December 2005 Archives
- December 5, 2005: To You and Yours and Mine and Ours || No. of Comments: 4
The weeks between Thanksgiving and the New Year are an amalgam of isolation and togetherness. Solitary walks among snow-draped buildings and trees, delicate diamonds crunching under my boots and my breath billowing far ahead leave me intensely conscious of my aloneness. Yesterday I drove along the lakes of Minneapolis. They were barren white and brown, a stark and monochromatic contrast to the vibrant activity of two months ago. Lights illuminate foggy apartment windows, but the sidewalks are empty. At the same time that we become most acutely conscious of our solitary selves, in this season we also grow closer to…
- December 3, 2005: The Soundtrack to My Life || No. of Comments: 2
Since moving into this apartment in August, I’ve felt like my life is a movie that features a soaring soundtrack of stringed instruments. While I inhabit the lower unit of my duplex, above me live two professional musicians. Both Yale-educated men in their 20s, one is a violist in the Minnesota Orchestra and the other is a violinist in the St. Paul Orchestra. They are responsible for my film’s score. From dawn until dusk they practice, seeping notes through the floorboards and walls and out the windows. Sometimes they play in the back bedroom and sometimes they play in the…
- December 1, 2005: This has a Thesis. Good Luck Finding It. || No. of Comments: 6
On Tuesday morning I couldn’t get out of bed. Depression sapped my energy and the day ahead seemed so long and useless and draining. Even finding clothes to wear seemed too difficult. I called in sick to work and surrounded my body with pillows, resolving to stay in bed all day. Twenty minutes later I called back to the office and told them I was miraculously healed and would be in shortly. I remembered something important in those 20 minutes, something that has often helped me fend off moments of depression: I am not the center of the world. My…
