Heaving a rock against the frozen water as the sun sets against our backs, we wipe dirty hands on our Levi's and return to the car. Fewer and fewer people jog past us, less and less walk their dog around us. The last light of the evening disappears, as if the sun were attached to a dimmer switch and Father Time just turned the knob completely. One of the first warm breezes of the year blows into my face, carrying with it the smells of barbecue, and I am reminded that this carefree February afternoon began during lunch.
Although the semester is more than halfway over, I still suffer separation anxiety from my meal plan. I can cook Ramen a dozen different ways, but none of my creations compare to the magic of swiping a plastic card and getting whatever kind of food I want, without using the microwave. As an off-campus student, I heed every opportunity of visiting the holy lands: Woodworth, Noyer, the Atrium, even LaFollette. So today, when a friend asked if I wanted to get lunch, I wasted no time with an insincere (but polite) declination.
Over a plate of legendary Woodworth mashed potatoes, my two friends and I talked about how unusually warm it was outside, considering it was the middle of February, and also considering, more importantly, that we live in unpredictable Muncie, a forecaster's hell. After agreeing we'd rather be outdoors, the conversation inevitably led to a recitation of how higher education is no longer a choice, but a requirement. To maintain our self-preservation and sharpen our creative and intellectual instincts, we must fight "The Man." That was a legitimate enough reason for me to skip class, but we also decided to flip a coin, to be on the safe side. Heads, we go to class; tails, we go to the park. We had to do a "best three-out-of-five" scenario because it was heads the first two times, which seemed ambiguous to us.
At the park, we instantly regressed to second grade mentalities - entertaining ourselves by lobbing rocks at overhanging icicles and feeling accomplished as they would tumble down, like water should. My friends and I tentatively stood on the frozen water, applying as much pressure as was necessary to crack the ice, leading to an ultimatum: jump back or plunge inward. Along the riverbank, I found a rusted chain and lock, enough pottery to serve a small dinner and a six-pack of broken Bud Light bottles. Sometimes one man's trash is just another man's trash, too.
For the afternoon, time was escapable, and we avoided the plaguing responsibilities of the Working Class Hero. Under a bridge, admiring artistic vandalism, feeling classless and free, we stood. The afternoon felt like a statement, a reprieve from what is important - or what is advertised to us as such. Our return to nature, if only for a day, led to an appreciation of the world that would have made Walt Whitman proud.
We know that we're alive not by the rhythmic rise and fall of our chest, but by our ability to recognize and appreciate a moment while it is happening. Unfortunately, it is too easy to become congested with past and future moments, hours we cannot change or affect; this invariably leads to a person becoming unfocused and predictable. Maintain a sense of spontaneity. Stopping to smell the flowers is for the unimaginative; roll around in a field of them until you're too tangled to get up.
During the latter part of my freshman year, I heard a speaker advocate canceling something each week, whether it was an appointment, a meeting or the infamous, inescapable "prior engagement." Take a sick day. Take a personal day. Whatever kind of day you have to label it, take it, and belong to the rush of the afternoon. Especially now that the weather is steadily enjoyable, take a walk or a run or a ride. I encourage anyone who is academically able to do so: skip a (or all) class this Thursday (or any other day) and get some Incredible Yogurt or take a nap in the Quad or feed the ducks behind Carmichael Hall. Do something because you want to. Because it feels good.
A gray-haired poet I never had the pleasure of meeting once said, "Yawp!" And that was all he said, because it was the loudest, strongest statement he could think to make. If any word can better express the inherent individuality of the human soul, such a word is not in my vocabulary. That afternoon by White River, my yawp was the sound of rocks penetrating a sheet of ice, of violated ducks escaping into the sky and of the grass yielding beneath my bare feet. Let the roofs of the world know your call.
JD Mitchell is a sophomore majoring in creative writing and writes 'Boozers and Losers' for the Daily News. His views do not necessarily agree with those of the newspaper.
Write to JD at jdmitchell@bsu.edu
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