It’s elko noice to be back in the sprawling, claustrophobic infinity of college.

I love the energy, the hubbub, the moving-ins, the lines for everything and the freshmen’s hovering parents. We loiter, my roommates and I, sipping expensive, store-bought coffee, around the dorms, the bookstores, and shops, soaking up the frenzy.

A mom sweetly says to her overwhelmed son, “Relax,” passing-off his stress, “enjoy this, engage those five senses and take it all in.” I smiled to myself - there are at least 21 senses, like equilibrioception (balance), thermoception (for heat/cold) and nociception (pain) - just to name three. I thought, “Welcome to college kid.”

The first weeks of freshie life can be lonely - if you’re single. You search for someone to like - it can be very arbitrary and looks based. Last year, around campus, all you could see was the tops of people's faces. When everyone’s masked, eyebrows say a lot, so if you had beautiful eyebrows that went a long way - of course, hair was important too.

There’s an eyebrow studio, down below the green, where students could, as the epitome of style, get their eyebrows threaded hoping they’d look more interesting, and more bonkable. That place was booming.

Masking’s still a thing for fall ‘22 - in classrooms, instructional spaces, and high-density events - at least at first, until they see the spread - but there’s way less isolation. This semester there are exciting, new questions for potential ‘love’ interests to answer, like - “Have you ever dated any simians (monkeys)?

Our coffeemaker died this morning - it wouldn’t **** all the water out of the reservoir - c'est tragique. We love our coffee and apparently, we brewed the life out of it. It sat, oddly neglected, in its usually busy spot beneath hanging copper pans. Adieu, faithful friend, you gave your life to a good cause. We’re reduced to using a freeze-dried brew.

Lisa grew up in New York highrises, and she was agog in our garden. “It’s like Versailles!” she whispered, when we first arrived and did the tour - flattering but hardly. It’s a six acre, French, Color Garden. An acre is like a football field without the end zones - so maybe you can picture the size of it as it wraps around the front of the house.

The lawn slopes off gently to circular beds and right-angled parterres. Two staircases lead to a fountain that feeds a rectangular reflecting pool full of lily-pads and lazy goldfish. Lisa and Leong spent hours this summer reading in the only cool spot, a shaded, wisteria-covered pergola, but gardens are best in fall and spring - when in bloom. I’m sorry they didn’t get to see the explosive flowerings - maybe we can come back, someday, for Easter vacation.

We’re leaving for New Haven at the end of the week so I’m slow organizing for academic life. I have 21 new notebooks (three per class or lab) and 60 various, carefully coutured, colored markers and gel-pens. I tried taking notes on my iPad last year but I found I remembered things better when I took colorful notes by hand, highlighting ideas, and pinning them down in my notebooks, like butterflies.

We hung out with a lot of rising college freshman girls this summer and across the board, it’s been fun. Their questions were super random, but super aware - their interests make our bumbling, freshie experiences seem buzzy. I remember being so ground-down the carceral, COVID lockdown of my 10th and 11th-grade years that college freedoms seemed like space travel. I’m excited for these girls.

Peter and I are squeezing in a morning Facetime call. He looked a little tousled and undone, sporting a black, almost blue, bedhead mess of morning hair. With his sleepy, brown eyes and five o’clock shadow, he looked like he just fell out of bed after hours of.. ahem. My usual, unfocused feelings seemed to find a compelling point.

I smiled and sipped my coffee, “What?” he said, self-consciously, upon catching my expression.

“I just can’t wait to see you in person.” I demurred, choosing to focus on this morning’s awful, instant coffee. I tend to chatter when I’m excited by something, but maybe I’m learning the power of silence.

Winter tested my endurance with its sharp and burning cold and now the warm lavender evening, with its smells and sounds of spring seems like a gift. The breeze is warm, and even the broad zones of shadow contain an inviting warmth.

The campus lamps should ignite soon but groups of students are milling, talking and laughing as if no one wants to let go of the day.

As Lisa enters the courtyard the campus lights flicker to life. As she approaches, she lets her book bag slide off her shoulder. Catching it by its strap a millisecond before it hits the ground as she reaches me - without looking - like a practiced trick.

Taking my hand in hers, she asks, head tilted slightly to see my eyes, “How’d the test go?”

I’m the first one in our squad to take a final - most are next week. “Cinchy,” I say with a grin and a flick of my free wrist, “not comprehensive - it just covered the last section.”

“Yea,” she says, “look at you go!” A warm breeze wells to obscure her face with her flaxen, cornsilk hair. She lets her bag fall the last inch, and ponytails it, two-handed, with smooth, practiced ease.

Finals existed, like ancient, cultural crucibles, long before our time, but these are ours, as if they’ve always been waiting - just for us.

Yale is still new to us, but we talk, juxtaposing experiences, challenging and comforting each other, even though we’re on slightly different paths. It seems that everyone is pumped up though, a little stressed maybe, but more than ready to hit it.

My pose is gathered this Saturday morning because I made a pancake and bacon breakfast. We're listening to a Britney Spears song, off one of Leong’s playlists. “I remember when I was about 8,” I say, “I was drawing and singing a Brittney song and I got to the line - “I make no apologies, I’m into phonography,”” and my mom sharply says, “Don’t say that!” And I’m left trying to figure out what I said.”

“People are harsh with her, but Britney is timeless,” Leong says.

“Everyone at Yale fancies themselves a music critic,” Lisa says. There are numerous vocal agreements. “I’m like, “Ok, Pop-off then queen, go complicated,” but in my opinion, you need to have fun with music - that’s the main purpose - just to have fun.”

“That’s like the difference between Cardi B and Niki (Minaj). You can just stroll a Cardi B song, you don’t have to interpret,” Anna adds, “but with Nicki I feel I have to listen to see the point.”

Lisa, surfing on her iPad asks, “Did you guys see that Jojo Seawall wasn’t invited to the kid’s choice awards - because she came out as lesbian?”

Sophy says, “Nickelodeon’s been trying to seem MORE accepting, working in more black artists.”

“Yeah, but they’re fake.” Anna pronounces. Everyone nods agreement.

“He hasn’t called all WEEK,” Sophy moans, holding her iPhone up to her ear like she expected to hear ticking, “I made a ghost of him,” she says, flopping the phone on the couch.

“Should I call the Po-po?” Anna asks, distracted as she searches the kitchen cupboard to be sure the pancakes were gluten free.

“I had a dream,” Lisa begins, “I was a child in a family I don’t know. We were criminals. We stole a car and robbed a store. My dream mom ran the operation. And wouldn’t let me watch TV until I emptied the loot out of the car. Then the police arrived, we saw the flashing red and blue lights through closed venetian blinds, then there was a banging on the door, in the dream, that woke me up.”

“That’s way off track but It’s fine, so fine, I see how it is.” Sophy said, “I’m bleak and no one CARES.”

“Is love something you find, or something you believe?” I ask no one in particular.

“That’s a coffee-cup inscription.” Anna pronounces.

“Aaggh,” Leong says, “An email from my professor - it’s TLTR.” We think it's a policy that professors at Yale have to send incredibly long emails - almost too long to read (TLTR).

There’re only three weeks left of our freshman year, so emails are flying and everyone’s trying to nail things down for a smooth ending.

(this one has a limited audience - but what’s new?)

Some of the best advice from my Fro-Co (seniors who volunteer as freshman advisors):

If you’re stuck in your room (due to the pandemic) open the windows.
Exercise every day - outside if you can (pandemic).
YOU, ain’t ALL THAT. Get used to it - maybe you were hot-crap in high school - but not HERE. You got a 1590 SAT and a 34 ACT score?
Congratulations, you’re one of the average students.
Never, ever, EVER miss a class (as a freshmen).
Visualize your morning the night before and GET UP EARLY.
Time management - TIME MANAGEMENT - TIME MANAGEMENT
Complete assignments as soon as you can.
You’re going to have 4 to 6 hours of homework every night - STUDY
Procrastination will **** you - STUDY
Go to events - be social - but leave early. “Popularity” isn’t important here - this isn’t high school.
Don’t expect to meet besties right away.
Don’t go to frat parties alone.
Hookup culture can be toxic.
Don’t date seniors - just don’t.
Never get a razor cut, your ends will split.

I finished moving into my residential college as a storm began
- fat raindrops, as big as coconuts, falling from a black and fouling sky.

These northerners were acting like a "tropical storm" (Henri) was a big deal.

“Surely New England gets storms?” I ask, from behind my mask.
“What about NOR_Easters?” I say, like a meteorologist.
“Those are different.” I’m told, with no other explanation.

“Did you bring this storm from the “SOUTH?” I’m asked, accusingly.
(This was after I told them about coming from one ”bulldog-college-town” to another.)
“Yes.” I reply, “It was in my luggage.”

A silly question but they have a point - the storm feels like it’s involved and fulfilling some obligation to dramatize my college move-in story.

“Time to quarantine!” I’m informed - “Yep, can’t WAIT!” I lie.

One disaster at a time.

To say I'm excited about going to college is like saying Godzilla is big - you don't get the complete picture - you don't see the buildings crumbling and civilians running for their lives. Leaving for college is one of those foundational moments in life...

My mind’s been racing, I’ve felt a disquieting anxiety and I realized what I’m experiencing is a new kind of sadness - a “delta” strain new in my experience.

In less than a week I‘m off to college and I can’t help knowing that things will never be the same. I’ll step out of this house or we’ll hug at the airport and somewhere in there - I’ll cross a line.

Will my childhood be over or is it my adolescence? I’m not sure.
Oh, God, should I hand in my key??

I can hardly let my mind linger on the subject of leaving - it’s as sensitive as a tooth - it’s radioactive.

The most fleeting or off-handed reference to leaving and my heart hammers, my throat clumps and the room transforms into a thrill ride that starts to slowly spin until the floor drops a bit like an elevator. 30 seconds of focusing on leaving and I’m a muckle of tears.

I’m mindlessly, Flamin' Doritos excited about college (the going to) but like a sacrifice, or a coin - there’s a cold, flip-side, almost death-like sadness (about leaving) happening too.

So far, I think I’ve masked the sadness, with the cat’s lazy poise and razzle-dazzle and I’m sure this feeling of loss is some sort of pre-home-sickness that will pass. Until then, I'm stoically trying to wear a big-girl skirt here.

"...and with this, a new day begins.."
this speech i have been dreading
the day senior year ends
the day i leave my best friends
and start fresh again

next year we'll splatter
all across the country
only for some of us to meet again
when two of our high school friends wed

my boyfriend and i had to break up today
for i am traveling far far away
he has decided to stay here
in this town which is very dear

thinking these thoughts
water comes to my eyes
an ocean of tears
as i look at my peers

each one bringing up a bittersweet moment
some i will miss
some i will dismis from my mind
only to one day wish again
that i could be a freshman
and repeat it all over again

oh what i would give
senior year, i wish i could relive

six years in the making
put a liter of tears and toil
cost a million minutes of stress
and thousands of sleepless night

                         All will gonna be paid off tonight

six tiring years in the making
friendships come and go
but treasured ones are my four girls
been there through smooth and rough, but now

                         All will gonna be paid off tonight

six difficult years in the making
great part is learning knowledge
but the best is gaining wisdom
and the highlights are the shared memories

                          All will gonna be paid off tonight

six years of almost quitting
reason to stop believing: not found
been on the edge of farewell
few more inches before

                          All are paid off tonight

six years of hard work
none will be in vain
all the tears and pain
will turn into a beautiful gain
                              
                         When all were paid off tonight. :')

i don't want to wash your beer spilt clothes from last saturday night
because this tshirt has your spit on it
in my dreams we are reckless and we will share cigarettes so we get the same cancer
i'll listen to the city and get high in your room
maybe we will talk about things
Bigger than Us
and we will touch and every one of my nerves will understand that
You Are Here
i'll cut your hair and feel you in my hands
it's the biggest part of You
you will ever give to me