After the Fact
03/11/13 07:17
I had the best of intentions to keep up my journal while visiting Evan at Pace this past weekend. You know how that goes. It just seemed that I never had the right opportunity to sit down when I needed to sit down and put it all on paper. Maybe it's better looking in the rear view mirror. Time can be a very efficient and useful filter. You can parse out the bad things and tease out the good things. Not sure that is necessary here since , in the words of today's youth, it was all good. Evan was primed and pumped to get away fro the weekend and we were excited to spend some time with him so everyone got what they wanted out of the deal. The trip to NYC on Saturday was a bonus and helped keep us all focused. Ev was the last to get out of bed and the last to have any breakfast but otherwise okay with the trip to the city. He wanted nothing to do with the school and all the fanfare associated with Homecoming weekend. As it was, when we arrived there late Friday afternoon the first thing we noticed was how empty the parking lots were and how few people were milling around given the festivities planned. We also noticed that our concerns about his weight and the length of his hair were a figment of our imagination and nothing more. His hair was a little unruly and his weight solidly in check. Again, all good. We had hugs all around and it was good to see him after not seeing him for the better part of 2 months.
He was the same old Ev. That's about all you can ask for. We had a nice dinner in town at a nice little Italian restaurant. The food was good but the company was better. We got caught up in a hurry and it was nice hearing what he had to say about the school, his friends, his activities, and his concerns. In a nutshell, I guess I would say that everything was going pretty well. More important than his grades perhaps is just how he is adjusting to the campus and the social life that it has to offer. He admitted quite freely that he was not as connected as he might like to be but was working on all of that. All of his observations were, well, the kind of observations that you would expect him to make. He is a relentless observer and has always been a relentless observer. From his early days at Montessori to the present he is the kind of guy who never jumps in with both feet but stands back and assesses, and assess, and assesses before proceeding. As it relates to the social scene in which he finds himself, he knows where he wants to end up but is not quite there yet. More importantly, he is patient and knows that he will arrive with bells on when the time comes. That's ok. We can live with that. Better not to be too impulsive anyway.
We took him for a haircut on Saturday morning before going into the city. Looking for a place to have his hair cut was a bit of a hairdo in and of itself. There are salons, barbers, and not much in between. We would have given a king's ransom for a Supercuts but we found everything but a Supercuts. When we finally found a place that he was willing to go into, we stood out in the parking lot on a day that was pristine in every way and waited while he got his hair cut. We couldn't see into the shop but counted down the minutes and believed that the longer he was in the shop the better things were probably going. He emerged with a big smile on his face and we watching him walk down the walkway while catching a reflection of his new haircut in the store windows. It looked nice. It really did. It was not appreciably shorter but it was cut, styled, and pimped so he was good. And then he processed to wear that stupid fucking hoody when we got into the city. He blended in with all the other homeboys walking 42nd street and I was a little worried that we night see a turf war break out before our eyes so we kept our distance. Not sure what he was hiding from or otherwise trying to project but it was troubling in a weird sort of way. Maybe it was his way of taking it all in without being obvious about it. We let it be as we always do and went about our business. We took in the Museum of Modern Art where we had a little lunch (Ev had nothing because he was worried about the peanut thing) and proceeded to walk down to Central Park along 42nd street. Our last stop for the day, if you put aside the Apple store in Grand Central Station, was Chipolte where Ev grabbed a burrito. It was a really very nice and memorable trip into the city. I suspect we'll be heading down there again when we get down to Pace to see Ev.
On Sunday, we all carried groceries up to Ev's room and had him give us a little tour of the campus before we hit the road to go back to NH. It was a splendid visit to be sure and I think it did a lot for his frame of mind. If nothing else, he has some pretty good things to eat in his room and he won't have to worry about going out for food if he is not otherwise in the mood.
He was the same old Ev. That's about all you can ask for. We had a nice dinner in town at a nice little Italian restaurant. The food was good but the company was better. We got caught up in a hurry and it was nice hearing what he had to say about the school, his friends, his activities, and his concerns. In a nutshell, I guess I would say that everything was going pretty well. More important than his grades perhaps is just how he is adjusting to the campus and the social life that it has to offer. He admitted quite freely that he was not as connected as he might like to be but was working on all of that. All of his observations were, well, the kind of observations that you would expect him to make. He is a relentless observer and has always been a relentless observer. From his early days at Montessori to the present he is the kind of guy who never jumps in with both feet but stands back and assesses, and assess, and assesses before proceeding. As it relates to the social scene in which he finds himself, he knows where he wants to end up but is not quite there yet. More importantly, he is patient and knows that he will arrive with bells on when the time comes. That's ok. We can live with that. Better not to be too impulsive anyway.
We took him for a haircut on Saturday morning before going into the city. Looking for a place to have his hair cut was a bit of a hairdo in and of itself. There are salons, barbers, and not much in between. We would have given a king's ransom for a Supercuts but we found everything but a Supercuts. When we finally found a place that he was willing to go into, we stood out in the parking lot on a day that was pristine in every way and waited while he got his hair cut. We couldn't see into the shop but counted down the minutes and believed that the longer he was in the shop the better things were probably going. He emerged with a big smile on his face and we watching him walk down the walkway while catching a reflection of his new haircut in the store windows. It looked nice. It really did. It was not appreciably shorter but it was cut, styled, and pimped so he was good. And then he processed to wear that stupid fucking hoody when we got into the city. He blended in with all the other homeboys walking 42nd street and I was a little worried that we night see a turf war break out before our eyes so we kept our distance. Not sure what he was hiding from or otherwise trying to project but it was troubling in a weird sort of way. Maybe it was his way of taking it all in without being obvious about it. We let it be as we always do and went about our business. We took in the Museum of Modern Art where we had a little lunch (Ev had nothing because he was worried about the peanut thing) and proceeded to walk down to Central Park along 42nd street. Our last stop for the day, if you put aside the Apple store in Grand Central Station, was Chipolte where Ev grabbed a burrito. It was a really very nice and memorable trip into the city. I suspect we'll be heading down there again when we get down to Pace to see Ev.
On Sunday, we all carried groceries up to Ev's room and had him give us a little tour of the campus before we hit the road to go back to NH. It was a splendid visit to be sure and I think it did a lot for his frame of mind. If nothing else, he has some pretty good things to eat in his room and he won't have to worry about going out for food if he is not otherwise in the mood.