Loneliness is a feeling that's been following me around a lot this semester.
What are friends? I thought I knew but I must have been wrong.
It's funny how people you've worked with, laughed with, engaged with, seem to forget who you are once you've decided to be true to yourself. What are they afraid of? What has changed? How can gender affect even the most platonic of University friendships?
"I know what it feels like to be stared at for my appearance", she said to me. "My name's Kenisha. What's yours?"
I needed a few seconds to realise she was talking to me. Nobody talks to me. Even those who used to.
"Didn't we take a class together last fall?" She was right. But we never talked then.
So there we were, sipping tea outside the library building. "What you said earlier, were you refering to the color of your skin?", I asked. She smiled. "I was refering to my blackness, yes. I've seen you sitting alone every week, just like me. Nobody talks to you because they're afraid of what's different from them. This crazy thought came to my head that you could use a friend. I know I do."
Some part of me felt awkward about her empathy. Some part of me felt I didn't deserve it. Cognitive dissonance took over. "I want to say I understand what you feel, but I don't think I can say this from my position of white privilege." She looked surprised. "I still think that, on some level, we share similar feelings. Your whiteness doesn't make your pain less valid."
On and on we talked, about nothing and everything. About trivial things and about important issues. About sadness and about joy. About how difficult it is to engage in class material when there is so much else going on in your life. About feeling invisible, yet hypervisible.
"At what time were we supposed to get back to class?". I looked at my watch. "...An hour ago."
Time had flown by, and neither of us felt sorry for missing class. We were glad, in fact. And we kept talking.
And even though we never went back to class, I feel like I've learned more in these few hours we spent together than I did in this whole semester. It had been a while since I talked so honestly with someone I knew so little beforehand, and that honesty reflected back to me.
Maybe this is what friendship looks like.
What are friends? I thought I knew but I must have been wrong.
It's funny how people you've worked with, laughed with, engaged with, seem to forget who you are once you've decided to be true to yourself. What are they afraid of? What has changed? How can gender affect even the most platonic of University friendships?
"I know what it feels like to be stared at for my appearance", she said to me. "My name's Kenisha. What's yours?"
I needed a few seconds to realise she was talking to me. Nobody talks to me. Even those who used to.
"Didn't we take a class together last fall?" She was right. But we never talked then.
So there we were, sipping tea outside the library building. "What you said earlier, were you refering to the color of your skin?", I asked. She smiled. "I was refering to my blackness, yes. I've seen you sitting alone every week, just like me. Nobody talks to you because they're afraid of what's different from them. This crazy thought came to my head that you could use a friend. I know I do."
Some part of me felt awkward about her empathy. Some part of me felt I didn't deserve it. Cognitive dissonance took over. "I want to say I understand what you feel, but I don't think I can say this from my position of white privilege." She looked surprised. "I still think that, on some level, we share similar feelings. Your whiteness doesn't make your pain less valid."
On and on we talked, about nothing and everything. About trivial things and about important issues. About sadness and about joy. About how difficult it is to engage in class material when there is so much else going on in your life. About feeling invisible, yet hypervisible.
"At what time were we supposed to get back to class?". I looked at my watch. "...An hour ago."
Time had flown by, and neither of us felt sorry for missing class. We were glad, in fact. And we kept talking.
And even though we never went back to class, I feel like I've learned more in these few hours we spent together than I did in this whole semester. It had been a while since I talked so honestly with someone I knew so little beforehand, and that honesty reflected back to me.
Maybe this is what friendship looks like.
This is beautiful, Lea. What you say, about where learning happens is so important. It happens between, in the interstices, across. A class should not be "the" place but, in the best case scenario, the interlude where a certain kind of gathering (of thoughts, of intensities, of curiosities) can take place. If that quality can be crafted (and it must be crafted collectively, I think, rather than imposed), perhaps it can create a sense of being heard, and with that, the edges of a certain kind of love. I hear that deeply in the work we've been reading - a call toward love that is both impersonal and yet deeply transformative as it connects to the surfaces and edges and textures of experience. These edgings into form are perhaps a better way to describe the "I" we are always becoming. But it remains difficult, in this world, at this time, to be known for our becomings and not simply for the beings others impose on us. Friendship may be one way we talk about being seen, or heard, in our becoming.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing Léa. These types of encounters are so special.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for sharing Léa, this is so touching. I remember you (and Kanisha) from our class with Richard Kerr last year, and I don't think we ever talked (I don't think I ever talked much in that class at all... or in any class for that matter), so I never told you this but I really really liked the two films you made for that class, especially the first one, with the lovers in the moving car - it was really inspiring to me. I come from a past of extreme social anxiety, phobia and derealization - which I am finally slowly growing out of ( ! ), so through my own experience, I really hear you. I find it so beautiful that this class allows all this common(ing) and becoming. Thank you Erin (and everyone!) for allowing this space to be collectively created. I hear it in (and between) the texts too. That is beautifully worded: "These edgings into form are perhaps a better way to describe the "I" we are always becoming." ) )) ))) this vision really resonates with me and I really believe that it calls for love... I was thinking about that last week, as I realized I felt a similar feeling as the excitement of falling in love when reading some of the texts and especially in class. The potential of new connections is so thrilling. Learning as touch.
ReplyDeletethank you..
ReplyDeleteThank you for this Léa. This is really beautiful. Thank you for sharing.
ReplyDelete