The Pear of Wrath

Well, well. Long time no write. But I guess that’s just 'in the nature of things.' Initial excitement about anything that’s new gives way to routine. Try as I might, I cannot help but getting used to Athens and living in it. Getting used to things is as nice as it is necessary, but it also comes at a price. Over the course of everyday life, we tend to develop tunnel view. The last two weeks, my first weeks of class, mostly had me figure out a good way of scheduling my day. When to read the assigned texts, when to write responses? Invest a lot of time in cooking? Go out until after 2 a.m. while I still have to read 20 pages for tomorrow? That’s not a big deal, of course, I get along very well so far! And I really like my days. But it always takes some time to adjust to a new environment. Moreover, being so small, Athens quickly gives you the idea that you know the place. But I don’t. Athens is more than OU and Court Street. It’s sometimes easy to forget that. Tunnel view. Anyway, I try to stay aware of the things happening to the left and right of me.

   Oh, and have you seen this crazy baby? Runs around New York scaring the shit out of people. I’m glad not to be there anymore, haha! It’s hard, however, to walk swiftly in Athens. You know that Tocotronic song, right? Dirk von Lowtzow might have written it on South Court Street. People are relaxed on the streets, not only the ones in sweatpants (who seem to constitute the majority). With some of them walking in bulks, I am often forced to lurk behind. But I guess I have to learn to walk slowly, anyway. Fight the tunnel view. Enjoy the squirrels in the snow and on the trees. Stop a minute in front of the old armory, eyeing the building’s architecture. 

The Pear of Wrath

   Later, I took another minute to wonder at that crazy blemish on my pear. Does it make you think of heart disease as well? That is a heart, no sense in arguing against it! And it looks really sick! The dots and spots on it! Is that malaria? And it even has these rays emanating from it, making it seem to pulsate! Feels like a cat's tongue. The rest of the pear was delicious, anyway.

   Sometimes on my way to school—a walk of about ten to fifteen minutes—I listen to John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley in Search of America. In 1960, Steinbeck (then 58) set out in his truck to rediscover America because he felt like he did not know it anymore. He wanted “to hear the speech of the real America, to smell the grass and the trees, to see the colors and the light.” And he took his French Gentleman Poodle Charley for company. You know—road trips and dogs—You might know that something like this easily catches my attention. On top of that, Steinbeck’s beautiful prose, his unique style and tone are still reverberating from when I read his epic East of Eden a year or two ago. And as I might have written in previous fits of joy already, I have to read The Grapes of Wrath for my pop/high culture class, which I never had the time to before. After seven chapters out of thirty, I already like it quite a bit. Steinbeck really takes his time to unfold this story of the dust bowl and the plight of migrant workers in the times of the Great Depression. While the first chapter relates in great detail how the dust came and settled in Oklahoma, the entire third chapter is concerned only with a turtle that unwittingly carries a seed of wild oat across the highway. Sounds boring, but it’s not. There are also people in the book. Read some Steinbeck!