i lost a glove today. i was running late to work because i spent too long talking to loved ones and i did a bad job of stuffing it into my hat before shoving my hat in my coat pocket. my gloves are an important part of my winter bundling. lately, it's been a jordan beanie i've had for maybe 10 years, my jacket zipped up tight so i can feel my notebook and wallet and cigarettes in the inside pockets, a keffiyeh, sometimes a mask if it's particularly cold or crowded or i don't want to take it off, and my gloves. sometimes i'll wear long underwear. my gloves are smartwool and i've had the same ones for ages in many different iterations. i used to have black ones but the last few pairs have been mottled green. they're not solid or super warm or waterproof but they do their job. they have touchscreen fingers, which allows me to tweet enough while i'm walking that my phone dies before my fingers get cold. the particular one i lost today was the left glove. i don't mind losing it that much because both the gloves of this pair are starting to wear through in the fingers and i have a spare pair in my room for some reason or another.
generally, i really don't like losing things. i've been known to have full breakdowns and cry about losing items fundamental to my routines, but not particularly important. i similarly don't like breaking things, and when things break or degrade i will often attempt to buy an exact replacement. i own a mug which is the same as a mug i acquired in 7th grade, but i've broken 3 of them in the interim. my duvet cover is shredded on the top but i turned it around and sleep with buttons in my face because i can't find another one that's satisfactory and the one i have is so good.
i retraced my steps to try and find my glove after i left class and realized it wasn't in my pocket. i didn't have any luck, but i realized something about campus: i don't like it. i saw the sun hit the medical center facade and realized that campus is an ugly place. i think i've realized this before but i forget it. it's a hard feeling to pin down. i'm not sure ugly is even the right word. there's something about how the prettiest part of campus is always the sky and the sun hitting the tops of buildings. something about how the mountains are gorgeous and far off. something about the way the trees grow and the grass is trimmed and the pathways are filled with slush.
sometimes i think about old growth forests.
girl who needs to stare at williams and billings for a bit. there’s lil gargoyles what a thrill
ReplyDeletei think you've missed the point, but i'll look at the gargoyles all the same
DeleteI think you say this well in the entry but UVM works visually as a frame for the rest of Vermont, but doesn't quite have anything of its own, it doesn't have a solid visual identity that works
ReplyDeleteyeah and the absence of that identity makes it all the more painfully obvious what would be here otherwise
DeleteI'd like to think that I relate to your feeling about campus. My most beautiful photos of campus are the sunsets and rainbows. In photos, I find myself cutting off buildings to try and capture the sky, or focusing on the parts that slowly stop looking like buildings and instead surfaces for the golden gleam of sunlight. Looking at the mountains always fills me with something wistful. It makes me think about hiking and escaping to campus woods. There's so much in the beyond that I want to see more. I long for lichens and silence and stars.
ReplyDeleteyou get it. let's go to the woods sometime.
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