Drift

I turned 27 last Sunday. I know that every year that goes by will feel as though it goes faster than the last one, but that was especially true of year 26 for me. I want to remember:

-        -  Jumping up and down to a band called Saved By the 90’s after going to a comedy club and having Mike’s old roommate Jeff buy me a shot (which felt fitting, since I bought for him in college) to ring it in in New York, celebrating with Donna and my brother, old friends and new.

-       -   Riding in the comfort of Amtrak trains for the first time. I remember it being so cold walking through the couple blocks of downtown  Chicago that separated Union Station and the place where the trains left for Donna’s parents’ suburb, and how awkward I felt pulling around my big black Mexican suitcase.

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-         - Spending 10 days living in a house with a dog with Donna, watching college basketball and cooking shows on TV and glimpsing domesticity.

-        -  Trying black rice at a DC restaurant with Joayne, and saying I wished I could just keep being a PCV.

-         - Mashing a clove of roasted garlic against bread at a pizzeria with Liz and getting sticky garlic paste all over my fingers.

-         - Feeling horrified at what it’s like to work at the USDA.

-         - Being amazed by how many hidden-in-plain-sight secrets there are to know about the design of the National Holocaust Museum.

-          - Shooting free throws in my parents’ driveway again while Michigan State bowed out early in the NCAA tournament.

-          - Staying up all night applying for jobs one night like I was writing a last-minute paper in college, and getting a call the next morning.

-          - The happy accident that was finding a beautiful, tiny, fully-furnished apartment and a girl who wanted to give it and everything in it away so she could move to California to be with her boyfriend.

-         -  Moving to Chicago, and feeling like an adult.

-          - The lonely-in-the-presence-of-a-multitude-of-strangers feeling that accompanies all rides on the L; the greatness of having an L-stop two blocks from my house.

-          - The kindness of Kari and Brandon, who helped us move up three flights of stairs into our Lakeview apartment; and of Paul and Ashley and Allison, who helped us move even more stuff down three flights of stairs and into our Bridgeport apartment five months later.

-          - Walking to Wrigley Field.

-     - Making a place into a home with someone.

-         -  Babysitting children in schools; herding children like cats in gym class; occasionally actually getting to teach things. Once getting heckled, ignored and things thrown at me. Keeping the drawings small children made for me.

-          - Failing at job interviews.

 f    - Finding fantastic restaurants we could walk to.

-          - Finally trying Ian’s on State in Madison, WI, a little over a year after calling them from Nicaragua to buy pizza for the protestors camped out at the state capitol to protest Scott Walker’s union-busting.

-          - The great wealth of knowledge and suggestions that poured forth from friends when I asked them what I should teach in a 15-minute sample lesson with a great teaching job on the line; the nervousness that wracked me for the three days before that lesson; the confused ecstasy of the moment of doing the lesson itself; the bitterness of the disappointment that came from the phone not ringing afterwards.

-         -  Desperation sinking into the pit of my stomach after not working and not working and not working.

-          - Millionaire tryouts.

-          - Professionally moving furniture.

-         -  Sharing a couch to watch Chopped, Restaurant Impossible, Kitchen Nightmares, No Kitchen Required, Cubs games, movies, whatever was on.

-         -  Throwing parties; decorating; making strawberry margaritas and guacamole.

-         -  Having friends stay the night at our place, especially our visitors from Minnesota and D.C. and Tennessee!

-          - Going to a wedding, and seeing the opposite of everything I’d want to happen at mine.

-         -  Going to another wedding that was pretty much perfect.

-         -  Failing at keeping in touch with just about everyone.

-         -  Underestimating how long just about everything would take.

-    - Korean-style karaoke for Allison's birthday, and an entire room of people rapping Gold Digger.

-         - Entire days being sucked away to online games, television, household chores, errands.

-          - Almost ending up in Baltimore.

-          - Finding a job and getting called to be on Millionaire and getting gifts and cake for Donna’s 25^th birthday all on the same day, exactly one work day before the school year started for CPS.

-          - Taking the red line to Simeon from Lakeview, and watching the color of all of the people but me change as we went from one side of Chicago to the other.

-         -  Moving again, and feeling the awesomeness of living somewhere more than twice as big as the previous place we’d been, but also the weight of having to clean and decorate it.

-          - Starting work, and feeling like a real person again.

-         -  Striking, and feeling like I was in college again.

-          - Millionaire.

-         -  Seeing New Haven through the eyes of a paraglider.

-          - Tossing tea into the Boston Harbor with Jocelyn.

-         -  Finding a routine.

-          - Talking to our neighbors, handing out candy on Halloween with them as Batman and Robin.

-          - The amazing feeling of being able to afford new eyewear, a kitchen table and chairs set, and a new computer.

-          - Getting through days, never quite getting everything done that needed to get done, but getting through nonetheless.

-          - Seeing the Mountain Goats, buying their last two albums, listening to Never Quite Free, not being able to sing the last verse without verging on tears.

-          - Having seasonal displays for the holidays; carving pumpkins; dragging a real Christmas tree to our place, feeling very American.

-         -  Writing Christmas cards, some to people I hadn’t seen in four years.

-         -  Winning Sangria-pong.

-         -  Hosting Donna’s family and my brother for Christmas, and my brother ending up helping us host Donna’s family. Going home for three days, spending the whole time eating and playing Bananagrams and Phase 10 and Yahtzee.

-         -  Cruising to the Bahamas with Donna’s 93-year-old grandma, being cold, playing slots, watching shows and getting lots of pictures of us taken on an enormous boat.

-          - Vowing to spend more time on things I wanted to spend time on in the new year, and less on things that sucked time away.

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Rachael Maddow wrote a book about the power of drift as it relates to our military that came out last year. I haven’t read it, but I’m very familiar with the concept. Things just have a way of going on auto-pilot and moving all on their own. It’s how I’d describe most of my movements through this past year, not so much swimming or treading water (though there was some of that this summer) but holding on as the waves took me places. It’s a lot better than how I felt when I was student teaching, which I described at the time as being thrown into the ocean 20 miles from shore and being forced to swim back to land. Still, my goal for this year is to get out of the metaphorical ocean altogether and, in the words of John Darnielle, “riddle up on dry land,” where I guess I’d feel a little bit more in control of things, kind of how I felt in Nicaragua. It’s been a mixed bag so far, and I’m sure it always will be; but I’m moving forward, and little by little finding time to do the things I want to do.