String Theory

I'm posting a little late today because Mr. Wonderful and I both have a day off. We spent the extra time this morning sleeping in and eating a big breakfast. It was so nice. But now it's time to register for next year's classes. Senior year! I haven't decided if I want to go on to grad school yet, but I'll definitely leave that decision for the future. Far in the future.

I'm using the free internet access at McDonald's right now - kinda sketchy, I know -  so I'm a little anxious to get offline. Here's a flashfiction piece I'm working on for a class portfolio. I've really enjoyed writing these, so I hope you appreciate this one.

String Theory

            She didn’t care for love. Or boys, for that matter. She hardly had time for friends, and at her age, who needed a boyfriend anyway? She didn’t need a reason to dress up to be told she looked perfect.

            Her mother had her in enough extra-curriculars to keep her busy through college and beyond. She hoped to break free during college. Not that she didn’t enjoy the city chorus choir, volunteering Thursday nights at a local food shelter, voice lessons, piano lessons, lessons for every stringed instrument, enough to make her her own small orchestra.

            She loved knowing she was admired, especially when her mother was outwardly approving of her work. But it got to be tiresome. Each night she would come home just past dinner-time and instead of sitting down to relax, she would have a mountain of homework. Honors English literature, pre-calc, chemistry, and with the expectation from her mother and instructors that she would practice any one of her instruments for at least an hour each day.

            It was during one her of her longer practice sessions, in fact, that she broke her violin. She had felt the urge to do it before, but feared the consequences, the disappointment, and always talked herself out of it. At one o’clock in the morning in her basement practice room, driven by fatigue and pure frustration after getting the same two measures of music wrong for fifteen minutes, she did it. With both hands she raised the violin over her shoulder and swung it like an axe. Wood splintered into a thousand pieces in the most awful symphony she had heard from the three-thousand dollar instrument.  She stepped over the mess and went upstairs to bed, sleeping in fits.

            Her mother found out the next morning when she went to the basement to collect music for the next Sunday’s church service from the practice room.

            “Do you have any idea how upset I am with you?” was all her mother said when she flipped on the bedroom light.

            The satisfaction of the wood splitting musically in her fists faded like the final note of a cello concerto solo. Her parents used part of the college fund to buy her new violin. She would just have to make up for it in scholarships, her parents told her.

            She held the delicately crafted instrument, running her hand over the fingerboard and feeling out the strings before dragging her bow across them. The instrument shrieked to life, a voice more sure than her own.

About the College Student

It's a little bit funny, sometimes, to think I live in a climate where underground tunnels between buildings are necessary. Downtown Minneapolis got it right, maybe, when they built the skywalk (an above-ground system of hallways connecting buildings). At least you can experience the beauty of day from above ground through the windows that way. Either way, in Minnesota winter, it's just too dang cold to be outside for more than five minutes. Especially when it's under 10 degrees with a windchill that brings it to 35 degrees below 0.

As I tunneled over from the cafe to the library this morning, I noticed a Coca-Cola machine with a sticker on it that read, "Open bottle carefully." I thought it was kind of funny that the school felt it necessary to remind college students that their pop would be shaken after tumbling down the chute, but then I had a picture of a sticky mess of caramelized drink in that hallway made by a delirious student wanting the immediate satisfaction of caffeine, and realized they probably had good reason for putting up the sign.

I have noticed lately that college students, though considered 'adult' and 'independent,' aren't vastly trusted by the general public, especially by those who run educational institutions. When I first realized this, I was a little offended, I guess. But then, just as with the sign on the pop machine, I thought that maybe it is for good reason.

College students, almost by definition, are irresponsible, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Hey, we have a lot going on at this stage. We have to balance homework, relationships, social functions, and if our parents don't have the desire or means to give us everything, gainful employment. For the most part, we're all generally sleep deprived and, if my own recent experience is any indication, bewildered. Maybe from lack of sleep or maybe from the sheer volume of what we cram into our heads, but I think all college students develop some form of attention deficit during the learning years.

 I have a writing professor who always tells her students that we know nothing, that we're not good at what we do, and that we can't be. This is always offending, but I understand. After all, I, only six years older than students in high school, think of them as inferior in art and thought, even if they're decent at anything for their age. Yet, when I was in high school, I thought I was kind of on my way to something. I thought I was okay. So I forgive my professor, because I know she's right, even if I feel that my effort warrants thinking there is some form of possible talent on my part.

It's true, we're inexperienced and still learning. I just wish we could be told when we're doing well. I think people forget to tell us we're doing well at this stage. Life is an unending venture of trying, failing, and finding success, after all. Is there ever the fabled satisfaction of a job well done?

I guess this comes from feeling a little on the end of worthless these days. How should I feel that going on is worthwhile if I'm only ever told what it is I'm doing wrong, and not what I'm doing right? How do any of us decide it's worth it to go on? To prove someone wrong? That is true for some, I know.

These are the years that we learn whether we're worth our salt. We work hard, strive, seek, and keep getting batted away. It's not failure, but it is something like trial. When we make it to the end, at least we know what doesn't work. Maybe life will prove what does.