The train that I took to and from school everyday passed by UC Berkeley, and every time the train stopped at the station, unloading all the students with their backpacks stretched to it's limit with books, concerned looks about being late for class, or holding up some piece of paper trying to cram in some last minute study before class, I would feel embarrassed. Chinese shame. That was the school I was supposed to, that was my school not some community college in San Francisco 50 miles away.
I on the other hand had no books, just a water bottle for basketball, basketball shorts under my jeans, and I also had my basketball; walkman blasting the the latest collabo between two deceased rappers, with bags under my eyes because I stayed up to watch Conan and Fox and Friends (what was I thinking) to get a glimpse of Lauren Green, despite the 8:00 am class I would have to attend.
One day while riding the train coming home a girl sits in front of me, and she's reading the same exact book I'm reading, Krishnamurti's The First and Last Freedom. What are the odds, that never happens. So, I casually get out of my seat and sit next to her, and I wait. You always check out who sits next to you. She sees the book and says, "Are you taking Eastern Philosophy with Professor Green." I replied, "Can you repeat that?" I got confused because at community college we call our professors teachers. I was like whoa, calm down on the lingo. I was like, "no, I'm reading this outside of my studies (basketball)." It was the epic semester known as "Recess," 15 units of PE classes. She repeated the question and I answered yes. It wasn't hard making up conversation about an unknown professor. A teacher is either hard or easy, a douche or a nice person, never a hard task master, punishingly difficult, not from reasons of malice, but because they care, only teachers say that about themselves.
For the next fifteen minutes, I was like, "Yeah," "Uh-huh," "I know," and the ocassional, "I'm actually quite fond of black people, I can't agree with you there (shout out to Kobe if you're reading this)." I felt I was losing her because we couldn't agree on whether America was ready for a black president. So I ask her what chapter she was on. She told me she was on chapter 21 : ON SEX. I'm on the same chapter too, I replied. I say, "Krishnamurti is pretty revolutionary, I mean, when the guy questions him about the chaos, and the problem sex causes, Krishnamurti, replies must all things be problems, why is sex a problem? Why do we make everything into a problem? She was like,
"Totally, I mean we have these rules about protected sex, we don't have rules about protective eating, I mean what fun activity do you see people using protection (seat belts race car drivers), doesn't safety exclude fun automatically (parachutes sky divers) , right (football helmets)?" He's also right on the concept that we build up sex, in magazines, in movies, in STD scare tactics, the way women dress...into something unmanageable. There's no separation between sex and our daily lives it's just that in sex we lose the "me" and we open up our mouth and legs up, to the world, you know? Why do we feel so driven toward sex? Why does it feel so good? Even if you never orgasm in the process of doing it, you lose yourself, like in writing, painting, our some other creative activity."
I know.
As the backpack wearers, and CAL stamped bodies stood up to prepare themselves for their stop, I knew her stop was approaching.
She says, I'll right my number on mine and you on yours, and we should switch books, as a symbolic gesture."
Hippies.
We exchange copies, and say "bye." We look at each other as she goes up the escalator, and I see her smile when she looks at my book... until she looks at the side of it, which had a huge: CITY COLLEGE OF SAN FRANCISCO stamp on it, and from what I remember highlighting and notes with crayon on the inside, it could have been with a colored pencil, but who can tell the difference.
I would never see her again.
