Attic Adventures

Like that Beatles song, only not nearly as cool.

I came home on the 29th, flying into Newark, and came home home late at night. I've been studiously putting off anything productive journaling since then. Well, since before then, obviously. It's been a while.

You know, part of me never stops writing. I am always observing things, reworking them in my head, fitting them with just the right words. It's a constant narrative of what I see and feel. Oftentimes I think, Good thing the folks next to me can't read minds. (I figure I'd know if they could, unless they were very good at keeping straight faces.) But rarely does anything I think make it onto paper. Or, as the case may be, onto the screen. (Guess this shirt wouldn't work for me, then. Almost right. Almost.) I'd like to believe that if I wrote down half the things I think, as I think them, I'd have enough to complete a couple books. Ah, so that is what's stopping me from becoming a bestselling author. Noted.

But there are things here I want to say. Too many of them for me to know, at this point, precisely how this entry, and any entries that follow, will come out, but I know that I would regret it if I let this journal go as it is.



Folks ask questions, when I tell them where I've been. Curious questions, of course, and sometimes envious questions, and largely they're all the same from person to person. So far, though, my least favorite question is, "So why'd you come home?" I've gotten it three or four times, said in this marveling way, as if, were the questioner in my place, he or she would never have left.

"I don't know," I reply, sometimes with a laugh, to lighten the seriousness of my words. I don't know.

But I do know. I came back because this is home, for goodness' sake. My home, for all its imperfections and aggravations. The place I've lived all my life. I see it with different eyes, now, and largely State College doesn't seem to care where I've been or what I am bringing back with me, but it's still home.

Sometimes I say it, though. "I don't know why I came home." Roll my eyes, groan, heft myself through something. It's cold and damp outside right now, I'm wearing two pairs of socks and my feet are still cold. It's in the 70s and sunny in Athens.

But it feels mean to say that. And I feel a little mean, saying it. My mum and dad, and my little brother, are glad I am home. The friends I've met again here are glad I'm back. And, yeah, I am too. To an extent. I miss Athens - the city, and the experience - and I miss it terribly, when I'm alone, but I will not lie to myself. I am glad I am home, in a bigger and more complicated way than I can articulate here.

Articulation. I'm good at that. At putting big, messy things into words. At transcribing experiences into nouns and verbs, so that I can better understand them, and help others to do so, as well.

And I think here is the heart of why I haven't journaled, lately. Neither online nor in the book I've carried since 5 January. I am not a big fan of using "cannot" statements, but how can I possibly begin to express the layers of feeling I've been living every day for the past month?

Layers is a good word. I mentioned earlier how it's as if there were a layer of gauze separating Everything from Now. I do not know that there is that separation, anymore. It's harder to ignore, or look beyond, when I'm alone. As I generally am, now.

Thursday marked a month since Eric died. He checked out, they told us afterward, at about 5 PM. We had Byzantine History class. I believe that was finally the lecture on Islam, but I'm not sure. That night I went upstairs to #7, maybe to do laundry, and Meghan and I stood in the kitchen and talked for almost an hour, about her experiences from working in a nursing home. I remember she said how no one of us seemed to realize how close to death Eric actually was. She knew, from her medical training, but most of us were certain that he'd pull through. We both stared at each other, and I think I said, "Okay, new topic," and then we spent the rest of the evening discussing absolutely trivial things, like what we thought of our illustrious history professor, and ended the night in giggles. I went back downstairs at about 12.30, feeling quite chipper.

I have a pretty active imagination, generally. When I walked in the door - quietly, because Jess was asleep - I found myself thinking about Eric, and how I'd read somewhere that when a person dies, that person can, somehow, visit everyone he or she knew, to let them know. Something like that. And then I pictured Eric, as if he was standing right in the living room, and I could see him so vividly it was like he was really there. He gave a crooked little smile, and shrugged with his palms toward me, and smiled all the way and waved his arm - all very Eric gestures - and I said, aloud, "Yeah, buddy, you're alright." I went to bed happy.

The next morning I was humming an old ballad as I made myself a lunch - double long philosophy class: it would be killer and I wanted something yummy to eat - and walked down to the Athens Centre. I saw Dimitra just as I rounded Dikhiarhou onto Archimidous. I waited as she crossed over to me.

You know, it was Dimitra who told me that my grandmother died, too. That's a connection.

"Carrie," she said. "How are you?" She didn't look very good.
"I'm fine," I said, but she didn't look any better, and so I tried a smile and a thumbs up. "I'm okay." A car went by. "You?"
She nodded, but her face didn't make any moves to un-crumple itself, and by this point some wiser part of me was bracing myself. "Eric," she said, as we stood there on the sidewalk, with cars motoring past. "He... he didn't make it."
I breathed. The world focused, narrowed. "When," I said.
She told me, and she told me how his parents wanted time to call their younger son, and she told how she was going up to the girls' apartment because when Lindsey came into the office just a few minutes ago, they'd told her and she'd bolted back up the street. I must have missed her by seconds, I realized.

"Well, then," I said. "I'll go back up with you." No point in going to the Athens Centre, now, I reasoned. I was still on a reasoning level. It didn't last long. As we walked up the long hill, I could feel my own face crumpling. I guess you could say that the words were starting to sink in. I don't know. It's one thing to recount events, but entirely another to say how I was feeling. I gasped for air. It's a steep hill, and my nose was suddenly filling up.
Dimitra told me that I had to be strong, for Eric's parents, and for my friends. I nodded, but I was thinking that it was all well and good for me to be strong, but I had to be sad first. Okay, I said to her in my head, but just let me cry for a while. I am who I am, and right then, I was reeling.

We went up to #7, but through the open door I could see a mass of weeping girls on the floor, and I fled. My apartment was empty, I knew - I didn't know where Jess was, didn't particularly care, and was grateful for the solitude. I left the door open, because I didn't want to be quite that alone. But I do not like to cry in front of others. And I didn't want quite that much grief, yet. I had to take care of my feelings before I could begin to receive others'.

When I thought I could speak, I left a message on my pastor's machine, because he knew about the accident, and called Dad, because I knew he would pick up. Mum was in Florida, taking care of my aunt. It was about 4.30 AM Eastern Standard Time. When Dad answered, it was like some part of me was 5 again and I just wanted to curl up in his arms and sob. I did not expect, on my trip abroad, to miss my father.

I did the dishes, then, because they needed to be done and it was something to do. I sang Taizé songs, and by the time Dimitra came in to check on me about a half hour later, I thought I was doing alright. Singing, when I can get the songs out, has always helped me to feel better. It was a temporary thing. She said that she would be upstairs, and I said that I wasn't ready to go up, yet. She looked worried, but she trusted me. I finished up the dishes, and stood out on the balcony. I stood in view of the doorway, because although I couldn't face the grief upstairs, I wanted company, one on one. My stuffed giraffe, whom I'd clutched to my chest whenever I went into the bedroom, could only offer so much.

I heard the door slam downstairs, and footsteps up the stairs. Feet shuffled across the floor, and then there was an arm around me. Sasha. We'd never been particularly close, but as we stood there, leaning on each other, we shared one of those moments I can't describe, but know I'll never forget.

The others - those who'd been at the Athens Centre - came shortly afterward, crowding in. I remember peering faces, and thinking, "Too many! Too many!", and then maybe I hugged Matt, and they all shuffled out again.

John and Steve came in about ten minutes later, entering with a knock. I had been thinking about people I really wanted to hug - my dad, and Zack, and Gregg, and Jeff, all past youth group leaders - and since none of them were immediately available, I was pretty sure that my two professors would be good substitutes. I was right.

I went upstairs when Dimitra and Pat Chung came back down, again to check on me. Everyone else was up in #7. In my memory, the air was filled with whispers and softly rustling clothing, as people moved among each other, offering hugs and little words. All the lights were off, and so the apartment was shadowed by the daylight from open the balcony doors. Our philosophy professor perched on a chair in the middle of the big living room, a leg crossed. People walked around him. John leaned against the wall. Steve had a class to teach, and had already left. But remember feeling very strongly that both John and Steve were with us more than our program director, who seemed to show little inclination to do more than sit. I suppose we all grieve differently.

The afternoon passed slowly. Food came together until we had a regular buffet on the table. Little things, and leftovers from the potluck we'd held the previous Monday. That seemed so long ago, now. We reminded ourselves that we were hungry, and ate. At about three, many of us went to see Diane, who'd been readmitted to the hospital early in the morning, after waking up with belly pains. When her doctor ordered all of us out of her room, some of us protested - "Don't you know...?!" and her doctor said, "I know everything," and I knew that she did. And when her doctor arranged it so that we could visit with Diane in the floor's waiting area, I realized that she'd gained my respect. I don't often respect physicians, I'm afraid. It was good to see Diane, and I think we, collectively, took comfort from each other. As it should be.

That night we all went to Rosemary's again, to meet Eric's parents. I found myself thinking, more than once, how different this visit was from the pizza party she'd thrown just the previous Friday, after we'd all gone to the hospital to donate blood. That had been a loud, laughing affair. This ... was smaller, somehow, although there were more of us there. More intimate and quiet and delicate and - yes - healing.

Words only go so far.

Mr Stearns told us two things that evening, and I've written them down in the back of my journal, right below where Mrs Stearns wrote their mailing address. "Never quit," he said, and, "Focus on what you do have, not on what you don't have." I cannot tell how many times I've thought of both of those things since.

Sometime between the 2nd, when Eric and Diane were hit, and the 9th, when we all found out he'd passed, we as a group of students became closer than we'd ever been, and from the 9th onward, we were in many ways a unit. While we still hung out with some people over others, I felt, and feel, that the semi-cliques that had previously existed melted and merged, and we emerged as a whole group, united. Something like this can act as a powerful bond, one of the most powerful, maybe, but it's one thing to know it and entirely another to experience it. I have shared something with those people that I've not shared with anyone else, and for that each and every one of them will always be welcome in my life, and I know that I will never forget any of them. Athens became so much more than a study abroad/vacation over those seven days. It is so much bigger, now, and I find myself at a loss to really describe it. Sure, I've recounted events here, but like I said, it's one thing to talk about what happened, and another to say how I felt.

Pat Chung, at Rosemary's urging, sang for us at our graduation ceremony on the 23rd. He sang a song he'd performed at the potluck, "Anyone Else But You", from the Juno soundtrack, and then he sang Green Day's "Good Riddance".

I'd always heard that song at graduation ceremonies, and had always thought it wasn't quite appropriate. It never fit. Sure it was a good song, but for a simple graduation? The lyrics seemed to imply something bigger than that.

We all sang along, that evening, some of us sniffling back tears, and I realized that, finally, here was a time when this song worked. It worked, to such a degree that I can now point to those lyrics when I need to describe how this past month has felt to me.

Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go
So make the best of this test, and don't ask why
It's not a question, but a lesson learned in time

It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

So take the photographs, and still frames in your mind
Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time
Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial
For what it's worth it was worth all the while

It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life...

Yeah.

So that's enough for now. I like to think I'll post more, later.