It's a good thing that they have invented a meter that can show how many people are visiting a web site in any given week. While it is not necessary for me to have people actually viewing my blog in order for me to continue, it does give me a boost to know that others at least view if not appreciate what I write. I couldn’t help but notice that one out of the ten last blogs I have written has received a comment. I'll just have to assume that the things I say change people so deeply that they have problems expressing that feeling.
Enough of me pitying me. Onto the main show!
Though it is a more than daily experience for me to walk across the awkward sea of a college campus, I find each day an exhilaration. There is always something new, always something more to behold. There might be the sounds of construction that always seem to be going on but never seem to be going anywhere or perhaps the feelings of awkwardness from spying a pair of newlyweds, locked together in a much more close way than just fingertips. One might observe a freshman, new to the hugeness of campus running for all he's worth, forgotten his duties to social grace or stature. I love the see the sun, bursting over the tops of the mountains to warm a frozen cheek, a constant reminder of the infallibility of hope and eventual happiness. You might have harsh winds that bite at your cheeks and rob your lips of moistness. Anyway you look at it; the trek from one end of the campus to another can be a wonderful experience. Especially if others think you're crazy, because this frees you to do things you might otherwise feel restricted from doing.
The worst thing, when walking from class to class, is encountering yourself with a bombardment of nastiness. The air one moment is crisp and clean, that sort of cold quality that sears your lungs and leaves them feeling refreshed healed, only to be robbed of that revitalization by the sudden entering into of a pocket of plague. These pockets follow certain people around, and as you approach them there is little or no warning before they are totally upon you. One moment all is clear, the next the world appears through a hazy smoke, and the lungs and chest begin a battle. It's not a comfortable one, but they strive to reject the feeling of dirty that has suddenly penetrated them. I can think of little I enjoy less than going from cool air to the haze of a personalized industrial zone.
This encountering of smell is not always bad. When it takes on the qualities of Chicago on fire it definitely has adverse affects, but I have recently been reminded that a powerful emotion may be evoked by a different sort of olfactory experience. As I entered the building that I most frequent on campus, I was startled to have a pleasantly soft smell come to my then awakened senses. A sharp twist had been introduced to the smell common to many flowers, which had a most desirable affect. I stopped in my tracks, eager to go on experiencing this particular perfume. The odd thing about perfume, though, is that it often stays with she who carries it. It would have been idiotic of me to turn and follow that particular person out of the building that I had just entered, and so my pride bid me turn and save that particular extension of experience for another time.
I wonder what my pocket of perfume is like.
1 comment:
I suppose I'll de-lurk to say hello. And also to ask--when you're talking about walking from pockets of crisp, clean air and then suddenly breathing smoke and haze . . . are you talking about walking from say, the Institute building to the Social Sciences building? That's what it made me think of.
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