Project 3

Almost every day in the summer of 2019, I sat in the gazebo of my local park with my friends doing nothing for hours. The routine was this: gather in the evening, walk to the nearby Dunkin’ Donuts, order a large coffee loaded with sugar, and then return to the gazebo to sit and talk––the time of departure never predetermined. The brown-wooded gazebo was shaped like an octagon. It carried wooden benches lining the sides, forming the perfect shape for our long discussions.

​

That summer acted as the liminal space between our high school graduation and the mystery of our next endeavors. Despite the anxiety of the approaching change and responsibility, the gazebo was a space that gave the illusion that life was immortal, and time was infinite. We would talk and laugh for hours, reminiscing the past, pondering the present, and anticipating the future. We dispersed only when we were too tired to carry on, or when the hour was just absurdly late enough to make our parents question what we were really doing that whole time. When leaving, we would branch off in several directions. Some went to their cars to drive home. The rest would begin their walk home, moving through the park (which closed at dusk) only by the light of the moon.

​

The gazebo was a haven for our curiosity and sensibility. We would share new ideas about what we could do together, how we could avoid being grown up, and how we could find genuine purpose in our lives. Those days and nights are among my strongest memories today, despite becoming a blurred amalgam of conversations and jokes. In my mind, the sweet caramel mocha Dunkin’ iced coffee I would order each night is inherently linked to these memories. The sugary drink seemed to embody the spirit of the gazebo for me. It was unhealthy, but I did not care. It enhanced the joy and tranquility of those evenings. It was an emphasis on my pleasure in the present. I cannot think of the gazebo without thinking of my Dunkin’ iced coffee beside me, regardless of even the latest hours or coldest temperatures.

 

 ***

​

The carefree summer came to an end as I began my college experience in Boston. Living in the city was new. It was not something I adapted well to. The change was far more difficult than I had predicted. I was simply not ready for that transition in my life. Who was? Being detached from the friends at home who were so close to me made the experience of finding new ones a burden. I loved Boston growing up, but living there made me feel suffocated and lonely, despite the new, generous friends that I had made there.

​

I felt I belonged somewhere else. Somewhere that would feel more like home. I tried to translate the same sense of tranquility in the gazebo to my life in the city, but it was far more challenging than what had once felt so natural. When I look back again at that difficult period, I am inclined to recall times when I paused from my daily schedule to stop at a café. I would purchase an iced coffee and a small pastry to sit and find comfort in what felt like a period of constant disarray. It became meditative. It was a reset.

​

The following year, I transferred to UMass Amherst––where four of my friends from home were attending. I had tried to deny that I was following them, but it was undeniably true. It was very challenging to adapt without them.

If I had stayed in the city, I surely would have adjusted at some point. It is also true that I do harbor a sense of regret for what I felt was a shortcoming of my independence and resilience. However, once I arrived in Amherst after the height of the pandemic, I quickly found that great sense of comfort I was lacking in the open farms and fields, with great trees and small brooks and rivers riddled around the area. The beautiful red and orange months of October and November conveyed to me a specific feeling of being at home. Yes, it felt refreshing to reconnect with my closest friends, but the rustic town that I now lived in displayed the calmness I had searched in vain to find between the crowded city streets of Boston. I had the motivation to branch out and make new friends with the similar comfort of the ones whom I’d known for over a decade. The area of Amherst helped me feel at home. I knew that it was where things felt right. I was thrilled with the decision I had made.

​

I became an English and Film Studies major; driven by a love of the arts I’ve carried since I was young. It was not a decision that came easily, but one that might have been inevitable. I was initially deterred by the lack of feasibility that appeared in finding a career in the humanities; almost a sense of shame in not choosing something more practical. I continue to remind myself that there is very little else that I could have seen myself doing at UMass so happily. I am grateful to be so invigorated by what I do.

​

 ***

​

Here is a scene of recent memory. It details Amherst in October: I drive through the town to a local café. I get a chocolate croissant and a coffee to compliment it. The crisp autumn weather cools me, but the sun is still warm. The trees are losing their green in favor of yellow, orange, or red. I might calmly sit and read for class: mostly academic articles on film theory or a novel for an English class. I might just sit and listen to music. This is a comically over-romanticized image, yes, but it succeeds in representing a significant part of my life at UMass.

​

            Sitting at a café with a sweet treat and a coffee became a regular practice, and despite the immense inflictions on my finances (and perhaps my health as well), it has brought me plenty of good. Just as these moments were meditative, they also became reflective and productive. It served as a time for me to connect with what is closest to me; the things that are integral to who I am. I do love the singular act of eating sweet treats and drinking iced coffee––the sugar brings me more than enough joy––but these moments I spend are where I bring something that is most dear to me into a close dialogue. It might be a reading from one of Barry Spence’s film theory classes, one of many that impressed themselves upon me so greatly as to push me toward thinking of graduate school. Perhaps I would be reading Twelfth Night or King Lear for my Advanced Shakespeare course with Adam Zucker, or the eye-opening African-American literature from Jimmy Worthy’s class.

 

Maybe it’s none of these things––nothing from school. Maybe I’ll sit with my treats and talk on the phone to a loved one. Maybe I’ll sit and listen to an obscure live performance by the Grateful Dead, or an album by Bob Dylan. Maybe I’ll take the time to sit and write in my journal, scratching out my current state: my emotions, my stresses, my worries, my health, my joys, my gratitude, my goals. Many times, it will involve all these things: a culmination of what is special to me and what makes me lucky to be who I am, and to have what I have in life.

​

 ***

​

While I no longer have the space of the gazebo to look around and relay these kinds of observations to my closest friends on a cool summer night, I morphed the longing for those days into a close discourse with my passions, my interests, and myself. It begins by driving to where I want to be––what café I want to sit at. I listen to music along the way, in preparation for any work that I want to get done. I sit for however long I feel I need. I am calm and comfortable. It is a way for me to take control of my day and whatever things that need to get done. It is a way of slowing down time, which often feels like it is moving by me faster than I’d like it to. My college experience is truly represented by these thoughts and feelings rather than any defining action or activity.

​

***

​

As a student at UMass Amherst, I have felt very lucky to have been so inspired by what I do. My passions for film and literature which I’ve held close to me since I was a child were pulled out of me once again in my coursework. My ‘coffee time’ is where all these passions intersect. It creates a sense of completeness––a transcendence. I came to this school with the foundation of my friends and was able to mold something out of it that became highly personal and special. A mixture of actions of emotions that has helped to cultivate the richness of my social and academic life.

​

My sweet, little treat is an emphasis on the present, barring even sugar intake (which may be a lot) and money spent. It has counted significantly towards my spiritual fulfillment. Even though I may spend ten dollars on an iced coffee and a cinnamon roll, its value is much more than that. Neither the past nor the future seems to matter in these small moments, just as it did not matter each time I stepped into the gazebo.

​

What else I might be doing in my ‘coffee time’ is this: sitting and writing an essay for David Fleming’s Integrative Experience course to reflect on my college experience. I am writing a piece that I initially thought would be unique and funny, about how I eat lots of sweets and drink lots of coffee during college. It begins, though, to make me increasingly perceptive of how important that quality is to me. I sip my coffee between sentences and paragraphs, taking a bite of a croissant as I stare at the posters on the walls, wondering what I’ll write next.