9/21/10

 Sarcophagus was back from her first block of classes when I woke up in the mid-afternoon.

“I’ve got an assignment for class due tomorrow. Kaitlin and I are working together, and we’ve yet to decide what to do.”

“What’s the class?”
            “Sculpture 1 with DeZarn”

“Nice. I never had him, but I’ve heard he’s pretty sweet. What’s the assignment?”

“We’ve gotta make a piece of art that exists in nature, is made entirely of nature, and incorporates ‘negative spaces.’”

“Yikes. And you guys have no idea what you’re gonna do?”

“Not really. I think we’re head down towards the bluebells though. We’ll figure it out when we get there. Feel like taking a walk through the woods?”

“Sure” I said.

[The “bluebell woods” was one of Geneseo’s most strangely kept secrets. After three springs of complete oblivion, I had woken up a few weeks before graduation to hear all of my friends ranting about the flowers. One needed to be shown how to get there by another who had been before, as there was no clear or direct path: a walk down a road (that at first glance looked to be little more than a factory parking lot) took you past a sewage treatment plant and an abandoned junk-yard, before turning into a horse path. After seventy-five yards, a turn off of the path and a meander through a woods. Find the bank of a river, follow it north-west, and skirt the big field with the solitary dead tree in the middle. Soon enough you’d see the first patches of lavender. Keep going. The flowers are short lived (the bloom lasts barely two week, and are at peek flush for under forty-eight hours) but if you hit ‘em just right, a hundred and twenty seconds later you’d find yourself in wonderland: a lightly packed forest draped in a sea of shin-high purple flowers that stretch on in perpetuity - the sight of which is only rivaled by the enveloping smell. But springtime this wasn’t and bluebells there weren’t.]

The jaunt down the horse-path was slightly muddy, but not overly cold or excessively wet. A little past the turn-off one would take towards the bluebells, we came across a deep culvert carved out by a dribbling stream. Remnants of an early cement bride lingered in the stoned slope, and it was here that the girls took to the task of creating art. Feeling uninspired, I sat and watched, as they played with leaves and picked flowers and perused stones. Forty minutes later they presented me with their sculpture - “LeafRock-Pompom-Rock.” The title was derived from it’s form: a base-stone wrapped in damp fall foliage, followed by a layer of  dying dandelions and other such natural fluffies, toped with a much flatter and sharper rock. The sculpture was dutifully documented with a digital camera, and we strolled back to town, leaving nature to finish her off.

While Sarcophagus headed back to her apartment, I climbed straight up the hill to campus in pursuit of ex-professors with downtime at office hours. The first stop was Welles Hall. Originally built as an elementary school in the 1930s, the building felt truly collegiate (a combination of personal memories and semi-gothic architecture, I’m sure). I walked the hallways until I found Dr. Herzman sitting in a new office. Ron had been my advisor, but only for a year, as I didn’t declare a major until my junior year, and the punk had decided to take a sabbatical my senior year.  Thankfully, I had nabbed a few classes with the Distinguished Teaching Professor while still an undeclared hobo. The new office was bigger, but amounted to nothing more than a logistical space-shift. We got in five minutes of schmoozetime before I was kicked out for a meeting with a student. So I headed across the way to Brodie.

Brodie Hall housed the college’s fine arts program, and for those well-acquainted with theatrical side of  building, the name was as synonymous with drama off the stage as it was on. I passed a few faces I vaguely recognized in the hallways, but nobody I knew well enough to stop for, as I headed straight for the Alice Austin Theater.

The stage was mostly empty and the lights were dim, but the sound of a familiar grunt told me that my former mentor was indeed home. As Johnnie strolled on stage, he peered up to the catwalk, but before he could shout focus instructions to whomever was idling behind the lights, his eye caught my face. With little celebration and less surprise he looked me up and down, and with deep deadpan sarcasm, muttered “What do you want?” It felt good to be back in the presence of such an un-flappable man.

For the next half-hour we floated between the black-box, the shop, and the main stage as he filled me in on the latest department struggles, and I him on my brief foray into the New York stagehand world – the buzz of a light day in the shop behind us all the while. A few old co-workers popped in-and-out, and with each came a hug, a brief update of life circumstances, and a “lets hang out before I leave. “

But it felt too unnatural to be in the space for too long with no task to accomplish or wrench to swing, and I was promptly on my way. As I pushed open the door, Johnnie shouted at me “Get a job ya slacker” - a wink only half implied.

Feeling directionless and dull, I headed up to Main Street to grab a cup of Coffee. Muddy Waters opened my senior year, and proved to be a breath of fresh air to what had become a very stale Main Street. Ornate with local pop-art and furnished with a plethora of comfy couches and arm-chairs, the coffee shop became a favorite spot to meet up for a study sess, or to catch a late evening open mic for the few beatniks among us. Mug in hand, I sat and watched the town pass by.

As much as I loved calling New York City home, the impenetrable concreteness of the jungle could occasionally get to me, and I’d find myself yearning for long-lost country roads. As I peered out the window at the quaint houses that lined Main Street, rosy in the late afternoon sun, I decided it was time for a walk.

Despite the pleasant weather and slight caffeine buzz, a deep blue had settled over my spirits. It was completely irrational – I had the wind to my back, and a country at my fingertips. But I felt stuck; trapped. The town was too recognizable yet the faces too foreign. I had been here so many times before – why was I back? And where was I going? The road-trip had yet to turn into a Road Trip; so far it was all family and familiarity. In theory I knew I was in for adventure, but the pit of my stomach made me question my decisions. [In various ways, the depression stuck around until the slew of recognizable faces were to my east, and the true consciousness of possibility fully grabbed my spirits. Toledo, Ohio of all places.]

As Geneseo’s Main Street crosses Court Street (the de-facto demarcation of the northern edge of the village) it turns into Avon Road, and shortly after the County Complex ends and the Armory is behind you, the streetlights disappear and the houses spread further apart. Ten minutes later you’ll pass the Geneseo Central School, with it’s track and sports fields framing the valley below. After that, America becomes rural.

Two miles outside town, on the left side of Rt. 39, is a wide dirt-paved road that descends westward into the grazing and riding pastures of the valley. Nations Road was a frequent destination of the head-clearing bike rides I’d taken many a late afternoon as a student. Treading down its slope, I walked until the pavement of the highway was out of sight, and slipping under a green horse-gate (ignoring the “Warning – Untethered Bull” sign) I wandered into one of the fields, and found a toppled tree to sit on. I sat and inhaled the view.

As the sun sank low, my mind wandered from the landscape and towards unsettled feelings, and I felt for the phone in my pocket.

I walked back to town in the dark, and went straight to Kelly’s, the diveiest and towniest of the bars. A quick whisky later, It was across the street to Mamma Mia’s Pizzeria for two slices and a garlic knot, and then to the gas station for a candy-bar. Still adrift, I wandered aimlessly around campus, reliving the past as the dorms and academic buildings drifted by.

Once the old grounds were sufficiently stomped, I pulled out my phone again.

“Junior! You at your apartment?”

I had texted Mark (given the nickname as there was a synonymous person working in the scene-shop when Jr. arrived his freshman year) earlier in the day, but he’d been in class when I was bumbling Brodie, and we’d postponed our hang-sess until later that evening.

“Yeah man. You wanna swing by?”

“Sure. Toss me your address and I’ll come over.”

“Sounds good. See ya in a little.”

The text arrived seconds after I hung up, and I took the stroll up to Second Street. The door was open, and I walked into a surprisingly unique apartment, complete with a sunken living room and wall-to-wall 1970s era carpeting in both the kitchen and the bathroom. The catch-up session was a tad more interesting than others I’d had that day; it was fun to see Junior, still very much himself, but now with a beer in his hand and a girlfriend on his couch (the man had been a devout teetotaler up until his 21^st birthday, due mostly to a conservative up-bringing).

            The day had grown long and I was getting tired, so back down to Sarcophagus’ it was, for some cartoon’s, a bit too much reality TV, and sleep.