This is kind of silly, but do you ever think of the chances of something happening? Like, you coming across this blog post. Even if you are from my school, or in my journalism class, think about how rare that is. In this entire world of eight billion people, here I am, writing about something insignificant, and you are reading it. I think about this with friendships, too. For example, my roommate is from Japan, and I was born in America. The chances of us ever meeting were slim. What if she never went to school in America? What if I had stayed at a day school in Los Angeles? There are so many little daily decisions that you make, even subconsciously, that technically change the entire trajectory of your life. It’s weird to think about.
Clara and I met on orientation day of our junior year – she, a tanned exchange student from Brazil, and I, a nervous transfer from a school thirty minutes away. We sat next to one another in the media lab, logging into our school emails, and began to chat. “When’s your birthday?” she asked randomly, in an attempt at small talk. I told her “today.” She looked at me incredulously, decided I was joking, realized I was not, and then burst into wonderful, elated laughter. It was at this moment that I knew we were going to be friends.
Over the school year, we started to spend classes, breaks, weekends and even an entire break together. Clara saw me at my best and at my worst and loved me through it all. She was my number one cheerleader, especially when I ran for school president.
But it’s not just me and her other friends that Clara extends her love to. It’s to the unlikely people, the not reciprocating people, and the probably undeserving people that she does also. She wrote the boy that bullied her a heartfelt letter at the end of term, for example.
Clara’s love knows no bounds because she sees the beauty in everyone and everything, and it’s this that makes her so beautiful herself.
My mom has always said I have the most amazing talent for choosing friends. And I might have to agree. Because my friend Clara has got to be one of the most incredible people I have ever had the privilege of knowing.
PC: Me
Clara does everything to the extreme. When happy, embarking on a hike in the Santa Barbara wilderness, she grins and belts out songs off-key. When sad, saying goodbye to her roommate, she sobs as if they will never see each other again. When anxious, writing English paper at two AM, she twists her hair into knots over and over and over again. When excited, telling a story to friends at lunch, her voice climbs and she leaps up from her chair. When afraid, having spotted a spider inside the tent, she screams like nobody’s business. And when she loves, she loves endlessly.
At that time, the earth’s surface is not suitable for living anymore, so people built new cities on top of old cities and they kept stacking higher and higher. Two girls left their family and started a journey on their German half-track motorcycle, with the goal of survival and trying to reach “the top”. But they travel up to higher levels, they only found war machines and other leftovers of human activities.
Even though their findings were depressing, they did not hold the girls back. They kept looking for resources and moving forward. They even gave up their most valuable things such as the dairy and books to keep themselves alive. The girls’ desire for survival in a world full of despair is admirable.
Lastly, this is a poem by Hermann Hesse that was cited in this manga.
Out Wandering
Don’t be sad, soon comes the night, When we watch over the faint countryside, As the cool moon secretly laughs And we rest hand in hand.
Don’t be sad, soon comes the time, When we rest. Our small crosses will stand On the bright roadside together, And it rains and snows, And the winds come and go.
Auf Wanderung
Sei nicht traurig, bald ist es Nacht, Da sehn wir über dem bleichen Land Den kühlen Mond, wie er heimlich lacht, Und ruhen Hand in Hand.
Sei night trauig, bald kommt die Zeit, Da haben wir Ruh. Unsre Kreuzlein stehen Am hellen Strassenrande zu zweit, Und es regnet un schneit, Und die Winde kommen und gehen.
At one point or another in your life you are told “if you love something let it go, and if it was meant to be it will come back to you.” It is a statement told to help someone usually adjust to the loss of something loved that is beyond your control. In theory it all makes sense, but you never want to have to tell yourself to abide by that concept.
I never really understood the meaning of that until I found myself fighting to keep someone in my life. Every day I would struggle to watch them drift away. I would think, how could someone that I love so dearly, and who claims to love me equally, simply fade away. I decided to simply let them go, because in reality, or as the saying goes, “if it was meant to be it will come back to you.” So that is simply what I decided to do.
At first, hours passed, the days, then weeks. The pain was real and it felt all so very fresh. like a deep wound that took ages to heal. Then eventually months began to pass, and I felt whole again, even without my dearly loved person. I accepted their leaving, I never understood it, but I accepted it and I considered that good enough.
I felt whole again, even though I was missing a piece. But after the hours, days, weeks, and months had passed a wave of emotions came back into my mind. I felt the need to reach out, to check-in, just to see how they were. But I had to remember that I let them go so I simply put it in the back of my mind.
That was until I received a message. The person who I loved so dearly came back. Did that happen because I simply let them go, or was it because it was indeed meant to be?
So maybe the age old saying isn’t wrong? Maybe if you really do love something and you let it go, it will eventually come back to you?
Friendship is the feeling between two or more people who care about each other. There are many types of friends, like mutual friends, people you know through other friends, casual people that you hang out with now and again, and best friends: the people you would do anything for.
Some friendships are not physical ones, for instance, an ibf (internet best friend). These are friends that you met online that you have an instant connection with. You call them and talk about all your problems, but they are not there in person. Sometimes these are the best kinds of friends.
Most times best friends think each other are jerks to begin with. They think poorly of each other, but that soon changes. They start hanging out with each other more and become best friends. They laugh with you and make fun of you in a loving way.
Overall, friends are the best and you should keep them around.
Although the air is frigged on this winter night, we drive around blasting music with the windows down.
Why one may ask?
Because sometimes there’s no purer form of joy than singing your favorite songs with two of your favorite people.
In that moment, all your fears and worries fly out the open window and you are living in the moment, watching two people sing and smile with every word that leaves their mouth.
This is one of the moments that you would replay over and over again when you rest your head on the pillow for nights to come.
I would not trade the little moments like this for anything.
So the simple answer to why we drive around with the windows down on a frigged winter night is simply for the joy of it, because in the end, you only have once chance to make memories like this with the ones you love.
I woke up late this morning, and everything just seems a little bit weird to me.
I was eating my cereals with black grapes in it, and somebody knocked on the door.
I reluctantly put down my cereal bowl and got up to answer the door. It was two package delivery guys with two gigantic TREES.
Right, trees, taller than me, I saw two actual trees outside of my door. I even wonder how they fit them into the elevator.
PC: adsttc.com
They checked the address with me, and that was correct indeed.
I thought this is a prank from my silly friends or something. So I asked them who ordered these trees, and they told me that they didn’t know, they just knew they need to deliver them to here.
I called my mom, and she said just put them on the balcony.
Am I still dreaming?
Anyway, I couldn’t just let two delivery guys wait too long. So I told them to put the trees where my mom told me. And then they left.
So… now I’m sitting outside with these trees, and writing down what just happened here.
the pool, hot on a september slab of concrete. a speaker singing a distinctly weekend song, listing back towards the heat of summer struggling against the onset of school. but we just repeatedly submerged ourselves and lie on hot things in the sun roasting to save a bit of heat, sort of fattening up for the winter. Peter was ripped of course, how could he not have a six pack at 16, he’s just that kinda guy. strong silent type, super cool, badass; also relentlessly nerdy, shy as can be, and definitely one of the guys you have to know well to know at all. he’s perched like a lizard on the high dive rolling over to toast each side, occasionally and jarringly rolling off the diving board upsetting the water 10 feet below and the less fit, less shy, me on the low dive (because heights aren’t my thing.)
you feel like the sun is shining through you when you lay on a black diving board like that, the surface burns your skin and the sun does its worst on the other side, you lie there. the closest we will ever feel to a cold blooded animal, or a zucchini in the midst of the broiling of a lifetime. we just lie there thinking that maybe if we didn’t move time might pass us by and leave us happily stranded in constant farewell to the pregnant bliss of the weekend. and teal, blues in abundance like a brochure to mykonos, both the sky and the water both are cloudless and still moving.
in those peaceful hours i saw fleetingly like a stag in your peripheral, the adolescence people tell you to hold onto. we did. we savored it. an experience we never talked about partly because it might seem gay and partly because what would we say. in a way it was my connection to the schoolboys i see in black and white, with my white gloves flipping through ancient yearbooks. content to lie on a hot rock by the creek with a friend you have been through hell and back with. i saw a glimpse in that moment, a glimpse of the school we would’ve attended had we been born in 1900.
Peter never chose me. he was content with the friends he had, i wasn’t cool, and i idolized him. terrible way to make a friend. but i just kinda showed up, next door, and i would just come and sit with him, uncomfortable as all hell at first, but within days we became happy to distract one another and would spend study hall sneaking back and forth between our rooms talking about rock climbing season and expensive climbing shoes. like two freshman boys did in a hundred years prior, one running into the others room discussing the intricacies of a new radio. wasting a two hour study period and leaving homework for 5 am the next morning before we went to muck their horses. and tomorrow we’d plan to sleep through study hall as a result of our long day but instead chose to scour ebay for deals on aforementioned climbing shoes.
we weren’t fast friends, but when we needed to study we could sit in silence and study and that was comfortable. also wasting our time nerding out over lame climbing equipment, but both were necessary evils and a part of our lives. for me silence was always the enemy of friendship because good friends always had something to talk or argue about. but Peter liked to listen, to say nothing, to test if it would be awkward, sometimes it was, most of the time it wasn’t. but now when i see him once a month silence is my enemy again. i want him to tell me everything, tell me the gossip, what’s happened since i left, who’s with who, who hates who, funny stories. and Peter just wants to be with his friend and sit and eat obscene quantities of brie and just exist and pretend nothing happened.
OVS Journalism Blog 
You must be logged in to post a comment.