To School and Back Again

Had to wait for a scintillating scotoma to pass before I could write today’s blog. It was right in the middle of my vision, so it was very difficult to look up how to spell it. I’m now onto the “migraine” part of the ocular migraine.

The rest of today wasn’t nearly as painful! It was downright pleasant. My girlfriend Dot and I continue our quest to leave the house more often and today’s journey took us to Pegasus Books to drop off copies of my newspaper to sell (more on that later this week), and then to UC Berkeley. It turns out if you look enough like a student and are on your best behavior, you can go into the libraries and work and read and such. You can’t check any books out of course but according to Dot, it’s nicer than the public library branch near Pegasus.

The whole campus is nice. I got a bit melancholy as we walked around though. I dropped out of college half a semester into my tenure at MCLA 10 years ago during my first official nervous breakdown while living on my own. I wasn’t as good at handling them back then. Since then, I’ve alternated between regretting going at all and wishing I could’ve stayed & graduated. Either way, I probably wouldn’t have met Dot, since dropping out when I did led her right into my life via a complicated series of events. Being back on a school campus for the first time since brought back a lot of the bittersweetness of that chapter of my life.

The next few hours I spent working on my short film and becoming less bitter and more sweet—I think I want to go back to school. I felt warm and relaxed in the reading room in a way I haven’t in a very long time. I got close to the feeling when I would spend entire days at the Harold Washington library in when I lived in Chicago. I thought I just really liked libraries. I do, but today I realized the other part of that feeling is being on a campus among students. I miss having purpose and structure and clear goals. Going back to school just isn’t in the cards right now… I hope to find something else that delivers the same feeling in the meantime (do not say “a job”, it’s not the same and you can’t make me).

Nicky Flowers - 11/13/24 - (send any comments/questions to hello at nickyflowers dot com)