Keeping a blog about an experience such as my time studying
abroad is an interesting experiment in self-surveillance.
What do you include and what do you censor?
----- and, perhaps more interesting, why?
As the author of something that can never be totally erased
once you click ‘publish’—the moment wherein ‘the umbilical cord between the
object and its creator is broken’ (Ades as qtd. in Chris Jenks’ Transgression: p. 153)—do you attempt to
edit-out by omission the moments that you don’t want to be reminded of later, thereby
ensuring that when you look back in the future you only remember the rosier
moments?
----- or do you try to maintain a realistic slant by including
the good, bad, and ugly to the greatest extent possible?
Do you issue warnings to certain readers—that is, if you’re
willing to make the arrogant assumption that anyone is still reading
consistently—that they might want to skip over this or that entry?
----- or do you let them read at their own peril because, fuck
all, this is your experience and your life?
Also, who is the author of the blog writing for in the first
place?
----- In my case, is it for me? my friends? family? future
students that might participate in this exchange program (that is, assuming
Columbia College Chicago doesn’t shut down the Cultural Studies program as the
interim provost recommended earlier this week)?
I think, when it comes to my own authorship/blog, there’s a
little bit of everything that I just described. Certainly, I’ve prevented
myself from blogging about certain factors because either I don’t want to be
reminded of them later, or I’m afraid of being judged by those who read this. (Case
in point: I’ve started smoking again. Not often, mind you; but I did break down
and actually buy a [half-]pack the other day, which I haven’t done in about
four years.) Also, I remember at least one entry wherein I specifically issued a
warning to my parents that they might not want to read any further. But, in
general, I think I’ve done a somewhat decent job of trying to maintain a
reflective representation of my current situation.
And it is with such considerations of my own practice that I
embark on this entry, which attempts to account for not only today, but also
some of the things that I (consciously) omitted earlier in the week in the
hopes of presenting a more pleasant scenario.
So, obviously, I’m living in London.
It’s one of my favorite places in the
world! As a child, intrigued as I was by fantastic stories of king and queens
and sorcere(rs/sses) and dragons, I just
knew
that I had to make it to London one day, because it epitomized all of those
things. That overwhelming desire to cross the Atlantic stayed with me into
adulthood, and I was adamant that it would be the destination for my first
overseas journey. Then, in 2008, when Nic and I came to London for
Dawn French & Jennifer Saunders’ farewell tour, it was everything I wanted it to be and
more. I fell in love with the city all over again, for the first time!
So, since I’m finally living in one of my favorite places,
why have I been in such a friggin’ funk the last few days? I would blame it on today’s weather—it’s
cold enough to see one’s breath, and the fog shrouds the skyline like a damp cloak (i.e., the stereotypical London image one sees on television, minus the
gas-powered lamps and cobblestone streets)—but, if I’m being totally honest,
I’ve been in this funk for a few days now, and the weather during the rest of
that time has been both warm and sunny enough to sit outside without a coat and
bask in the sun.
So, again I ask, what’s wrong with me?
I’ve been thinking it over a quite a bit (and for most of the
day), in a vein attempt to snap myself out of the foul, weepy mood that I’m in,
and I think I’ve arrived at some of the contributing factors:
In the first place, I think I’m just plain-old-fashioned
homesick. Obviously, I miss Nic and Aki and Chris Hansen and the Agents (and
the Gong)—that sense of longing is so engrained that I hardly even feel the
need to justify it or explain it here. It just is, and I assume that everyone can recognize that.
But I’m also a touch homesick for those little things that you
don’t necessarily think of until you’ve been gone for a while: I miss being
able to communicate with friends and loved ones without fear of waking them up
because I forgot that it’s the middle of the night their time; I miss American
coffee; I miss my alarm clock, which I can turn off and on and reset and
reprogram without even looking at it; I miss the little gulley that’s formed on
my side of the bed and which fits my sleeping form oh-so-perfectly (and unlike the
sharp, invasive springs within the mattress I’m sleeping on here); I miss being
able to use kitchen accoutrements without feeling the need to rewash them
first; I miss having access to (an admittedly crappy and unstylish) wardrobe that
lets me go more than one week without doing laundry; I miss having access to a
dryer, and so on…
That's the super surface-level shit. Let's go a little deeper though...
Another thing that I think has contributed to my mood this
week is rooted in pure selfishness, and is beyond anyone’s control really
(including my own): it’s the simple fact that seemingly everyone
around me—both at home and here in London—has been incredibly busy this week,
meaning that there’s not much time for communicating.
Now, the twin facts that
I’m in this amazing city and have quite a bit on my own plate at the moment (in
terms of workload) should mean that
I’m hardly able to register this lack of communication, let alone be saddened
by it. But saddened I have been. (It’s certainly not a matter of resenting
anyone for not dropping all of their other obligations in order that they might
pay attention to me. Not in the least—and I want to make that abundantly
clear!)
Rather, the situation forces me to confront
one of my own personality traits that I find particularly irritating: the constant
conflict between my hermitic
and
social sides. I know that the idea of inhabiting both of those positions sounds
oxymoronic, but I do it all the same. It’s not that I want to be alone
per se—I’m just perfectly comfortable
keeping my own company…until the
option
of having someone else to talk to is suddenly restricted, and then all I can
think of is the fact that I want to talk to someone and can’t. (How
Lacanian...I think.)
Like I said earlier it’s a selfish desire, and I recognize this—which, of
course, just makes me feel even worse, thereby perpetuating the cycle.
The other component of experiencing such feelings of lack is
that I become hyperaware of everyone else’s access to a social life in that
moment: even if he’s too busy to access them, Nic has access to our friends
back home, and they he; likewise, my parents/sister have each other, and
vice-versa; and my new friends here have their own friends, family, etc. But
me…I’m kind of stuck in this weird, ghostlike no-man’s-land where I don’t
really feel like I have full (or at times even approximate) access to any of it. It's profoundly lonely.
And now we come to the final point that I think has
contributed to my overall funk in the last few days: I miss intimate human
contact—not necessarily sexual (though that is certainly missed and desired as
well), but intimate human contact in the sense of skin-to-skin contact between two
human beings that forces each to recognize the other as a 'real person' for a moment. Something as simple as a lasting hug would suffice.
On that note, allow me to digress for a brief moment. During
my first semester at Columbia I took a course with Dr.
Louis Silverstein called ‘Education, Culture & Society.’ Now, let me tell you a bit
about Louis before I go too much further: he is a self-described transcendental philosopher,
an author, a peace activist, a wonderful human being with a brilliant mind and
wicked sense of humor…and he’s a huge hippie (and I say that with great
fondness)!
At Louis’ insistence, we used to start every single class by going
around the room, reintroducing ourselves to our peers (all the way up until the end, and long after we'd learned one anothers' names), and then sharing with everyone something positive that happened to us since the last time we met—it
quickly became the highlight of each week, and remains something that I
actively encourage every teacher I meet at Columbia to adopt because of the
positive, collegiate atmosphere it creates. Further, Louis' insights on everything from the
things a baby learns while in utero,
to sex, to drugs, to death and grieving, to old age, etc…they’re just
incredible, and have forever changed my perspective on a great many things.
At any rate, during one class Louis shared with us
a newspaper article discussing how senior citizens were (are?) amongst the
fastest growing populations to be afflicted by HIV. This sparked a conversation
within the class about the sexual needs of the elderly, which in turn led to a
discussion about the importance of physical human contact. Louis emphasized
this point by noting nursing home patients, and how those patients who come in
physical contact with others on a less frequent basis deteriorate quicker than
those who are commonly touched by family members, etc.
That tidbit stuck with me and—though I had no reason to
doubt his assertion at the time (and didn’t)—I realize now just how right Louis
was. With the exception of a few hand-shakes here and there, and a welcoming
hug that KG gave me on the day I arrived, I haven’t experienced intimate human
contact since leaving Chicago.
And it sucks.
I find myself thinking about it
all the time: wanting someone to just put their arm around me, or something equally benign and yet all-powerful in its ability to acknowledge me as a person.
Hell, when I first got here I was super-conscious about making sure I made
myself as physically small as possible while on the tube so as not to encroach on the
space of others…but now, it’s almost the opposite, and I secretly hope that the
jostling of the train will cause my shoulder to bump into someone else’s.
Louis, being the awesome hippie that he is, would (and did)
encourage us to be unafraid of asking others to fulfill this very human need
when we feel it. Within the confines of that amazing class and the atmosphere
Louis foster(s/ed), I wouldn’t have thought twice—and, in fact, at various
times throughout that semester there were occasions where one or the other of
us would make just that request and another (or many) of us would respond.
But I’m not in Louis’ class. In many regards, I’m a stranger
in a strange land. A ghost in no-man’s-land…
In closing, please don’t think that my saying any of this is
my way of lamenting my decision to come to London. Likewise, it is in no way,
shape, or form an attack on anyone. Rather, as I said near the start, I am
merely trying to provide a reflective representation of my current situation—in
this case, the ‘ugly’ part of living alone and 4,000 miles away from my home
and loved ones for an extended period.
Peace (’cause, hell, I could use some right about now)…
