POST-SCRIPT: Ways of being

While at Elsewhere, residents, interns, etc are encouraged to privatize a desk, as well as find other ways to make the very dynamic and collective treasure trove that is Elsewhere their own. Many people do this by wearing clothes from Elsewhere during their stay. This is one way, among many others, we become Elsewherians.

I, however, have a bad relationship with musty clothes, and did not partake in this activity.

I did however read a great deal.

For me this was possibly more intense than simply dwelling in the garments of Elsewhere. I am a reader, and always have been. I will read anything. I consume words like people consume TV. While reading a book, the language and story haunts my brain, even while the book is put away for the day.

It is like seeing the world through a haze, everything is colored by what I am reading.

First I read Ru Paul's Autobiography, which was actually Bing's and not Elsewhere's, but was gifted to me by Carolyn on my first day. Bing eventually came and took it back, but you can imagine that while I had it, my world was brightly colored indeed.

Next I read Peter Pan, which I found on my desk one day shortly after I blogged about thinking that Elsewhere might be like Neverland. In that same blog post I also wrote about Elsewhere perhaps being like Lord of the Flies (in general I think I was feeling the social anarchy of the place) and around the time I was still reading Peter Pan, I found Lord of the Flies in the library (it was actually part of Cameron and Erin's small wall of books that they had built in front of the book shelf for the night of their artist conversation (really Pritika's) and figured that they wouldn't miss one book (though maybe, looking back, it had special significance being where it was and I am in fact a terrible desecrater of art!).

Later, while helping Pritika put the library together, I came across Bridge to Terebithia, which for nostalgic reasons, as well as the idea of staying with kid's books, I put aside to read later. Unfort, putting something aside in Elsewhere can be a dangerous thing, since "aside" can quickly be appropriated as a beach or wall or anything really. And so, I let it go. But then the day I finished Lord of the Flies, I decided to poke around and see if I could find BtT or at least another book, and very quickly re-found it, and at the same time found a collection of Dashiell Hammet's novels, which became next in line for my consumption. My children's book theme still felt intact since Hammet was writing in a very particular era of American history, that to me, speaks intensely of boyhood, which I also realized was a strong theme in all I had read at Elsewhere.

And so, if you can, imagine the eyes that I was looking through at Elsewhere: Ru Paul, Peter Pan/Captain Hook, Ralph (another boy leader of boys), Jess (a boy learning to open his eyes), and finally the hard-boiled detectives of Hammet.