Chasing the...

I went to the beach today. Well, it's on the lake, not the ocean. And the sand is brought in from somewhere. And it's about ten feet from a major highway into downtown. But it's almost a beach.

It was warm, certainly, and the beach was not vacant. But the water was frigid, and also I suppose it was the Lord's Day, so it wasn't crowded. Everyone had set up as close to the water as possible - where the sand was smoothest - and on average there were about two rows of blankets across the beach.

I was with Laura and Emily, who were excited to finally be donning their swimsuits, even if they never really went in the water. (Ok, Laura went in once to dunk her head under. And then again when I accidentally let all of her papers blow into the ocea...er...lake and she ran into the water to grab the wet sheets which reminded me of the letter that Daisy has on her wedding day in the Great Gatsby, the one she gets from Gatsby and she gets drunk because of it and Jordan puts her in the bath to sober her up and Daisy won't let go of the letter and so it gets wet and, in Fitzgerald's image, begins to fall apart "like soap". But certainly there were no laps or anything.)

In front of us, on the water's edge, there were dozens of kids, young to old, building things and otherwise amusing themselves. Above them floated parents stooped over like octogenarians, tending to the children's needs.

To the left there was a group of U of C students - one of them was wearing a shirt with the U of C logo on it, but I didn't need that to tell that they were U of C kids - maybe 20 in all. I figured they must be there as a dorm trip or something. It was mixed gender, which ruled out frats, and the only context in which 20 people do something all at once seems to be a house trip. They seemed like first years, and I was suddenly nostalgic.

I had loved my dorm so much my first year. Everyone was too new to really have drama, and so it was just a bunch of people who still thought the U of C was easy as pie - not easy per se, but not difficult, not difficult socially and academically and psychologically. Somehow it seemed we had so much time. Where, I wonder, did that time go? I have three classes now, only two days a week. I have a fair amount of work, evenly spread out but not insignificant, but I simply can't seem to catch up, catch up to my work, or chores, or whatever it is I'm running after.