Imagine a seesaw, its fulcrum where I stand,
School on one end, the city on the other,
Every day, gravity pulls me,
Westwards or eastwards, which way the seesaw swings.
Though try the city may, the seesaw favors school,
It swings towards it often, and often I am there,
An insider, with official ID and building access,
I mold into a conforming citizen,
My scales scraped clean, my skin sanded smooth,
I wear a straightjacket for good posture,
And after a messy process of acculturation,
I find myself, body and mind, gilded: a fine specimen indeed,
But the seesaw swings the other way too,
On those days, I walk east, towards the city,
And though ten minutes cannot shed my other self completely,
Ten minutes can still do a pretty fine job,
I reach the city not its resident,
I am a tourist, strangely lost in streets as straight as any,
I am a tourist, and I do not speak their language,
But still, through the chaos, I cut my path to nowhere,
I walk and walk and walk, asking no directions,
The building faces, like Rorschach blots, tell me all I need,
Glass and brick and corrugated steel, I do what the signs demand,
I only look the homeless in the eye, I only smile at peeing dogs,
I melt in the heat, and sway with the stink,
Letting the city noise wash me through and through,
Reborn, I the tourist, walk the city with crazed determination,
I must keep my empty shell empty,
I know eventually, I will be pulled west,
But for now, I walk deeper into the city, holding my compass.
Isolation is not permitted in school,
There are people everywhere,
We glance at each other and nod,
We are smart, we are special, our nods say,
And if an outsider dares enter our space,
We spot them easily, and escort them with our stares,
Only in the city am I truly alone,
Packed in that crowd of strangers, I am most solitary,
I rest my eyes on their empty faces, we have nothing in common,
Except that sometimes we walk in the same direction,
Stopped by the same red lights, startled by the same loud noises,
Often, we eat similar food on tables closely huddled,
We even share a table while drinking coffee,
Though each of us looking at a different screen,
At sights, like the LOVE sculpture, we stand in loose lines,
Waiting our turn to take the same spot, to take the same picture,
I do not mind being alone in the city,
It relaxes me, numbs my nerves,
I long for it after periods of intense collegial togetherness,
There is comfort in being lonely with others,
At the same time, I am part of a collective,
Yet somehow, I keep my singularity intact.
School is a machine for learning,
It is ok to leave school appreciating the world’s mysteries,
But not to leave knowing less and more confused,
Something went wrong in there, the system failed,
That is not the case in the city,
I go to the city seeking refuge from the need to know,
A place I can befriend my ignorance,
Embrace it, fuse with it, dissolve in it, be it,
To hold my breath, think of nothing, and become emptiness,
Of course, this does not mean the city cannot teach,
With every walk, I see new things, and learn of their existence,
New buildings, streets, potholes, parks, trees, faces, fashions...
But what new things I learn is not the point,
It is the immensity of the city, its endlessness,
Its countless layers and gradients and motions and patterns,
Its infinite stories, told in infinite voices, and infinite more untold,
To let go, and finally accept the impossibility of knowing,
To unravel and fall, like a liberated knot on a bed of feathers,
To sleep and sink, firmly swaddled in the hug of a pool of quicksand,
Ending a city stroll confounded or disoriented is not a failure,
Feeling small and insignificant is expected,
To be close to nothing,
How different is that from school,
And the burdensome sense of empowerment it bestows?
No, I prefer being a drop than an ocean,
A neuron than a brain, a star than a galaxy,
Let gods be gods, let them have their omniscience,
And for me, I keep my peripherality.
The student is a time traveler,
Going backwards or forwards,
Rarely is the present, that evasive mirage, of interest,
What is the present if not that which cannot be studied?
And besides treading time, the student also partitions it,
My day today, hour by hour, was predetermined yesterday,
And yesterday, hour by hour, is today scrutinized,
Only the present, that foolish child, is unaccounted for,
The city is timeless,
I never plan my walks, I never remember them,
They are a thick haze of presentness,
It is not that I walk the city blindfolded,
Actually, I become most observant, seeing everything,
I hear the racket, I sniff the smoke,
I am intensely alive, my brain sensation-bursting,
But every moment is a world, born dying and dead, instantly,
Then another moment, another world, fully alive, then gone,
I do what each second requires,
Then wait an eternity, for the next second to arrive,
I follow intuition, yet remain vigilant,
Left idle, sensations deteriorate into thoughts,
With thoughts, moments linger past their due,
The present vanishes and time is born,
My hardest work is keeping my presentness,
How delicate do I have to be with me,
How softly do I wash away my thoughts,
How gently do I push the time away,
I keep myself purely present, pure and present, pure.
Before one end of the seesaw falls,
Like fate slamming his gavel, and my route is set,
Before my feet are pulled, east or west,
Before I become student or tourist,
I wonder which way, if asked, I would choose,
I wonder why school and city are spelled the same,
I wonder why utopia looks like everything else,
And then I feel the tremor, and then I hear the strike.
