Every day can be a miracle, if only we let it. Of course, wallowing in self-pity and indulging our victim mentality, is so much easier, so much saucier. Who doesn’t want to deny the silver lining, the pleasant surprise that may lurk behind a failure? After all, embracing it could lead to a certain degree of happiness. Please don’t take me as a cryptic bullshitter, or worse, Sally Sunshine toting a basket of daisies and believing with all her heart that the glass is indeed always half full. No, I speak from experience. I know now that truth is stranger than fiction, and if you dare, the worst can become the best.
It was six weeks ago, in the warm thick of my summertime in the city, that hubris got the better of me. As I stepped out of White-Gravenor on an idle Tuesday afternoon, I grappled with the painful realization that had tainted most of July. Around me swelled crisp blue skies, dazzling gold sunshine and a campus devoid of Presidential Classroom vermin. Nature was working in all of her ironic glory. The realization? The nomination allowing me to go abroad had been stripped of validity. I had done the unthinkable in a Spanish class last spring; after one too many tardies, one too many blemished papers and not one, but three accusations of plagiarism for being suspiciously poetic, I had been barred from going to Spain.
Accordingly, my broken nomination spawned a Leviathan of “To Do” lists. One: Cancel plane tickets to Salamanca. Two: Inform host family they’re two grand in the hole. Three: Register for classes. Four: Find housing that doesn’t require taking multiple buses and/or transferring lines on the Metro. And perhaps most humiliating of all, five: Tell family and friends the reason for my misfortune, that I was had, yes, by a film class.
The personal embarrassment of rejection alone almost drove me over the edge. Simultaneously, the parents felt it their duty to intervene, trying fervently to wrestle from me the phone number of deans, the professor or just someone to blame. I’m sure they reasoned that if I wasn’t ballsy enough to fight for myself, four semesters of tuition could stoke the fire for both of us. On the friends front, I received the same frustrated response. They simply could not process the failure; 14 years of Spanish and a pocketful of foreign language awards seemed reason enough to declare that “she had this one in the bag.” As a result, I was plagued by persistent phone calls, a deluge of unhelpful e-mail and hey, even two letters of complaint from my parents’ friends, all working in concert to further my anxiety as a lingual pariah. After two weeks of futile argumentation with the Office of International Programs and to the exasperation of everyone I knew in the Lone Star state, I accepted my fate.
However, I should give credit where it is due. My change of heart did not spring from a profound emotional reserve or some moment of divine transcendence when I realized I did not have to go to Spain; I was Spain. Rather, it arrived curiously on the wings of a gay Latino named Andr?.
That notorious Tuesday, I drifted tearfully into Red Square to weep for my soon-to-be-crestfallen host mother in Castilla. At the other end of my bench sat a youngish-looking guy, about 30, chatting gaily on his cell. After hanging up, he faced me and mused, “Is it still fun for you?” It took me a few moments to ignore the obvious sexual implications of his query.
“Excuse me?”
“I mean, is it still fun for you? The Hilltop … ?”
I studied him. Slender build. Middling height. Head-to-toe black ensemble complete with leather Gucci beret. I was intrigued. It turned out Andr? was a Georgetown alum, class of ‘92. The conversation that followed freed me from spiraling academic distress and was otherworldly, to say the least.
“I don’t remember them flying so low,” he murmured. Airplanes roared overhead. The connections between Andr? and me were bizarre, if not unsettling. Among the glut of coincidences, I learned he had lived in the same apartment as one of my good friends. He had worked for the Voice. He had grown up in Texas, only an hour away from my hometown. And strangely enough, I shared the namesake of his best friend from college.
“Going abroad should not be confined to a year or even a semester in college. I mean, why be away from the Hilltop? Honey, go to Greece for a couple of years and find out who you really are. It’ll change your life,” He tipped his beret and, with a wink, floated towards Dahlgren Chapel to have “a moment.”
I am not completely convinced I met Andr? that Tuesday. The heavy cologne that trailed after him like a wedding train still lingers freshly in my mind. However, not unlike my imaginary friend Lula, Andr? may have only been the mere remnant of a robust imagination. In any case, things looked different after that day. I did not forget the reasons for my change of address or sudden course lists in English, but I did rediscover the luster of our life at Georgetown, even though it arrived on the D&G-scented lapels of my ancient Buddha from the Hilltop.
Natasha Jacob is a junior in the College. She likes to knit and drinks seltzer, even though she’s not 80-years-old.
