I am seated along the length of an enormous dining table in a somewhat suburban home, perhaps approximate to the University. The late afternoon sunshine diffuses its way through the room so that no corner is lighter or darker than any other, making everything appear vivid and alive.
Many lively individuals surround this table, dividing their time between eating and fervently discussing their movement–they are organizing, rallying around a cause–and their youthful energy suggests positive effectiveness. Ideas and smiles beam across the room in a blur of viscous conversation that eludes complete absorption.
This house belongs to Katie’s relatives–her Aunt and Uncle–with whom she spent much of her impressionable youth. And I understand that while they took her under their wing, it was with a certain degree of disdain (or out of some inconvenient notion of responsibility). Consequently, she was often treated as a second-class person, and this created issues that she still struggles with today.
I am in a separate room of the house, just off the kitchen. Here, the Aunt and Uncle are dining–separate from the clamor of the grassroots movement forming a few rooms away. Katie’s presence elicits some kind of comment from these relatives–yet another disparaging remark–and upon its delivery I snap, no longer able to hold my tongue…
I’m ripping each of them a new asshole, surging forth with forked tongue to stab the life out of their inflated egos, leaving nothing sacred, attacking every facet of their despicable existences, criticizing…no, no–crushing them over everything from their complete and utter failure to treat Katie with decency and respect to the blandness and low-quality of the food they serve. As this attack bellows forth, Katie retreats from the scene, her mood somber and reserved. I notice this, and wonder if its a signal that I am overstepping my bounds, or hurting more than helping. But these expressions pump out of me by necessity, and I don’t let her recession stop me–I feel these things need to be said.
I am outside–the dinner party appears to have shifted locale to circle a swimming pool. The same group of vibrant youths are here, but now seem more social than political. Same smiles, nonetheless. I see some of Katie’s closest friends, but not her.
Campus blossoms off of the opposite bank of a short, arched bridge that spans a crystalline river. Academic buildings and collegiate scenery that should feel familiar, instead seems just slightly different enough to provide that sense of newness, and much to take in. All, still perfectly illuminated in perfect light–nothing to bright, nothing too dark. As I cross, I decide to call Katie, feeling a bit of guilt over my actions with her family, and I wanting to discover her reaction. And while the water below moves along at a chipper pace, the line begins to ring.
I’m expecting to leave a voicemail as I’m remembering for some reason that her phone might be devoid of reception recently, so I am surprised when I am greeted instead by an inquisitive, “Hello?” Her voice indicates a certain degree of sadness. We talk as I wander further into a noisy campus. Wanting to give our conversation due attention, I set a course for a large nearby building–perhaps the Reitz Union–whose impressive height is eclipsed only by the amount of glass used to create its face. Inside, I see landings, hallways, offices and doors off to the right and left of an expansive atrium containing a wide stairwell, which I start to climb.
As I climb, Katie tells me a story of recent events in her life. She describes a woman, who upon description sounds like the wife of one of the faculty whom I work with. This woman, she relays, had loaned her an electronic word processor. And it is with this device, Katie tells me, that she wrote out everything–everything, everything–everything she wants, every direction she might take in life, every component of the person she wants to be, everything, everything! As she tells this story I continue ascending the stairwell, and for a brief moment wonder why she might not have used the computer I bought for her for this task–the one offered as payment for the panniers she lovingly and frustratingly sewed together for me…but I quickly decide this detail lacks enough importance to warrant interrupting her flow. She continues, lamenting that ultimately, the document was lost to a technological failure of sorts.
As I round the stairs up to the fifth floor, I begin to hear our conversation in stereo–in one ear, the phone and in the other, her voice from just a few steps further ahead. As I step onto the fifth floor, I see her seated in an office directly ahead. With freshly drawn smiles, we hang up our phones and move to pursue our conversation, face-to-face.
The small office is littered with file drawers and files that might once have lived in them. The desk, which Katie sits behind, holds up an archaic computer of sorts, which I think she may be using to check her email, or something similarly innocuous. A hand-made sign on the door of this small suite reads “The Kickstand”, each 1/4 page letter printed red on white paper and taped together to form the words. I understand this office was used by the first iteration of that organization.
Our surroundings shift around us, back to the house owned by the Aunt and Uncle, and into Katie’s personal room. She asks if I would like to see what she “has so far”, referencing a hand-drawn calendar of July 2008, littered with names and places. She asks me for the dates of our Alaska trip, and I reply with the dates of my upcoming Costa Rica trip. She marks this on the calendar with my name, and highlights that series of days in green or yellow–as she does this, however, I notice the calendar is not correct. I cannot tell where the error lies, but I know that the 11th should be on a Saturday and in this case it falls on a Monday or Tuesday. I study the lines and numbers drawn with a blue ink pen, but can’t seem to find the source of the disparity. There are other names and events written on the calendar. In particular, I notice “the fest” scrawled across the top, and again spanning several days near the end of the month, these days highlighted in blue.
The dusky sky reclaims some of its abundance of light as we pedal on University Avenue downtown, heading West. Repeatedly, we see signs bearing an image or logo of a sliced lemon. Continuing down the dark, wet road, now very much experiencing the night-time, we quickly come upon a dark-skinned man in round, thin, gold-rimmed glasses whose lemonade stand sits in the middle of the East-bound lane. He emerges from the darkness so suddenly we are forced to dodge, Katie hard to the right and me hard to the left to get around him. Our relative proximities scare everyone, and he call me something, using an expletive–but I know his expression comes from surprise and fear of harm rather than any kind of real hate. Still for some reason, I toss at him the newspaper I am carrying?!?
Almost immediately we turn around and head back East, and on our way past him, I call him the name that he called me–but now its funny and we all laugh. The night sky has given away to mid- to late-morning sunshine. I say to her “so…I really ripped into your aunt and uncle” with that inflection indicating an apologetic guilt and my desire to discover her feelings on the matter.
Without a moment of hesitation, and with confidence and conviction, she turns to me and says, “Oh, don’t worry about it at all…”
I can see the wet path left behind by my West-bound bicycle tires. Now with my hands off the handlebars, I’m roughly retracing my path, but not really caring if my tires hit the same patch of sidewalk or not.
