since it was a ways down. So Ika’s mom bought her daughter a kayak, and sent her across the river. I told her that if I ever were to be stranded on a desert island, I’d want to be with people from around here.

It’s like a new lifestyle, up there. People are active and expansive within it—I feel like everyone holds a quiet awe of the beauty surrounding them, and they reach out to it with endurance, friends and undying admiration. It’s a different sense of community, one based less on talk and more on silence, of appreciation and the shared burn of muscles and accomplishment. Ika’s mom says I could live here in the future, up in New Hampshire. I don’t know if I could—don’t know if I could feel this joy come, let it express itself every day—only know that I love these people and this world as much as the city that encases my own.

…

Closing back in, and expanding back out:

 

Micah uses short-hand Japanese in her school notes,

Suman drops by my room to talk every Wednesday,

Ariella and Dario are doing research in Israel this summer,

Prof. Cezair Thompson is teaching more about writing that I ever knew,

One of my friends has disabilities,

Prof. Conway spent a half an hour explaining pan-isoluminant gratings to me,

Brynna loves music, David does archery, Nicole’s going trap-shooting.

 

Today is pi day! I had free pie yesterday,

I can do anything I want with my life:

I’m working out every day, writing, eating dinner with people,

Brynna and Eleni have never been to dimsum; we’ll go before spring break.

Katherine works at Brigham and Women’s,

Ariella’s president of MIT’s Mental Health Club,

My senior friends are looking for jobs,

Gabby’s in China, Christine’s from Alabama,

Tiffany went on a Massachussetts tour to play the carillon bells.

 

School’s like this background hum behind everything, the unquestionable force that keeps us working hard and learning. But we hardly need school to keep us learning. Throw me some people, throw me some cultures, throw me some awesome beautiful friends differences passion ambition choices joy, and you have college, you have learning, you have life.

Monica

———————————————————————————————————————————-