I'm currently on paternity leave, so Friday's posts may not be school teaching focused. So for now we're going back to college for the next two weeks.
“The museum?”
“Yes, the museum. The Art Institute in downtown Chicago. Do you want to go with me?”
“Um. . . well. . . I. . .”
“Okay, great we are going. Let’s meet at the ATM at like, 2ish tomorrow, and we will walk to the EL.”
“The what?”
“Okay see you then. Bye!”
I stood there speechless, not sure what had happened. Did she just ask me out on a date? What had I gotten myself into?
Freshmen year band camp had been a whirlwind. Outgoing upperclassmen took in nervous and overwhelmed freshmen like myself. They would introduce themselves and pull us through the marching band activities acting as both mentors and counselors. These mentors relieved fears and deliberately worked to create a community that would sustain us throughout our years at Northwestern.
These upperclassmen were remarkable young adults, caring, giving, and kind. I’ve written about some of these acts of friendship and inclusion throughout these series of posts. They weren’t the only ones that reached out to me, freshmen also took chances with me. . . freshmen like Debbie.
Debbie was one of the fastest talkers I had ever met in my life. It was like her mouth was trying to keep up with her brain, which moved at an awe-inspiring speed. Debbie was not afraid of direct eye contact AND the fact that her eyes were on the exactly same level as me as we were the same height, added a layer of intensity, passion, and confidence to her words. Imagine Ellie from Up! as a college student (who talks three times as fast).
Debbie was the kind of person who wouldn’t wait for a dance partner. If she wanted to dance, she would dance. If she wanted to talk to you, she wouldn’t wait for you to start the conversation and if she wanted to go to the museum with someone, she would find someone to go with.
We only had a few interactions before Debbie asked me to go to the museum with her. She was in marching band and we were around each other quite a bit, however, I wasn’t really sure if it was a good idea to go to the museum with her. I figured she had made the effort to be friendly, so the least I could do was show up.
Somehow I got the impression from the way that Debbie fearlessly guided me through my first experience on the El train and navigating through that part of Chicago that she was a local. No, she was from Wisconsin. She only had a slight idea more than I did about how to get to the museum. For me, this lack of knowledge caused me to pull inside of myself, for Debbie, it pushed her energy outwards.
We entered the museum, and moved through the admission lines. As we walked into the first exhibit room, I heard silence for the first time in almost an hour. Debbie had stopped talking. We were both in awe of the art surrounding. I looked over at Debbie and saw her gracefully walk in a circle looking up at the paintings. Then she stopped moving, and closed her eyes. She slowly inhaled through her nose and gently blew air through pursed lips. She opened her eyes looked at me, and with a raised eyebrow and giddy smile said “C’mon, let’s go!”
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