Moscow: I've been mentioning more and more the past few days. I think that has to do with my situation, which isn't great. I'm clinging on to memories of when I felt like a contender, like I could be somebody.
Lately, I've been feeling rather like a nobody.
But, oddly, I've been removing my Harvard pin. Back in Russia, we would give the "babushkas" - which loosely translates to "grandmothers" - small gifts from Harvard. The babushkas sat in a little office with a window into the hall of the dormitory where we live, and had a closed-circuit security camera and buzzer that they used to admit us in that hall of the dormitory when we came home after hours. The Harvard swag served as a bribe: if we gave, they didn't report.
With this knowledge in mind, my Chicagoan psyche purchased about $100 worth of Harvard key chains, stickers, lapel pins and bookmarks. Trinkets, which I used as currency while I lived in the dormitory. A lot of trinkets; so many trinkets that I had a few left over. One of which I pinned to a vest that I continue to wear.
It's a cheap vest, one I bought at the Herald Square Daffy's in NYC, and one that still gets compliments and that I love to wear. Since Moscow, I've kept that Harvard pin on the vest's collar - a reminder of my adventures. A piece of my history.
But I've taken the pin off. The past few job interviews where I've worn the vest, the pin seems garish - an overt broadcast of pedigree. The past few times I've gone out in the vest I've taken off the pin, because it seems ... like I've outgrown it?
With all my feelings of listlessness, the pin is a kind of painful reminder. What used to be a totem of achievement is now a burden of history. Stupidly, I've wrestled with this: "before the pin was fine; what's changed to make it not fine?"
I guess, I have?
Nothing major, but today I took the pin off once and for all. (or, at least, for now). I don't want it hanging around my neck, fastened to my collar, broadcasting where I went anymore. I think, in part, this is because I've achieved a bit for myself -- so who I am isn't so intimately tied to where I've been.
But the collar is odd without that crest on it. I've put a big USA pin on it ... because I want to fill that gaping space -- and I feel I should embrace a patriotism right now, at a time when the USA seems to be coming apart. My liberal, queer heart beats American blood -- and, at least, for now, I want to own that association.
Lately, I've been feeling rather like a nobody.
But, oddly, I've been removing my Harvard pin. Back in Russia, we would give the "babushkas" - which loosely translates to "grandmothers" - small gifts from Harvard. The babushkas sat in a little office with a window into the hall of the dormitory where we live, and had a closed-circuit security camera and buzzer that they used to admit us in that hall of the dormitory when we came home after hours. The Harvard swag served as a bribe: if we gave, they didn't report.
With this knowledge in mind, my Chicagoan psyche purchased about $100 worth of Harvard key chains, stickers, lapel pins and bookmarks. Trinkets, which I used as currency while I lived in the dormitory. A lot of trinkets; so many trinkets that I had a few left over. One of which I pinned to a vest that I continue to wear.
It's a cheap vest, one I bought at the Herald Square Daffy's in NYC, and one that still gets compliments and that I love to wear. Since Moscow, I've kept that Harvard pin on the vest's collar - a reminder of my adventures. A piece of my history.
But I've taken the pin off. The past few job interviews where I've worn the vest, the pin seems garish - an overt broadcast of pedigree. The past few times I've gone out in the vest I've taken off the pin, because it seems ... like I've outgrown it?
With all my feelings of listlessness, the pin is a kind of painful reminder. What used to be a totem of achievement is now a burden of history. Stupidly, I've wrestled with this: "before the pin was fine; what's changed to make it not fine?"
I guess, I have?
Nothing major, but today I took the pin off once and for all. (or, at least, for now). I don't want it hanging around my neck, fastened to my collar, broadcasting where I went anymore. I think, in part, this is because I've achieved a bit for myself -- so who I am isn't so intimately tied to where I've been.
But the collar is odd without that crest on it. I've put a big USA pin on it ... because I want to fill that gaping space -- and I feel I should embrace a patriotism right now, at a time when the USA seems to be coming apart. My liberal, queer heart beats American blood -- and, at least, for now, I want to own that association.
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