Algebra test again last night. I got a 93. This is going pretty good I think. But the lead up to the test was amusing and stressful enough to make me nauseated. I got a 100 on the first quiz, an 80 on the second quiz, a 65 (!!!) on the pre-test, then a 93 on the test itself. Gee, think I psych myself out much?
It is so interesting to walk around the college campus and watch the youngsters there. They are so blithe, their slender bodies poured into tight fitting jeans with casually mussy hair on the boys, sleek and straight with tummies showing for the girls. They wear a lot less make up than they did in my college prime. I marvel at the ease in which they move, the obvious assumption in their very beings as they hook hands into one another's pockets or cast sidelong glances at me as I pass by, the acknowledgement of my age showing in their faces by the very dismissal they contain, not so much rude as really quite oblivious, a feeling on my part of being on the outside looking in, recognizing a place where I used to be. They cannot fathom they will ever get old I think. The knowledge of their bodies still growing into full awareness, their place in the world not yet secure, potential written all over their posture. It is true I think that youth is wasted on the young....not really as any slam against them, but mostly just because they have not yet lived enough yet to know how quickly it goes away, too inexperienced in life (most of them) to have any perspective on the blessings of oh-so-flat tummies and breasts that stay where they belong without a bra and the thrill of just looking at one another. I watched a very young Asian couple having a rather terse conversation in what I would presume to be their native language, everything in her posture reflecting indignant offense, everything in his reflecting chastized batfflement. I hope they could not hear me giggling as I passed them by. I watched a lithe young girl let go of her boyfriend's hand to lounge back on one of the many benches scattered around campus and lean against the wall, a heavy sigh emphasizing female body parts, her legs seemingly longer than she realizes as she stretched them out and then snugged one beneath her bottom...every movement and motion provocative and sensual...and his hands going into his jeans pockets as he stood before her and struggled to look without looking like he's looking with a tension that made me wonder if she even realized the enticing display she made as heat fairly crackled in the air from him to her. The longing looks of a very pretty lab partner in my biology class toward one of her other partners, the snug fitting things she wears, the done up hair and pouted lips even at 9 in the morning on a Saturday, the incessant questions about him, his girlfriend, what they did, the way she manages to lean over and brush up against him whenever he looks into the microscope at our assignment, the way he doesn't seem to mind and also doesn't seem fooled. Its just....interesting. Like looking at myself from far, far away, wondering at all the incredible experiences now in my life that have changed me from that inward facing innocence to a creature far more aware of life, earth, death, love.
I swear I am learning algebra and biology somewhere inside all my gawking. The truth is, part of me envies....but part of me pities. I wonder if anyone escapes that age unscathed?
It is so interesting to walk around the college campus and watch the youngsters there. They are so blithe, their slender bodies poured into tight fitting jeans with casually mussy hair on the boys, sleek and straight with tummies showing for the girls. They wear a lot less make up than they did in my college prime. I marvel at the ease in which they move, the obvious assumption in their very beings as they hook hands into one another's pockets or cast sidelong glances at me as I pass by, the acknowledgement of my age showing in their faces by the very dismissal they contain, not so much rude as really quite oblivious, a feeling on my part of being on the outside looking in, recognizing a place where I used to be. They cannot fathom they will ever get old I think. The knowledge of their bodies still growing into full awareness, their place in the world not yet secure, potential written all over their posture. It is true I think that youth is wasted on the young....not really as any slam against them, but mostly just because they have not yet lived enough yet to know how quickly it goes away, too inexperienced in life (most of them) to have any perspective on the blessings of oh-so-flat tummies and breasts that stay where they belong without a bra and the thrill of just looking at one another. I watched a very young Asian couple having a rather terse conversation in what I would presume to be their native language, everything in her posture reflecting indignant offense, everything in his reflecting chastized batfflement. I hope they could not hear me giggling as I passed them by. I watched a lithe young girl let go of her boyfriend's hand to lounge back on one of the many benches scattered around campus and lean against the wall, a heavy sigh emphasizing female body parts, her legs seemingly longer than she realizes as she stretched them out and then snugged one beneath her bottom...every movement and motion provocative and sensual...and his hands going into his jeans pockets as he stood before her and struggled to look without looking like he's looking with a tension that made me wonder if she even realized the enticing display she made as heat fairly crackled in the air from him to her. The longing looks of a very pretty lab partner in my biology class toward one of her other partners, the snug fitting things she wears, the done up hair and pouted lips even at 9 in the morning on a Saturday, the incessant questions about him, his girlfriend, what they did, the way she manages to lean over and brush up against him whenever he looks into the microscope at our assignment, the way he doesn't seem to mind and also doesn't seem fooled. Its just....interesting. Like looking at myself from far, far away, wondering at all the incredible experiences now in my life that have changed me from that inward facing innocence to a creature far more aware of life, earth, death, love.
I swear I am learning algebra and biology somewhere inside all my gawking. The truth is, part of me envies....but part of me pities. I wonder if anyone escapes that age unscathed?