Sometimes the quiet gets annoying. Not that I don’t like it. It’s just that every 8 a.m. walk to Calc shouldn’t always be this bleak. There’s nothing to look at, the trees have shed their warm, leafy coats. There’s nothing to listen to but the sound of the wind’s whistles. And there’s surely nothing to look forward to about the chapter 10 Calc quiz. So I pulled out my notes and popped in earbuds to silence the silence.
Fuck this class, I thought for the seventh time that morning as the wind started to pick up. Finally I reach the intersection, about another 300 feet and I’ll be warm inside the building. The unforgivably cold wind was wearing at the dry cracks of my hands. “Fuck calc,” I blurt as my notebook and iPod slid from my grasp. The cement is even colder than the air. I don’t normally cuss, but the cold does things to people. I signal at the car laughing at me to pass at the intersection. Why does this feel like I’m in middle school again and just got ‘booked’ by the self-conscious 8th grade bully with severe acne?
I can see my car skewed in the parking lot nearby. That could have been helpful today. I thought for a moment about taking it before I crossed the street. Not to get to my class 300 feet away, but just to leave. Perhaps, I would go to the airport. Then maybe, I’d buy a ticket to somewhere warm like Florida or Mexico or Australia. Yes, Australia! It’d be summer again there, and I wouldn’t need to take menial gen-EDs like Calc. I’d probably meet someone with the perfect 5 o’clock shadow. He’ll have a thick Australian accent and will love dogs as much as I do. Every week I’ll volunteer to help him run the aquarium for endangered species even though fish freak me out. Years later when our children ask why they exist, I’ll tell them the story of how one day while I was walking to Calc, I decided instead to get in my car and fly to Australia.
HONK! There were a few cars stopped around the intersection waiting for me to make a decision. I crossed quickly trying to avoid looking like one of the catatonic-like students who walked around Monday mornings as if human v.s. zombies never ended. Although I didn’t want to, I looked over my shoulder and noticed my poorly parked car again. I guess Australia wouldn’t happen today.
Despite the unfulfilled fantasy, I was pleasantly surprised to hear my cracked iPod playing Ella Fitzgerald softly to the rhythm of my walk. The thing about jazz was that you never had to think about anything as you listened; all you had to do was follow the notes wherever they may lead you. It’s like listening to someone say all these lovely things about life you never realized how much you appreciated. Sometimes that’s all we need, a little reminder.
