Growing Pains

We all grow old and die. If there's one constant to life, it's that. As Nabokov remarks in Speak, Memory, "The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness."

I get it. I'm not long for this earth. Lying awake in bed at night, I add numbers silently in my head. In ten years I'll be 28, in 50 I'll be 68... I think about morbid things like my mom getting older, shorter, dwindling away into a shade of her iron self until all's left is rust and bare earth. When will she die I wonder? I figure that's when I'll know it, that I'm old, when mom's not around to boss me around (unsuccessfully I might add), when she's dead and in the ground, her bones the salt of this earth.

What will it feel like to be old? I have no conception of anything but youth so unfettered and easy. I trust the solidity of my body, the tumult of my disposition, the precocious childishness of a life yet untamed. It endures then perhaps, this palpitating energy that animates my limbs, that allows me to slip so easily from my high bed each morning, to repeat my diurnal routine anew.The eternal summer of my life waxes golden even in this darkest of Tennessee winters.

But in time, things will change. I know this, deep inside I do. The mind may age slower than the body, as it is more dexterous than mortal sinew and bone, but it will go in time as well, as all things tend to do. Indeed, things area already changing. Just one semester of college, and already my friends are dispersing, the intersecting spheres of our lives pared down to shiny little slivers. Our individual selves need more space it seems. We're eighteen you know, adults in the eyes of the law.

Yet sometimes I'm not sure if I've made that transition yet, or if any of us truly have. Can the tipping of a number really displace childhood with such belligerent efficiency, does eighteen really make me as much an adult as Mrs. Johnson or mother or the handsome older man who's mustang got stuck in our icy driveway this morning? Now of course they have the accumulated experience of age on me, but was there a point where adulthood became the relevant label of their lives? In other words, when and how did they grow up and suddenly become adults?

There are some who would say it doesn't happen like that, some who would claim that the adults are just as clueless as the kids. We're all screwed up people in a closed system of a world, just trying to scrape by on the resources allotted to us. But I think I'm of the opposite mind. I think there's a difference, a small one, but it's there. It's not that I think adulthood enlightens the self; no, I'm positive there are adults out there who are more ignorant about the world than I. I just know... no feel that sometime betwixt 20 and 30 a shift occurs in the makeup of ones life. Things add up: kids, taxes, spouses, etc. But it's more than that. It's the years flying by, the rapidly looming immediacy of the unknown--that being death. So control is needed, measures must be taken, to organize life into something readable, something palatable, so that when the day comes, you can have a tidy death at least.

Childhood then is all about the disorder of it all. It's about messy, beautiful things, about mudpies and bruised blades of grass and the heady scent of sweaty, unkempt sheets. So when does it end is my question. How will I know when I'm no longer a kid anymore? When will it feel okay to refer to myself internally as a man rather than as a boy?

I think I'm beginning to see, the adult within I mean. Today, walking with Ellen by Turkey Creek, our footprints mingling in the plush snow, I started to think aloud for both my friend's benefit and my own. I asked her where we she thought we were going, what was changing, who we were becoming. We agreed that it was over, it being high school and endless summers spent poolside and the sense of having a definite home in this world, but we weren't quite sure about the path from here. Stopping at a bridge over the wide creek bed, we could hear the distant murmur of the rapids in the creek where the black, cold water frothed and churned in the velvet indigo beyond where our night vision halted and a frozen unknown hinterland began. But over that we could hear the rush of cars on the interstate, the people racing towards Nashville or downtown Knoxville to their homes where their neat little lives would be waiting. And here we were, together but still alone, looking out at the bare bones of a forest that once spread great and proud... now sparse enough that you could see the lights of the Walmart where we had parked a few hundred meters away.

Molding the powdery snow into globular projectiles, we took aim at a lonely tree that protruded from the inky heart of the creek, denuded of branches. We threw until Ellen finally hit it, dead center, hard enough to knock the stubborn snow from its upper reaches where the trunk curved into a convenient nook to catch the snowfall. Such a child's game it seemed, but I didn't feel childish anymore. In that moment I was an anachronism, a fatal flaw in what would've been an idyllic tableau of youth if it had happened just a few years ago. I am not an adult, but I am not a child either. I can not turn the memory of tonight, the strange delight of I derived from standing with Ellen on the bridge, into another sepia tinted memory of youth. It doesn't have the same feel anymore. My awareness has changed, expanded, surrendered to the vastness of the world the special isolation of childhood, the feeling of being an island of the self.

Our game finished, we walked on, but I don't remember what else we talked about. It was light stuff I'm sure, boyfriend dramas and friendly banter of that sort. The moment had passed; the flames of our brazen young lives had flickered for a moment and then held. We were still young. But no longer were we invincible.

The Sea

Is this how the real world feels? Idle, awake but still sleeping, clicking away at the computer screen, these fearsomely dull trappings of cubicle life. I’ve  just started another 25 minute session on the confounding metal apparatus that has become my sole charge over the past three days. Eyes trained on the pressure gauge, I let the arrow glide into place, stopping it just short of the tick mart denoting 75 kilo pascals. I turn the shiny black knobs clockwise to block off certain parts of the tubing, glancing briefly at the voltmeter for fear of that sudden harsh change, the jarring spike in pressure that paints a saw toothed line across the graph that plots itself. The sibilant hiss of escaping air heralds the uncorking of each gas cylinder, one Carbon Dioxide, one Nitrogen, reminding me off belching Champagne bottles and the sulfurous reek of lurid sweet port. This is my workday in its monotonous rigor. In the lab I wear plastic safety goggles and read my library book, legs crossed snuggly beneath the low desk. My mom makes the ionic liquids I’m testing in her lab. She’s probably there right now, wearing her baby blue lab coat in F-15 one corridor down. I’m in corridor E and my lab is cramped with strange metal fixtures, class 4 lasers and compressed gas cylinders that look like oversized fire extinguishers. Shannon my mentor is my dad’s second-in-command, the quiet, balding right hand man who epitomizes loyalty and discretion. My lab is really his lab, and most of the metal fixtures I’ve struggled to understand this week are of his make, compiled with his own tools, his own physicist’s mind.

I never thought I’d be here, in such surroundings. I’m not sure I like this little family operation we have going on here; I can’t shake the feeling that I’m falling into my parents’ rut, sitting in their world, their lives, betraying who and what I am as I stare at guileless valves and dimpled glass equipment for hours on end. So I let my mind wander. They can have my body, my hands and eyes, but not the consciousness that flows out of me now, out of this red brick lab and away to the coasts.

You see, I’m reading John Banfield’s The Sea right now. I’m not very far into it but all I can think about is the ocean already, it’s mysteriously churning waters, the emphatic roar of its foaming hide. How many shores have I seen I wonder? How many Oceans have greeted me with that terrific inbound rush of water followed shortly by the curious sensation of rapidly receding water eroding away the soft sand from beneath my soft soles. Soon enough I am ankle deep in the wet maritime clay and all I want and wish for are to never leave this lovely place, where purple little clams scoot through the sand that quivers, so alive in your hand when you dig it spade-like into the strand.

I remember the boardwalk in New Orleans where I ate golden brown beignets at Café du Monde. The leftover scraps of sugary dough went to the gannets and gulls circling overhead like a maelstrom of whirring grey speckled bodies and orange webbed feet. Standing at the wooden railing, I stared down at the barnacle encrusted pillars that reared all scabbed and slimy from the water. What was the green ooze that crept up to meet me I wondered? I was still young yet.

There was the time in Vancouver when my sister and I spent a long afternoon crawling over a Rocky shore on the Puget Sound. The tide pools were rife with life, tidewater crabs, Pacific Sea Urchins and strange green worms that looked like elongated strands of geese dung. Minnows flashed in the shallows, evading capture, and suddenly I was reminded of a shallow seaside lagoon in Waikiki where in much warmer water the same minnows barely escaped my intrepid attempts at incarceration. Back then I had barely been Ashley’s age, a slight, dark child who loved to get drown himself in Hawaii’s raging surf. In Hawaii, I floated daringly above the jagged, organic escarpment of Kona’s reef, near enough to touch the green sea turtles as they grazed on the sparse sea grass. Later that week mom took us all to a black sand beach on the big island’s north face. Instead of swimming I just walked along the obsidian shore, wiggling my toes in the volcanic sand. A sweep of mountains was visible at the far end of the all but deserted beach and I thought about going there, scaling those towering cliffs and trying to see where the ocean ends, where sky begins and water disappears in one austere line.

Maybe I would’ve looked as far east as California’s shores, where the water was so cold that one day in December that I only dipped my feet in for a second before desisting with an indignant shriek. And maybe there would’ve been someone looking back, our eyes trained on the same horizon but from opposite sides. I like the Ocean for its continuity. It spreads across our earth unbroken, with land just an island in its midst. I like to think that maybe the button that ripped from my shirt pocket in whales, where the waves crash down upon charming beds of pebbles rather than sand, may wash up one day on the sandbars of North Carolina’s Outer Banks where maybe someone will pick it up someday, warped and wafer thin and carry with them to wherever next they go. The ocean lets me dream in this way. I can sit here, in this dimly lit lab and wonder when next I will be by the sea. The last time was in October, when I went out to the Boston Harbor Islands to take samples and make observations of the wildlife there. When next I go, I want to actually swim maybe; Or perhaps I’ll just stand at the brink to feel the spray hitting my face and the watery infinity coursing dizzy and mad once more in my life.

And always, always I’ll remember my sixteenth birthday, how I ran out alone at dawn, just so I could be alone on my patch of rocky shore in British Columbia. I brought my journal along and wrote something or another, something commemorative, artful I guess in that trite kind of way. I was sixteen and I fancied myself an adult already. I was impudent and rail thin and all torn up inside with feelings that I didn’t know what to do with. So I just sat on a rock right up near the sea, shivering in the morning chill. Everything was quiet except the water. Grand ideas unfurled in my mind, trying to catch flight, to dominate my now. But I let them go, let them sputter to a premature death. I was here, by the sea, and I wanted to know nothing else at that moment.

New Momentums

So it’s been awhile. Break has come; I’ve started working in my father’s lab, taking measurements, turning valves, shuttling back and forth between my tidy little workspace by Shao Nan who worries about insurance coverage and the protective coating on eye glasses and the other post doc who’s name slips my mind right now, also Chinese, broad but squat, with the face of a cherub.

“Are you joining our group?” Shao Nan asked me curiously yesterday, when she was still trying to sort out who I was and why I was there. I told her no, I was just passing through, the son of the boss coming in to play chemist (or lab dog more like) for the next three weeks before returning to school. Satisfied, she swiveled back around in her seat and that was that.

When I’m not observing Shannon as he meticulously operates the instruments in the lab—“now open the valve to a 45 degree angle and wait for the gauge to read negative 60… good, now…” or reading at my desk (I just finished Nabokov’s Speak, Memory yesterday and I’m working my way through Coetzee’s Boyhood) I’m thinking about my present life, the study abroad apps I feel so behind on, the feeling of pent up emotions and expressions languishing in the recesses of a mind dulled by malnutrition and too-little sleep, all the little pieces of my days that operate in tandem to create this illusory script, this ongoing dialogue I hear at the heart of my perception.

I’ll be clubbing on Friday I guess, adding torrid new memories to a history of long, dangerously unhinged nights, but now I’m thinking backwards rather than forwards, pondering the memoir I want to write and the memoir I left partially written in China when all I had to do was teach and eat lovely, authentic cuisine and ruminate on my past in stilted prose. For my latest venture into self-indulgent retrospective writing I want to have a clear structure and motif in mind before I start, and the motif I’ve settled on—initially as a personal joke and now as a solid framework—is my wardrobe and the other clothes stuffed in ample drawers under my bed and downstairs in the basement closet where I recently found a chocolate brown blazer, formerly my dad’s, that I’ve appropriated as my own. I want to write a piece not just dedicated to all the clothes I’ve amassed in years and years of life but more so to the memories they evoke in me, the moments both trifling and overpowering that certain components of my ever-growing wardrobe holds static for me, bound up in the nubby knit of a sweater or the patent shine of sleek black leather. I feel like the product of my efforts will undoubtedly feel shallow and cheesy in that awful overtly sentimental way but I don’t care; I’ve been considering this project for too long , since that day in Panera when in my grey cashmere crewneck, the one I shoplifted from Old Navy, I jokingly told Lauren I was going to write a short story about each lovingly attended piece hanging in my closet and call it Memoirs of a Gaysian. I’m doing it now Lauren, I hope.

To start I want to make a preliminary list of all the garments I may end up including in this book, I’ll decide how I want to approach each piece when I’ve whittled down my list to the ones that matter or work the best. Obviously the structure is going to be disjointed if I’m jumping from look to look but I’m willing to concede my punctiliousness in this case because it feels right… as long as I can project some sort of life progression in there as well, an underlying current of tenuous growth that will make it more a memoir of my life and less a shallow inventory of my closet.

THE LIST:  

-Meagan’s necklace, the one with the thin gold chain and the glassy orb pendant.

-the navy peacoat that was my first purchase from Urban and my proudest possession for a time.

-the seersucker shorts I got at Rugby Ralph Laruen in Palo Alto and which got stained on my first cruise with Hao and Daniel and co.

-My dad’s blazer which I found in the basement and now call my own.

-My mom’s robe that I wore when cross dressing for the Spring Festival performance.

-My Kungfu silks

-yellow American Apparel pants I picked up on a whim in Vancouver

-My first Gap Cardigan, grey with navy sailor stripes, also picked up in Vancouver.

-Tri-blend evergreen, the American Apparel cardigan of my junior year summer.

-the cashmere sweaters I stole from Old Navy that have become wardrobe staples for me.

-a knotted brown leather bracelet I found in an H&M in Shanghai.

-My alternative apparel grey sweats that I wore all of my first semester of college

-My yale scarf, my Stanford hoody and Princeton Sweat shirt.

-The denim gap utility shirt I wore to Chicago and Nashville this past summer.

-The super short grey topman shorts that were all I wore this past spring and summer.

-The purple cobras v-neck and tank top we self-dyed in the laundry room at Governor’s school.

-My navy and silver J Crew tie I’ve worn to everything.

-The sea foam green silk tie Julie’s mom bought for me in China from the silk street.

-The grey tweed blazer I bought at planet exchange—my first grey blazer.

-The super skinny grey blazer I wore to prom with too short pants, a turquoise tie, my white Abercrombie oxford shirt and a black vest.

-The grey blazer with black razor piping off topman that I wore to prom senior year.

-red and white Hawaiian print swim trunks I wore in Hawaii.

-the light blue American Apparel crew neck shirt I stained with sweat and food all over the world.

-black fleece MTSU jacket I wore on FOP that reminds me of Andrew.

-The green sweats I bought from Hollister that I always trip over

-The ombre’d grey Abercrombie and Fitch half zip I took the SAT 2’s in that I bought for eighty dollars.

-All my Abercrombie tees I wore in high school.

-The khaki pants I bought in Hawaii from American Eagle that later lost its button and was cut into super short shorts this past summer.

-The sequined shirt I wore one Halloween to Lauren/Kylie’s Halloween party.

-The black and white gingham j crew shirt I wore on many a photo shoot and party.

-My last purchase at the mall with Meagan: a navy wool-cashmere blend cardigan from j crew

-the black pleather jacket by Charles and ½ for Urban Outfitters that I wore out so many times fall semester freshman year of college.

-The black girl jeans I picked up at planet exchange.

-My beat up oxblood oxfords that I picked up at a Goodwill near downtown Knoxville.

-my track and cross country uniforms

-The chunky blue and grey scarf I bundled around my neck in winter to meet Cole at Panera

-The navy ribbed Henley I bought at Stanford and lost again at Stanford two years later.

-my ripped up Hollister jeans… light wash and dark wash.

-my lace up generic surplus boots that I wore to relay for life and on many other occasions.

-My gap white wash jeans I loved SO MUCH.

-the suspenders I wore to Machine and that one random party in Leverett.

-The denim cutoffs I wore for Halloween this year.

-All the gloves I’ve lost.

-my Aviator sunglasses, the silver ones that just scream summer

-beautiful, wooly socks from FOP and other assorted footwear.

-Meagan’s black lace up booties I wore once.

-Ann’s blue tights I ripped  up on super hero day.

-My Abercrombie cargo shorts I loved so much

-The thigh high socks I wore at Governor’s school.

-The purple sash I wore on stage at the Diwali performance last fall.

-Andrew’s beanie and the random gifts I’ve bought him.

-Lauren’s green top from Francesca’s and her printed wrap dress and crimson mom cardi

-Kylie’s Gucci Bag

-Brittany Gibb’s Juicy Couture and Coach bags from freshman year

-A mask from a masquerade I attended on a boat.

-Evan’s tie-dye socks and cable knit sweater from Sweater Thursdays

-Erin’s grey cardigans, patterned tights and brown cable knit boots.

-Erin’s hat I stole and Ellen’s leg warmers that I peed on.

-Daniel’s grey v-neck sweater and green thermal.

-mom’s coach bags that she eventually returned and her red silk Chinese silk dresses.

-David’s Waken Baken trucker hat and his Green Northface jacket.

-Hao’s gauntlets and his graffiti print hoody.

-my khaki flight jacket from Gap that Muntaser thought made me look straight.

-The shapeless raw silk shirt I bought in China

-the blue Abercrombie dressshirt I wore layered under a waffle knit Henley that the girls in Geometry mocked unbeknownst to me.

-the impractical white blazer I bought off urban.

-my too tight topman black blazer I wore to my final AP test and my first funeral.

-The anime boxers and tank top I wore to my first day of school

-black old navy flip flops

-my beat up old Stanford messenger bag I wore to a million different science Olympiad competitions.

-The cream cardigan I wore my first time captaining scholar’s bowl on PBS.

-Lynelle’s gifted underwear, the Henley Andrew gave me and other gifts good and bad.

-The charcoal grey merino wool sweater from j crew I ripped on the arm and also wore to my superlative pictures.

-The grey vest I wore to junior year homecoming.

-The lilac dress shirt I lifted from Target

-Mint green, xs American apparel v-neck

-A black cardigan vest I wore to a scholar’s bowl competition senior year which I saw Cole in.

-A green suede vest that was too small for me but I wore it anyways

-my lickitung v-neck shirt

-tightrolled pants ALL THE TIME.

-my black and white striped long sleeve tee

-my Ralph lauren pima cotton sweaters

-The white keds that got so dirty

-My cream half zip American Eagle sweater with all the stains from sledding

-Long Johns I bought for Harvard

-red bow ties at Convocation

-The cove and my multiple scarves and Lauren

-The military green pants with plaid cuffs I just couldn’t do without.

-white, burnout, fraying h&m long sleeve shirt

-Lauren’s green velvet blazer

-broken and lost glasses

-My mom’s thin metal link watch

-Mr. Holt’s Hangzhou shirt

-my brown hoody from Yellowstone

-ellen’s hiking boots

-The cashmere sweater I brought to camping spring break this past year

-my brown duffel off urban.

-the Louis vuitton monogram colors collection

-Leshan in green American Eagle crew

-Chengdu gardens in Gap bi-color ringer v-neck

-camel double breasted blazer I found at yet another goodwill

-The random blue trench coat Stephen soto let me borrow one night at Harvard

-blue Levis skinnies, my favorite jeans.

Possible Chapter topics:

-all the pretty colors

-The evolution of style (from Abercrombie teeny-bopper to Thriftstore chic)

-Dancing Queen

-Denim stories

-Matchy-matchy

-photoshoots for every season

-What they wore

-my mother, my father

-receipts and shopping bags: the joy of shopping

-my wardrobe abroad

-Stained perfect

-The college colors game

-the ones that got away

-gifts I gave and got

-Just run with it (on)

-It’s a foot thing

-Great American Heists

-summertime v’s

-implausible combinations

-It’s all in the proportions

-Do I really look that gay?

-nature so chic