Anthony R. '09 | February 06, 2006

"Baby Steps"

My room's dark, it's late Monday night, and the January respite from regular term classes has officially come to an end. My glasses could use a cleaning, but at least the laundry's done. I had a good experience with French class, our "final" consisting of a one-page composition in the past tense about a funny story from our lives. If nothing else, I'm waking up naturally at 8 a.m. on a daily basis and I've found a semblance of work ethic again. I also did a fair bit of reckoning, the fruits of which fed this entry. --Anthony

P.S. Classes start tomorrow. I'm actually excited.

I've always been told I need a lot of input. Inbound information, sheer amounts of data, visual or practical. Yes, always; sometimes to my benefit, sometimes to my detriment. My high school math teacher once likened my mind to a sports car because I'd jump to the end of a problem instead of being methodical. But there's no denying it. The wide eyes of childhood met the brilliant pallor of an airport lounge and sired a beast called restlessness.

I began searching for answers toward the end of last semester. School just wasn't working, integrals just didn't seem so integral. None of my immediate peers at home had gone on to university, and a spread of gap years only removed me further. I had been accustomed to keeping school firmly under my thumb, and I was under the impression that I'd enter the next level of education on a footing equal to my new classmates by simple virtue of like age. I made my transition to Massachusetts on an eggshell notion that college would require of me the same adjustments familiar to generations of former freshmen, since I'd waited two years to finally be the same age as everyone else. I figured I'd be going through something along with a thousand others, and besides, I was merely thankful to no longer be marooned in the desert.

Sure, I arrived on campus, picked up my new ID, went through dorm selection and room assignment, and attended the first day of classes just like everyone else ’Äì but I guess I felt kind of sluggish. Everyone I knew looked at their new home and campus and saw a candy store with every kind of jelly bean and gummy bear their heart could desire. I was the foggy kid who didn't want any candy that day. I had been embroiled in a family issue during the preceding month, my support structure was a bit shaken up and I almost felt like a runaway. I also felt completely out of place among the throngs of wunderkinds already busy exploring their new freedoms in temporary housing with pre-orientation playmates. I had purchased a one-way ticket, my pride paying the taxes and fees.

Either I gravely resented the good time everyone was having, or perhaps I just needed some space, but I pretty successfully pushed a whole lot of people away. The folks I'd befriended online during the months leading up to the fall semester wondered what the heck had happened to me. I was beginning to learn that it is entirely possible to be unfulfilled by your surroundings, even if they are objectively superior to your previous ones. It took the plain, stark disparity of the middle of nowhere and Boston to make me realize that, perhaps, something lurked within. Everyone else loved what we had all worked so hard to secure. What was wrong with me?

As the weeks droned on, I began to appreciate the geographical advantages of New England. The grass must be greener somewhere, I told myself, and never before have I been so close to so many new things and places. I'd always loved travel; it has remained one of my few unconditional salves. Growing up, I'd always associated transit with neutrality, the time between homes when I was with neither parent and in my own care. A waterfall of passive consciousness, of sorts, in which you simply float without effort or worry. I can be doing something actively (that is, going somewhere) without doing anything ’Äì I mean, I just sit in a chair while the world glides beside me. It's a unique dichotomy of keeping still while remaining mobile.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm a born voyager and I'd be going all sorts of places even in peacetime. I certainly did before my life as a college student, and I certainly am now. I guess travel just serves a different purpose when I'm figuring myself out. Trips with friends tend to stay upbeat as general social events, but trips alone can bring delicious solitude.

I've been visiting Toronto, Canada yearly since I was a toddler. It was my father's hometown and residence of thirty years, and it has remained the domicile of much of his extended family since the 1950s. I grew to develop a feeling of Toronto being another home, with the consistent nature of my presence there throughout my childhood, the many fond memories of family, and the strong cultural identity they bear. Toronto and family have therefore grown synonymous. But as I grew older and more independent, the need to separate them became pressing. I needed to explore the city for myself, traverse its underground passageways, take my own singular agendas to the areas and zones I knew so well from the back seats of rental cars. I wanted to apply the same tenets of freedom I enjoy in college to this curious muse from my past. That meant ’Äúno’Äù to seeing relatives.

There is no convenient rail service from Boston to Toronto, and flying would be no different than any previous visit. I therefore decided to take Greyhound. Fourteen hours and three transfers, I thought, as I pored over the tickets. Albany, Syracuse, and Buffalo flirted with digits of the small hours, but I was up for the challenge. I'd feel pretty silly paying for expensive accommodations when spare bedrooms in aunts' houses were minutes away, so I opted for a backpackers' hostel in the city center. I'm not sure what was on my mind as I showed up to the South Station terminal late that evening, but I was determined to find a way to get some rest on the overnight journey. And I did.

When the bus dumped me on the corner of Bay and Dundas, I felt exactly as I did the day I first got my driver's license. I was confronting the crossroads and carrefours of vacations past with no authority figure leading the way. It was magnificently surreal. A large cup of hot chocolate in hand, I collected myself and boarded a subway car bound for Victoria Park. I hadn't been on a TTC vehicle in many years ’Äì we'd usually pick up a car from Avis or Hertz and head straight down the 401 to my late grandma's place in North York. This time, I'd be navigating the route without a guide, choosing each turn from fuzzy passenger recollection. I just had to look in the windows and walk around the back, in the yard and on the deck. No one would see me remember.

I used the weekend to craft an amalgam of sojourns to places both familiar and completely new. Sometimes I wanted to cover in more detail a site I'd driven past a hundred times but never stopped to consider. Other times, I wanted to explore a little, taking the subway to the end of the line or perhaps walking a little bit farther than usual. I made sure to spend time in and around Union Station, milling about Yonge Street, and browsing numerous shops only found within the borders of our northern neighbor. I also went to great lengths to find an aunt's house in Scarborough ’Äì about a ten-minute walk through slews of random bungalows ’Äì just so I could walk right past it and smile. I strangely felt powerful, like I was absconding with a little bit of innocence. I don't think she was home.

As night fell, I felt a little lonely. I had just passed some areas where I'd been with my dad months earlier, and recognized them instantly ’Äì it was an indelible reminder that I was all grown up now, doing this alone instead of with a chaperone. When I was home for winter break, I revisited the same streets where I first learned to ride a bike, the same park benches and swingsets I played on as a six-year-old, and I walked past the condos my mom lived in just after she moved out. I was feeling the same things in Toronto ’Äì kind of a rustling of old piles of leaves you thought were done being stepped on.

The next day, I hopped on another coach through the remote countryside, ultimately terminating at London, Ontario. I had to fight with the driver and the ticket-taker to let me take the slow route down the back roads. "But if you take the next bus, you'll get there an hour sooner!" No good. Once he was thoroughly convinced I was crazy, he let me step aboard. Sometimes just overhearing the conversations the locals have with the driver is fascinating. And sometimes, you want to strike up your own conversations. I certainly stood out with my red fleece cap keeping my head warm, but this time, I was here to listen. I probably nodded off a couple times along the way, but I was always paying attention to anything interesting, whether out the window or from an adjacent group of seats.

I learned that people on buses sometimes smell kind of bad. After an overnight on the interstate, I'm sure I did too. Living in a dorm has made me far less picky about where I shower and eat and sit, so I think that helped.

Back in Boston and just a little bit more Francophone, I recalled numerous day trips to the state of Maine during last term. You see, as a small boy browsing through hotel directories (as all small boys do), I learned that the northernmost member of a specific chain was in Bangor. I didn't know what the heck was up there or what kinds of people would stay in such a place, but ten years later I was determined to find out. There I was with homework completed and a new place beckoning from somewhere nearly forgotten. I decided to give in to my curiosity, go a little bit farther, see the stuff along the way and just sit back and relax.

This time, I had a train pass for Amtrak's Downeaster service, a discounted ticket for college students that was valid all the way to Portland. I got there in time for lunch and caught a northbound bus next to a D'Angelo sandwich shop. One of the stops along the way was Augusta, the capital of Maine, a place I remembered from fourth grade when I had to memorize all the states and such. I think as a little kid you tend to associate a capital city with a place overrun by activity and skyscrapers. That got struck right down as we pulled into a town of less than twenty thousand people.

Bangor was somewhat larger, but isolated, and quite unfriendly to pedestrians outside of the immediate city center. Sidewalks were often nonexistent or very unfortunately ending right where I wanted to carry on, but carry on I did. I got what I wanted. I had to call around to find out where I could get a room as an under-21, but there's always some place that will let me sleep for a night. And I caught a barber by surprise when I decided to get my first haircut in over six months. "I go to school in Boston but I'm from Arizona." It sounds exotic enough, I suppose, and it had the same effect on another local: an unsuspecting cabbie making small talk. (I was, of course, careful and cognizant of my surroundings.)

I returned to MIT the next day, finished up some remaining classwork, and went out for dinner. I went to California Pizza Kitchen in downtown Boston, and had the same entree I'd always get upon my arrival at my mom's place during a mid-school year visit. After considering things a bit, doing some people-watching, and taking the long way back to campus, I realized that I like this place a lot after all. I like Toronto and my hometown in Arizona a lot too. Every place has people who care, and things to do, special places to see and visit. I have begun to learn that it is entirely possible to be happy with your surroundings no matter where you are. And while I'll probably never shake my preoccupation with hopping from spot to spot, I guess there really isn't anything wrong with keeping a place where I can hang up my coat when I want to come home.

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