A moment in time

A remembrance of a time of life 16-18

The curtains in my room are closed. It’s probably sunny outside but I don’t know. To me the sun is simply glare on my screen. The door is shut but never locked. I don’t want anyone to think I’m doing something worth hiding. Everything is open behind drawn shades and a closed door.

I remember a dream I had at the beginning of this time. I am outside, just below my deck. Jamie and her family have come to visit. They’re staying in room six. The same room Ash, an intern from evergreen will eventually inhabit. I’m outside in the sun with Floydess We laugh, flirt, play till I have to go to class. It’s the only thing that could keep me away. I feel dearly the double pull on my time.

Time outside is not uncommon. Freeze often comes by and we walk up to the bunkers or down to the beach. This is before our nightly walks became routine. Sometimes I would walk out alone. Whole days are spent with real girls. The ghost in my screen ever present in my mind.

Every Sunday I dance. Mama only ever makes breakfast late on Sundays, the one day I get up early of my own accord. Light streams through the huge glass panes and onto our dancing bodies, spinning, twisting, swaying to the sound of zithers or drums. From ten till twelve I dance. Then I walk back up the hill. Richard is already there most times. I take a shower while he sets up. Then put last night’s leftovers on a pastel plate and nuke it. Poniey is ready. I pull down the shades in the hostel common room and sit down and begin. Other players come. We build and destroy empires. We fight ancient dragons and bargain with dwarves till midnight most of the time.

I stay up late often. There’s a sweet several hours from nine thirty to eleven or so when I can catch Floydess online before she heads off to school. Then at one she gets off for lunch, and sometimes after that she has computer lab and then too she’ll be about. I’m normally not up till eleven, but the moment I am I’m online, and I can usually catch three or four hours on that side.

Mama wants me up for breakfast at eight forty-five. It comes and goes in waves. There are times when she gets angry and sleep deprivation is well worth avoiding her wrath. There are others when she’s a little more lax. We fight often, I wield frightening coldness. She battles with angry heat.

I remember the winter, the first one. My room is freezing. I put foam in the vent to muffle my late night noise and it blocks what little heat comes through. I remember slippers, hot water bottles, shivering in my room in a coat. Near the end I finally get a heater. Suddenly my room is alive again.

The apartment is always warm. Always light. Mama plays Christmas carols, beautiful choruses of joy, on repeat all day. It always smells like roasted things, chicken, beef or pork. The seasonings, salt and cyan, thyme, basil, oregano, are ever present. The wall is yellow and orange. I’m not resentful of their light, but I am resentful that they don’t see mine. They’ve stuck me off at the farthest corner of the building, and in my whitewashed room with windows that can’t keep out the cold air I’ve found my own light.

The idea is simple. People form bonds around shared experiences. We join experience groups and write stories about time spent. We make friends who share our loves and hates, our interests and our hobbies. It’s a website called experience project. We call it EP for short, and we are EPeeps, the people who live here.

No one else can see it. Mama sees me hunched in a dark room over a computer. My step father sees me slacking off. Maybe Papa sees it. When I tell him about my week he hears it from my eyes. There’s nothing I can’t tell him. There’s nothing he won’t talk about. I don’t remember much of this time with him. Just a pervading sense of peace. A moment in my room at his house, sun streaming through the window, looking up at my wind chimes, shaped like eagles made of gold, and thinking about her. A place with both kinds of light.

           
On EP those you are friends with are called your circle. I dwell in two circles during this time - interposed. Over the years I’ve built my own base of friends. A group ranging from all corners of the continent. Some are very close, most more removed. Kays with her glorious soul, Love4life4ever with her turbulent troubles and powerful mind. Socalsunset with her depth and mazes - they are mine.

           
The second circle is Floydess'  - and it is a grand circle, drawn from all corners of the globe. Rheece from Australia with his goofy grin, and his love from England. Peanlo from Norway with her open enthusiasm. Darkangel from India with her sharp intelligence and sharper wit. Turbulence from somewhere east-coast with his determination to try, and endless goodwill. Bublina and Bulbula from Slovakia and Pakistan who gives us hope that love is possible beyond the body through the screen. We all love one another. We are each other’s solace. We share our respective lives and share the humanity that underlies each of our experiences. We share experience, regardless of nationality, color, or creed.

           
It is Floydess who brings us all together. It is her expansive charisma, her power to make us all feel valued, that binds us, and I am so proud of her - so honored to be her love. I feel so loved in her presence, and I try so hard to give equal love in return.

           
My life is split between Floydess and college. I have little time for aught else. College is often a dream. I muddle through my sciences. I draw in Philosophy. I’m bewildered in botany. Still there are good times. I have class in the evening. The windows of the small schoolhouse where we meet are dark and reflect the tables and chairs, the microscopes and student notebooks. We chatter at breaks, I ask questions after. Big bright squares of fluorescent light fill the room from above.

           
I come awake in English. We write an essay a week. Sometimes two. We edit, and edit, and write some more. We talk. The entire class talks. We think. Every class Professor Cecil brings in some new idea, some new puzzle for us to contemplate. He is college. I sit and watch him talk, a big mop of blond hair, a handsome face with crooked teeth when he smiles. He’s animated, alive. This is college. The other’s are simply time spent.

           
I remember sitting on my porch eating pasta and cheese from a bowl. My back is against the wall, and I sit cross-legged on the table. I gaze up at the sun. Mentally challenging mama that I don’t get enough. I glance down at the D&D book I’m referencing, take another bite. A wasp buzzes in, wanting my cheese. I note my page number and - Whack!

           
The shower curtain is off-white with stars and moons. I love the shower. It’s cold outside and here I can finally be warm. I love the feeling of shampoo running into my scalp, the special scent of my dandruff resistant breed. I love the cool porcelain against my finally warm feet. I have a job scrubbing down the hostel showers. I take pride that this one is clean.

           
I try and time it so I clean when Floydess is asleep, but she’ll often stay up and I’m enjoying myself too much to stop. Conversation comes easily with Floydess, though I always regret that she never shows me the intelligence I know she has. We can’t talk about literature, or chemistry, though I know she’s fluent. We don’t often talk of her thoughts or her dreams. Mostly we talk of life, of talking, of friends. We endlessly poke, prod, test. With her, weakness cannot stand for long. She is attracted to strength. She makes me be strong.

           
We lose the Hostel. Budget cuts make the state park where we’re situated raise rent more than one little Hostel could possibly support. My room is dismantled, the shades sold. Moving coincides with finals. I can’t get any more classes with Cecil so I’m going to the main campus of my college now, a two-hour carpool away. My life is changing. It’s snowing outside and everything is clear, clean, pristine, white. The new house has huge windows everywhere letting in the sun. My new schedule means getting up at seven thirty to be out the door by eight fifteen. I find myself talking to Jamie more in the mornings, on the library computers at school.

           
Christmas comes again. I’m feeling restless. So many things have changed. I’ve been finding myself with less time for internet. EP has had a makeover and I don’t like the new design. New flesh and blood friends are a possibility now. I’ve been eyeing the gamers at school. Floydess feels stagnant, a remnant of a time that’s fading. I want something tangible, yet I do not want to hurt this beautiful girl who has given me so much. Yet it seems inevitable now with my life moving as it is.

           
A little more than a year after it began I pulled this part of my life to a close. It ended on Christmas Eve 2011, and as the New Year began so too began a new chapter of my life. I will always remember this moment in time.