The Higher The Fewer
It wasn’t until I was considerably older that I learned to appreciate having a window seat in a plane. And looking out the windows of my car at the flat Ohio landscape, to start my first year of college, I realized that nothing would ever again be as it was. I was moving away from my friends, I would never get to see them in the same way again… and even if I had returned, it would be different. Thinking of all the changes to come, I couldn’t help but be reminded of my first plane flight to Honduras. It was the summer of 2009 and I was short. I couldn’t really see the ground through the window, but if I stretched hard enough, I could just about see the mountains. Looking at these mountains, I was entranced by their size and beauty, but I was soon struck by this terrible feeling in my soul: a keening, mourning ache for all the familiar things-friends, landscapes, even food-I was about to lose. Now, driving through Ohio, I remembered that deep ache and thought of something I had realized years before: life is continuous change, no day is the same as the one before, and some changes are irreversible. This first year of college would permanently change my life.
My first year of college began pretty well, but, at the start, I was really worried about making friends. I tried to follow some of my brother’s advice and keep my door open so that someone might want to speak with me. It didn’t work at first and I was just about to give up hope when my neighbor from across the hall, Tristan, knocked on the door and asked if I’d like to join him and someone else in playing Beat Saber, a VR rhythm game. I said yes, because this was exactly what I had been hoping for, so I went to his room and there was one other person, his name was Carl and he brought the VR headset. We started playing some Beat Saber and it was a blast! We talked a lot, and at some point we started jumping and singing along to Bohemian Rhapsody at the top of our lungs. It was at that moment I was reminded of another thing from Honduras. It was around the first few months of being there and I had some friends, but friends in the way that children see pretty much everyone their age as a friend. I was walking around school at a fair late one night when my friend Luis invited me over to his house. I asked my mother and she said that I could go. Fast forward a few days, and my mom dropped me off at his house, I was pretty scared, wondering “Will he like me? What if I don’t like their food? Their house doesn’t look particularly clean, what if it’s gross?” but my mom and I rang the doorbell and I was let inside. Luis very quickly took me to his room where he had a TV. The night started off a little bit weak, but Luis eventually asked me if I wanted to play Wii Sports Resort. I was all over that: the game hadn’t yet come out, but supposedly his dad got it from work. We had a bunch of fun playing the game until it was time to leave. It might seem like after this we became fast friends, but that wasn’t the case. I realized that Luis just wouldn’t be a good friend for me. Looking back on the similarities between these two scenarios I’m struck by how different they turned out. Carl and Tristan were some of my best friends while they were here, but Luis became more of an acquaintance.
Going to college, I had a list of expectations for what it would be like, and what the people there would be like. I first met my roommate on move-in day; he was with his whole family and wore a tank top. He had blonde hair and a sporty build, when I saw him like that I thought to myself, “Oh no, he’s some kind of frat boy jock.” Our parents eventually left, and we started talking to each other. I learned that he liked playing video games, only played ultimate frisbee and was a kind and respectful person. He was still a frat boy jock (which we joke about nowadays) but he was nice. That was the part I was most scared of, that he wouldn’t be nice. Moving to Honduras, I also had some preconceptions about what it would be like. I was scared that I would not have internet access or electricity, that we would live in mud huts in the middle of nowhere. When we arrived though, I saw a bustling urban sprawl with internet and electricity. Meeting my roommate and getting to know him reminded me of what I had learned in Honduras so many years ago, that a single story is rarely able to show the totality of a place or people. It made me more aware of the effect stereotypes can have on you, and also of when I am using a single story to inform myself of something new. Going to a new place and meeting new people can be a daunting task, especially when you have a certain perception of where you’re going, but rarely are these perceptions correct or showing the whole picture.
Within the first few weeks of being in Honduras, my mother told me that the local word for ice cream was “eeckycrema” and I believed her, just like when she told me that Pepsi was made from sticks and mud. I thought that was so funny, that ice cream, something sweet and yummy, would be called “icky cream.” I later realized that my mom was wrong and that the word was helado. In much the same way though, I applied to the college believing the college’s name was pronounced “wOOster” and me and my friends would make fun of it. They’d tease me saying things like “I can’t believe you’re going to a place called ‘The College of WOOster’,” and it wasn’t until I came here that I very quickly learned it was “Wooster.” I had to learn a new language when I moved to Honduras, but it wasn’t like I took a class to get better at Spanish. Instead, I learned through immersion; I watched cartoons in Spanish and even movies. Whenever you move somewhere new you have to learn a new “language”: sometimes it can actually be a full language and other times it’s just how the people there talk and pronounce words. I learned a new language moving to Honduras, but moving to Wooster, I learned what Woo Wednesday was, what the swag wagon is and many other things. Also, moving to Wooster I became more loose with the rules that I have in my speech, and I’m willing to use more raunchy language now.
When I moved to Honduras, I had to get used to having access to a whole other set of food. There was no Subway or Burger King, no Taco Bell or Dr. Pepper, even Coke was different, but there was McDonalds. McDonalds was one of the constants between Honduras and the states for me, it comforted me that at least there was one food place I recognized. When I came to Wooster, the difference in food wasn’t as extreme, but I still had to get used to there not being Dr. Pepper and not being able to eat my dad’s cooking. The biggest transition though to Wooster, was getting used to the food at Lowry. I quickly became sick of it within the first month and was always looking for a way to eat something different. It was easy at the time to find something different to eat, because we still had Mom’s and Pop’s, and Lowry itself had more variety, but still. People talk about the “Freshman 15” where they gain 15 pounds because the access to food is higher. I lost 15 pounds though, and knew that I had to find some way to eat food here. I realized that Mom’s would be my McDonalds, a place where I could eat food that was similar to what I had at home. Also, the lack of varied food eventually forced me to try things that I normally wouldn’t. Specifically, I realized that I could tolerate red bell peppers in my food, and my tastes changed.
In my journey through life, I have changed in many ways ranging from small changes, like enjoying red bell peppers, to large changes, like becoming fluent in a different language. Even now, the place I’m from and the place I’m in influence how I behave and how I see the world. The most frustrating and most beautiful part about time is that you can’t go back. Those afternoons that I had with Carl and Tristan are forever gone, and the only things left are my memories and my love of Beat Saber. While I can’t go back to freshman year, or back to second grade, I carry these places and times with me, in the scars and calluses I was given.