this is the process of it all
This last Saturday afternoon, the sun was weak in the battle against the chill of the shady side of the flea market, and J and I prefer more chic silhouettes for jackets than warm ones. In the great battle to do anything but work for the class that is hated by most everyone in our program, we window shopped under the guise of gift shopping. Both of us left empty-handed, save for a Shakespeare-themed light switch cover that I swear my friend will get a kick out of for her upcoming birthday. A better gift is in the works.
For lunch, we did it my way. I have a process for most everything. The promise is that it will always take the longest allowable amount of time, and will reap the most leisurely joy possible. We picked the very best slices of cafeteria pizza after much deliberation, and I topped my sloppy salad with just about every bit and bob I could find. It works out 80% of the time. Every bite was chewed thoroughly. This is Michelin, or rather, it's more fun when you treat it as such.
Coffee was saved until the very end, naturally, it's the palette cleanser. We switched from proper seating to couches, I criss-cross, she cross-legged. Every step of the process is done with a full survey of what's around you: the people, the atmosphere, and with utmost focus, the subject at hand. We eavesdropped on the girls beside us lamenting the state of the dating world, mostly in agreement with a tinge of ridicule as we mouthed their words back to each other with widened eyes.
She was a first-timer to the cafeteria, this space frozen in time yet constantly in motion. With the last sips of her coffee, she decided that she liked this leisurely pace quite a lot, but she 'couldn't live like this every day'. Touche.
In brief, we spent the afternoon working hard, sometimes hardly working in the studio, playing house music and migrating to calmer sounds as we talked more and more. All this work culminated in a move to my kitchen where we made soup together (avgolemono if you're curious), I kept watch of the stove while she documented our studio process on scattered sheets of trace paper at the kitchen table. Halfway through our dinnertime, my roommate came in and was promptly forced to have a bowl for herself. Good review, naturally.
I thought long and hard after she left the studio, which we had migrated back to about thirty minutes after we had planned, about whether I was dragging time out beyond its limits. It manifests itself in many ways. I'm certifiably more productive in the winter, when taking a walk involves about 10 minutes of pulling sweaters and coats and scarves and hats and boots on before I finally trudge outside, only to find that I'm still quite cold. In those times, I like to sit near the windows and watch people trudge like I would've had I chosen to wander instead of work before diligently turning my head back down to my paper. There's always the other little delights that aren't confined by the weather. The piano in the foyer, the french press placed so conveniently by my desk, almost neglectful not to use.
The uninhabited part of the studio.
Now that I'm in the latter half of my degree, which seems utterly ridiculous to write considering I started writing here at the end of high school, the halls are a bit emptier. Commuter campuses are like that, especially in a degree like architecture where the program thins out a considerable amount by now. On Sunday evenings like this, it feels almost like I'm biding my time working here, when everyone else is in their homes tucked away. It simply is an immense amount of effort to make the trek to campus when your desk is a closer bet.
When I walk through the building now, it feels as if I've lived a thousand lives here, so much so that I'm a little dizzy from it all. Each and every space has been christened in the middle of the night in some form or another, many times with speckles of instant noodle broth some couple hours before a morning pin-up. I don't confuse this sentiment with wistfulness or longing, especially in moments where I walk by the first years who are playing the same parts on the way upstairs to my new domain. Rather, it's a step of my process. If I get the reflection and rumination out while I still have the visual reference, by the time I really have to say goodbye to this space once and for all, I'd have fully exhausted it. It is, however, not a foolproof system.