In Which She Contemplates Other Birthdays

Excerpt from a letter to a friend.

How did you know that I, too, was just dreaming about another such camping trip [...] ? I would really love that. One option for evading the economic crisis = retreating into the woods to wait it out with cheap beer and good friends. Sounds like heaven.

Lately I've been marveling at the freedom of our age. It sounds like it's hard for you to feel it while at the mercy, so to speak, of your parents' generosity/charity (it is hard to differentiate, isn't it sometimes, when it comes to Them) but to be 23, unmarried, unburdened by children or elderly parents, not yet tied to a steady job yet in fresh and deserving possession of a bachelor's degree. You, whether or not you are fully aware of it, are your biggest priority right now, and that is, for all its daunting terror, delicious. May we find the courage to take full advantage of these sweet years! I know I sure did today, a sunny Saturday in Torino, and here's how:

stayed up until 2,30am on skype with --- to hash out the existential puzzles of this world, then woke up at 8,30am to ready my two little charges for their weekly swim lessons;

[once they had gone] ate yogurt and granola on the balcony in my pajamas, with Henry James' Turn of the Screw in one hand;

gave my host dad some professional English mother-tongue advice about his potential project titles, as he hopes to soon get a couple of grants to form an international research foundation;

met a good friend on the corner between our houses for a long stroll around town to run errands (visit this shoe store, that books store, all the things we postpone until Saturday), and ended up going into a stationary store with so many beautiful delicate handprinted things in the window, and getting a tour of the printing studio; drinking Corona straight from the bottle in a "piazza" (strip of greenish dog-poopy lawn in the midst of a parking lot), eating apples, and choosing songs for her sister's upcoming wedding reception; gawking at sexy men, even if they were with their girlfriends or, in some cases, boyfriends, and laughing in that really exclusive teenage-girlish was about something we both remembered that wasn't even actually that funny; parted ways so she could meet someone for a running date, and I went on alone--

ate lunch alone at an outside cafe, always accompanied by Henry James;

saw a marching band march by, followed by a rather sheepish-looking flag squad;

heard a classical street guitarist named Matteo play to an indifferent crowd, stopped to listen to and sketch him, then offered him a coffee which we took at a nearby cafe with his girlfriend, Francesca;

bought an incredibly cool burgundy long-sleeved shirt that converts into a sleeveless vest via zippers, and a Calvin & Hobbes book for my boys, who are just beginning to enjoy listening to English books read aloud;

walked and walked, and looked and looked, and thought, and thought: This is luxury. This is freedom."

Along with lofty concepts like Freedom and Youth, I have also been lately ruminating on Education, Identity, and Purpose. You know, in my spare time. Coincidentally, just yesterday someone whom I hold in high regard sent me a scholarly reading titled “The Disadvantages of An Elite Education” from which I proceeded to remove a few especially savory bits with all the attentive delicacy of taking a sleeping infant from the arms of another, and set them apart in a clean, dry corner of my brain to ripen, and deepen. To resonate. Yummy bits like "being an intellectual means, first of all, being passionate about ideas” and, next of all, “thinking your way outside of your assumptions and the system that enforces them." The author gives his two cents on today's university system and how far it takes the individual from her true intellectual purpose, which should be to question the universe around her, to find and cultivate a vision that allows her to best give something back. This message isn't unlike that of the UC Berkeley article about which I recently posted, the one about the plight of the young girl in modern society. Both writings speak directly to me, it seems, supporting this itch I felt one year ago to take the road less traveled (thanks, Margo Watson, for Robert Frost) and go abroad to see some things, to think some things. Nine months after graduating from Colorado College and eight months after leaving the United States, I'm beginning to see that despite all my misgivings, it was the right thing to do.

"The ability to engage in introspection . . . is the essential precondition for living an intellectual life, and the essential precondition for introspection is solitude." Speaking of which I spent a hefty chunk of my birthday alone, this past Wednesday. Ash Wednesday, my brother reminded me, adding that it's my fault that Catholics have to feel so guilty this year. Thought about how different this birthday was from the one before it - 22, when I wore a pink tutu around campus just to wring the absolute most public attention from my special day. Before that came 21, when I shared strawberry wine with other study abroad students in a small pub in Florence, and before that was 20, the Day of Twenty Alcoholic Beverages... yeah... ahem. Even before that came 19, when three friends and I set off the smoke alarm in the freshman dorm making quesadillas, and 18, the 40 person scavenger hunt that so unfortunately ended in a minor car crash. Oh, birthdays.

I'm 23.