Bloomington, Again

And so I came back to Bloomington.  It's been so long since I was here.  In fact, the last time I was here was the last time I saw T.  It was a bad, bad visit, full of things that made me cry. I was physically ill as well as emotionally distressed.  I didn't focus on things that I should have, and I took away a taint instead of happy memories. 

This time, though, I have spent the whole day doing whatever caught my fancy.  I visited restaurants that were favorites, that I had had great meals with good friends in, and I walked all over the campus.  I took the photos I should have taken that fateful trip in the past.  I bought silly souvenirs, lanyards, a nice sweatshirt, a couple of replacement t-shirts for the ones of mine that finally have become too worn to wear for anything but yarding.  I walked past buildings I taught in, past Memorial Hall, and it all felt both strange and familiar, like coming home after a very long absence.

 And yet.  And yet.  It's not my IU anymore, is it?  I'm not even a graduate student anymore.  I don't even look like a graduate student anymore.  I felt conspicuous today.  It belongs to a whole generation of others now, young and lean, still with that hungry and vibrant look about them.  I heard them on their cellphones fussing about professors who required them to have their books on the first day of classes only to tell them that they needed to read the first few chapters.  I heard those silly undergrad conversations that are an essential part of the college experience even if they are absolute comedy to outside observers.  I saw the music school students laden with their instruments in their fascinating and mysterious cases shuttling back and forth endlessly to and from the rehearsal building.  I was there like a stone a huge river was lazily swirling around, in it but not really a part of it. 

I'm not sad, not really.  I had my time here, and it was very very good.  It was, in fact, essential in many ways in making me who I am today.  Without the return of some of the people I loved, too, it wouldn't be my IU ever again, anyway. 

Ultimately, I'm very glad I came.  It sharpened memories that had started to grow fuzzy through time, and it gave me something to replace what had been my last memory, tears and worrying over a guy who was totally worthless when I should have been paying better attention to the music my beautiful friend was making with his magic hands as I sat by his piano listening to him play.  I don't think that even if I come to the reading next year I will come back here.  I think I've had what I needed from it.  Unless I knew that some of those I love were going to be here, I don't think I would want to.  Instead, I think I will use this time and effort to go see some of them instead.  It will be another way to relive the magic of those years with something more meaningful than a stone structure.