not everything feels like something else
“I ask Jessica what drowning
feels like and she says
not everything feels like
something else.”
-Jessica Gives Me a Chill Pill
by Angie Sijun Lou
That’s one of those poetry lines that won’t let me go. Emily Dickinson wrote that “If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.” I don’t think a line has ever taken my head off as much as the line “not everything feels like something else.” What I love about that idea is that, no matter how much we let ourselves forget it, life refuses to let it slip away completely. We may go weeks or months with every moment mentally accounted for by an apt comparison to prior experience, but invariably (which is to say always, always, always), the universe decides to unmoor us, and we are sent once again into the unknown to experience that which feels nothing like something else.
OK, the most pretentious part is out of the way. Shorthand, I’m trying to say that, recently, I and the people in my life have experienced an uptick in new things. On an objective-analysis level, it’s obvious why this is true: my life is mostly full of people my age or family members of people my age, and so everyone is somehow impacted by the college transition. Simple. But on a deeper level, I don’t think there’s anything obvious about why my life feels beyond comparison. Ok, the experiences are new, but why are the emotions new? What’s this glowing pit of desperate nostalgia that spawns in my stomach as I try to fall asleep, and why didn’t I feel it amidst any of the other (arguably just as monumentous) changes in my life? Why does socialization suddenly feel like more than a fun time; why does it now feel like going out to dinner with friends is equivalent to taking a breath of oxygen after holding my breath until my lungs screamed? And what’s this new fear of death, why am I just now aware that I’m not long to the grave on a cosmic scale when I managed to avoid that realization for the past 18 years? Why does everything feel so new? Why do we all feel so raw?
I don’t have an answer. What I do have is four meals. These meals weren’t all remarkable in their contents, but they were all remarkable in that, in terms of the environment and emotional landscape in which they took place, none of them felt comparable to a prior experience.
What it was:
Chicken, sausage, sauteed veggies, and pita that I made for myself before going to camp out in my car next to a lake.
How I’d rate it:
Chicken: 8/10
Sausage: 6/10
Pita: 8/10
Hummus: 6/10
Veggies: 7/10
Overall: 7/10
How it felt: The rain pattered against the car roof as I pulled a homemade dinner out of my Yeti cooler. The sleeping bag smelled like my moldy basement as I pulled it out of its sleeve. My running shoes and running shorts dried in the front seat of the car, and I could almost ignore their smell. I read James Baldwin’s Another Country under the stars. I pissed from my car door because there was no one around. The birds were silent, but the dawn sang more than enough for me.
What it was:
Spanish food at Boqueria, Dupont Circle.
How I’d rate it:
Albondigas: 9/10
Pan con tomate: 8/10
Tortilla Espenola: 8/10
Pintxo Moruno: 8.5/10
Fideua Negra: 7/10
How it felt:
Jack, Ben, and I had collectively awful weeks. We vented over tasty Spanish food. I opened up more than I thought I would. Common experiences were discovered. Ah-ha moments are necessary and common in academia; they are unpromised and rare in the interpersonal emotional landscape. I was fresh out of tears, but if I had any to give, I would have given them all.
What it was:
Sandwich from Wisemiller’s deli eaten on the rooftop of the Car Barn (Georgetown building by the water).
How I’d rate it:
Sicilian chicken sandwich: 9.5/10
How it felt:
Nic sent me a song that reminded her of me. I sat and watched the sunset and listened to the song on repeat and ate my sandwich. Felt like she was maybe with me, but not in a way that helped me stop missing her. There’s always too much distance between me and the West Coast.
What it was:
Italian food from Il Canale, Georgetown.
How I’d rate it:
Bruschetta con Caponata Siciliana: 8/10
Prosciutto e Melone: 7.5/10
Calamari: 7/10
Il Canale Salad: 8/10
Gluten-free Diavola Pizza: 8/10
How it felt:
Parent’s weekend dinner. Me, my mom (hi mom), Sasha, Sasha’s mom, Sasha’s dad, Sylvie, Sylvie’s mom, Sylvie’s dad. Holy sh**, have you ever laughed over dinner for two and a half hours? An incomparable natural high. My friends’ parents are now my mom’s friends. Life is a trip. We three sat on a stoop for a while after and reminisced. Life is good.