You Only Live Once

On my second day here, Saturday the 22nd of July, I feel out of it. There is jetlag, sure. But there is also me willingly avoiding every other person that is here. There are six or seven others, all Australians, and they all are friends, eating together, hanging out at night, that sort of thing. In the afternoon, after I had sat alone at lunch, trying to hide myself from their table, I feel alone. I have nothing to do. So I go for run. And on this run, I see the most perfect tree that I've ever seen. There's a trail, a greenway, about a mile and a half from campus along a river. I run for about 25 minutes and turn a corner and there it is and my jaw drops and it stays dropped. It is framed against the bluest sky, the sun shining at just the right angle--this is the most majestic tree I've ever seen. A dome of leaves covers a gnarled, rootlike mess of branches and winding trunk. What could it be? Everything, every tree, every animal is something new and unexpected, but I think that seeing this tree is when it really hits me: I AM IN AUSTRALIA. The name "baobab" flits across my mind, but I know that it can't be right (and I confirm later that it's not), that I'm pulling it from some children's book about trees, but the real issue is that I don't care at all what kind of tree it is. I want to stop and stare, but I know that if I stop I will never start again and roots will grow out from my toes and through the soles of my shoes and deep into the ground and my fingers, they will sprout too and grow upward and support the branches and leaves that was once my head and hair and this is how these trees are formed. Unsuspecting passersby see them at this perfect time, 4:30 PM on any day in late July, see them for the first time and don't know not to stop so they do and become rooted there, transfixed, until they become the trees themselves. These trees have no need for seeds and spores. But somehow I know that I have to keep going, and so I do, mouth agape. That night, I sit with other people.

The date is now Sunday, August 6th. It is the day before classes start, and everybody is back, their rooms bursting with music and the familiar laughter of reunited friends. I've made a few friends, but there is no one to whom I feel especially close. Natalie and I have spent a lot of time together, most of it, in fact, using the campus network to download old episodes of television shows that we've missed out on due to heavy workloads at our real schools. It is wonderful, but not particularly conducive to making new friends. This day we go for a bike ride. We go on the same path as my first run, passing the tree, that perfect tree, but that is not the important part of this story. What is important is that when I return and walk down the hallway to the shower, there is a song playing in one of the rooms. This song is You Only Live Once by The Strokes. Now, I don't like The Strokes. Not at all. But this song is different. It is safe. It is home. It is driving in Indianapolis when it's not too hot with the windows down and cleaning up the dishes in Minnesota and eating on the back porch and Christmas dinner in Evanston. It is getting the layout d and hitting the ball on the sweet spot and sinking the game-winner in the fourth grade. It is laughing with Natalie and inside jokes with Nora and clowning around with Swarthmore kids and riding in a van bound for Georgia with a bunch of Earthworms and it lets me know that everything (yes, everything) will be all right.