I have five minutes to finish my sweet cheese croissant and orange juice before I have to run to class.
Run to class. I am not a student, but for the next hour, I will feel like one. The exhilaration of sprinting to class and wondering what exciting or boring stuff awaits me. I've always enjoyed learning, and now I get to learn without the pressure of grades and what-will-the-others-and-parents-think-of-these-grades. I am auditing a class today. I do my homework, and take tests and so far I've been doing pretty well.
It's just like in college. Except that in college I couldn't often afford to buy a croissant (and forget about sweet cheese version) and an orange juice. I worked in addition to studying.
But who was I?
I look out the big windows of this Au Bon Pain. There was also an Au Bon Pain smack in the middle of the Square. I have a lot of memories from that place. But right now I am not thinking or recalling them. I look out these huge windows and see the people walking by. I notice a few undergraduate women walking by. They seem so mature and still have their youthful beauty. But my memories of my peers during my undergraduate years were not of the same image. I was afraid. There was so much fear when it came to women. But don't we heterosexual men all have that problem? But still, it's interesting to look at the young nineteen, twenty year olds walking in front of me, behind these large windows as if I were watching a movie about my past, some twelve, thirteen years ago. And I can't believe how I couldn't see these human beings around me as being simply students, mature students, young women, thinking about the future while trying to enjoy the scholastic present. I see the couple of faces in front of me as extremely approachable. But I remember I would never really dare to talk to similar faces. I would approach those with the nerdy, nearly unattractive by social norms, awkward faces; in other words, those who I saw were at my level of shunnability, rejectability, what have you. Now I do see one or two ladies who walk before me who seem too shy, bookish, hiding behind their unfashionable glasses, clothes, books, and very introspective, not because there is necessarily anything interesting about their inner world, but rather, they can't stand the reminder that the outer world has shunned them in every way except their academic achievements.
Am I projecting my past suffering on them? Maybe. I also notice young men. I notice one with a lot of acne on his face, busy walking fast, not looking at anything, but not looking forward to much either. He's late to his class, and I wonder if my five minutes are up. His acne reminded me of my own self-consciousness. Did my girlfriend in college notice my acne? But she never really loved me, so maybe she did. I also see two young men walking more at ease, one laughing while the other talking very exuberantly. I saw men like this in my school back in those years, and I avoided them, not because they did anything to me, but because I was too upset that I couldn't be like them, that I had to hide, that I could only approach girls that these guys would definitely, I thought, not even see.
Who was I? The people walking in front of me in their different paces and different demeanor are weaving a picture on this glass silver screen. Someone is showing a reel of my college life that I haven't really thought much about.
I see another young woman. She's blondish, seems athletic, not dressed particularly fashionable but definitely very much at ease in this Ivy League environment. And I can imagine her walking into the dining hall of my "house" (as my college calls dorms). I would be sitting alone at my usual spot where I found safety but rarely companionship. I would look at her from a distance and assumed she was from some clique I could never connect to, that she would never even notice I have been sitting in the second row from the center fountain on the left side for the past year or two years (I lived in that "house" for three years). Now, I see this woman walk by, who is probably younger than even my own little sister thirteen years my junior, and I can not see anything unapproachable about her.
As I stand up and clean up the mess I have ended up with on this table, I look around. There are many non-students in this Au Bon Pain. But none seems unapproachable. I see a young woman just a little younger than me walk in. She looks like a busy consultant or lawyer stopping by before a meeting. As I walk towards the door she passes me by. She is quite beautiful, and has this air of I-am-too-busy-for-anyone-looking-at-me. But somehow I don't shudder, my inner-self doesn't have the urge to run away. And I know that if a man around my age walked in, I wouldn't be jealous that I can't be like him. I wonder what changed.
I hop on my bike, and now I am truly a college student, flaunting traffic rules and rushing to my class on campus. Something has changed, and I wonder what else needs changing.
