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Random thoughts? Me? Never.
Oct. 13th, 2003 10:59 pmCampus is pretty in the fall.
Campus is pretty most of the year, of course, though that might just be me. I have a tendency to notice the little things, the little details, and that makes most things interesting and beautiful and unique. I think I've always done it to a degree, but writing actively this last year or so has increased it. Little moments- no, not even moments- little images, little pictures, little details.
Most of the trees here are still green, but they're just starting to fade at the edges, the slightest hints of brown and red and orange. And a few trees, here and there, have already changed color. There's one over near the apartment side of campus- a huge tree, oak or maple, a million leaves on it- that's a color I can only describe as neon strawberry.
There's a ginko tree across the street from my dorm that's losing its leaves already, little yellow fans swirling down constantly like snow, landing in my hair or on top of my backpack when I walk underneath it.
And then there's the berries on the bushes around campus. The orange and red ones, clustered together, looking like miniature cherries- they grow on big bushes, ones with normal, tree-like leaves. And then there're the bushes that look like square Christmas trees, dark green leaves, so thin they're nearly pines and needles. Their berries are round, and bright, bright red. They're poisonous, I know- not much in nature is that shade of blood red- but I remember them growing in my grandparents' yard. We did so many things with those berries: decorated mud pies with them, tossed them into a cup with water from the hose to make soup, mashed them with crab apples into jam and jelly. Always food, always something to eat, though we were all too scared to so much as ever taste one.
The sky is pretty too, now. A million shades of blue, and so orange and pink during sunset.
Downtown is just visible from campus, the skyscrapers against the sky. I can see them from my window- hazy from mist in the morning, outlined starkly at sunset, lights twinkling against blackness at night.
There are things on campus that I see everyday, or often enough, but that always surprise me with the way they look. There's a lot of construction, and there's one building that's been all hollowed out, just the outer walls left. It's a huge building, and I assume it's fairly old- a lot of the buildings are, and if it wasn't, why are they bothering to save its outside walls? But that's all that's left, these walls, open in the front to see the exposed inside, patches of blue and brown paint still left from classrooms. In the front, the only thing left are the stairs that probably once led to big, fancy, doors, and these huge Roman columns, stretching up to hold a roof that's no longer there. The whole thing has the feel of an ancient ruin- the white stone walls, the peeling paint on the inside, the stairs to nowhere. Today, I rode by it in the bus, and a huge crane towered up from inside the building, bright red against the blue of the sky, pure primary colors. It held three chunks of something- wall? Marble?- they looked tiny, held up so high, but likely were bigger than two or three of me. They hung suspended from a single cable, one below the other, the cable as thin as spider web, just barely catching the light of the setting sun. Nothing was moving, and I imagine the workers had finished for the day. It seems unbelievable that three huge things could stay in the air overnight, but I suppose they are.
Coming home Sunday night, on the freeway, in a car, there was a cassette tape in the middle of the road. The black tape inside it had spiraled out, and danced crazily in the wind caused by speeding cars, stretching out before us like a snake or whip, twisting and twining, jet black against the gray road, highlighted yellow and white by the streetlights, until it disappeared under our car.
Four men, in their twenties, dressed in matching black suits, the height of fashion. I paused to watch, surprised at a group of people who looked like they could have stepped off the cover for GQ on a campus where the uniform is usually baggy sweatshirts and jeans, and got to see them scream our school's motto back and forth with a bunch of frat guys.
And bad things, too. The little garden that I loved so last year, the one that looked plain and empty all year long, until spring came and every bush turned out to be wild rose, and every tree was cherry or magnolia, and the whole place exploded with petals and flowers and colors- half of it's gone, the bushes dug up, the grass worn into dry dirt by the construction nearby, some trees gone, even most of the hedge that surrounded it is missing.
But a lot of it's good. A lot of it's pretty. I try to remember the images, capture them as if I was going to use them sometime. And I spend a lot of time wishing I'd carry a camera around with me, but I don't know if it'd do any good. I don't know if any of this would translate into a photo, or if it would just be another leaf, another berry. Images for writing, I tell myself. But I don't know if I'll ever use any of them.
Campus is pretty most of the year, of course, though that might just be me. I have a tendency to notice the little things, the little details, and that makes most things interesting and beautiful and unique. I think I've always done it to a degree, but writing actively this last year or so has increased it. Little moments- no, not even moments- little images, little pictures, little details.
Most of the trees here are still green, but they're just starting to fade at the edges, the slightest hints of brown and red and orange. And a few trees, here and there, have already changed color. There's one over near the apartment side of campus- a huge tree, oak or maple, a million leaves on it- that's a color I can only describe as neon strawberry.
There's a ginko tree across the street from my dorm that's losing its leaves already, little yellow fans swirling down constantly like snow, landing in my hair or on top of my backpack when I walk underneath it.
And then there's the berries on the bushes around campus. The orange and red ones, clustered together, looking like miniature cherries- they grow on big bushes, ones with normal, tree-like leaves. And then there're the bushes that look like square Christmas trees, dark green leaves, so thin they're nearly pines and needles. Their berries are round, and bright, bright red. They're poisonous, I know- not much in nature is that shade of blood red- but I remember them growing in my grandparents' yard. We did so many things with those berries: decorated mud pies with them, tossed them into a cup with water from the hose to make soup, mashed them with crab apples into jam and jelly. Always food, always something to eat, though we were all too scared to so much as ever taste one.
The sky is pretty too, now. A million shades of blue, and so orange and pink during sunset.
Downtown is just visible from campus, the skyscrapers against the sky. I can see them from my window- hazy from mist in the morning, outlined starkly at sunset, lights twinkling against blackness at night.
There are things on campus that I see everyday, or often enough, but that always surprise me with the way they look. There's a lot of construction, and there's one building that's been all hollowed out, just the outer walls left. It's a huge building, and I assume it's fairly old- a lot of the buildings are, and if it wasn't, why are they bothering to save its outside walls? But that's all that's left, these walls, open in the front to see the exposed inside, patches of blue and brown paint still left from classrooms. In the front, the only thing left are the stairs that probably once led to big, fancy, doors, and these huge Roman columns, stretching up to hold a roof that's no longer there. The whole thing has the feel of an ancient ruin- the white stone walls, the peeling paint on the inside, the stairs to nowhere. Today, I rode by it in the bus, and a huge crane towered up from inside the building, bright red against the blue of the sky, pure primary colors. It held three chunks of something- wall? Marble?- they looked tiny, held up so high, but likely were bigger than two or three of me. They hung suspended from a single cable, one below the other, the cable as thin as spider web, just barely catching the light of the setting sun. Nothing was moving, and I imagine the workers had finished for the day. It seems unbelievable that three huge things could stay in the air overnight, but I suppose they are.
Coming home Sunday night, on the freeway, in a car, there was a cassette tape in the middle of the road. The black tape inside it had spiraled out, and danced crazily in the wind caused by speeding cars, stretching out before us like a snake or whip, twisting and twining, jet black against the gray road, highlighted yellow and white by the streetlights, until it disappeared under our car.
Four men, in their twenties, dressed in matching black suits, the height of fashion. I paused to watch, surprised at a group of people who looked like they could have stepped off the cover for GQ on a campus where the uniform is usually baggy sweatshirts and jeans, and got to see them scream our school's motto back and forth with a bunch of frat guys.
And bad things, too. The little garden that I loved so last year, the one that looked plain and empty all year long, until spring came and every bush turned out to be wild rose, and every tree was cherry or magnolia, and the whole place exploded with petals and flowers and colors- half of it's gone, the bushes dug up, the grass worn into dry dirt by the construction nearby, some trees gone, even most of the hedge that surrounded it is missing.
But a lot of it's good. A lot of it's pretty. I try to remember the images, capture them as if I was going to use them sometime. And I spend a lot of time wishing I'd carry a camera around with me, but I don't know if it'd do any good. I don't know if any of this would translate into a photo, or if it would just be another leaf, another berry. Images for writing, I tell myself. But I don't know if I'll ever use any of them.
