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College Comment
Finding My Guitar
December
2002
by Alexandra Galin '06
Alexandra
Galin is a freshman in Saybrook College. This essay is adapted from
one she wrote for the Yale
Daily News.
Before
we arrive, Yale courts us as a suitor courts a lover. "You are remarkable," we are told. "What you can give us no one else can offer. What we can give you in return will change you in
the most profound and wondrous way."
And we all fall for
it.
We arrive brimming
with plans and anticipation, ready to experience things we never even knew existed. We're trying so hard, from day one, to find ourselves.
And it is in this very quest that lies the ultimate deception.
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"It
is only him, his music, and the mauve New Haven sky."
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Freshmen are the lifeblood
of Yale. And it will tell us everything we want to hear so that
we rush, sign up, and audition for everything. But Yale is, in a
word, "hardcore." Unless you're brilliant, the doors of opportunity
are, quite simply, closed.
Yet no one tells you
this. To paraphrase Anthony Hecht, high on the house are nailed
banners that read "no experience necessary" -- but the signs are
deceptive. "Never danced before? No matter! Let's start off with
a few ballet sequences." Or: "Never sung? No problem! Just sight-read
this for me?" What a sham.
So it's 2 o'clock Friday
morning. I've barricaded myself in my room writing a Directed Studies
paper on Plato's theory of forms. I'm tired, so tired. And I'm in
a dark and depressed place. The Freshman Chorus didn't want me.
Neither did Mock Trial. I'm trying in vain to convince myself that
I was overqualified.
Then
suddenly I hear a guitar.
My room has the most
spectacular view of Harkness Tower, and underneath my window is
a patch of grass with a semicircular stone seat. There's no one
around save for a few late-night revelers. The moon is full, the
breeze is cool and soft, the Tower is illuminated. And on that seat
is a guy playing a Latin tune. He's bathed in the most beautiful
golden blue light, and his melody is enchanting.
What strikes me most
is how visibly, how entirely he is his melody. His head bent over,
shoulders heaving, feet moving with the guitar leaning this way
and that. It is only him, his music, and the mauve New Haven sky.
I realized then why
Yale is what it is, why I left everything behind in Australia to
come here: because people love whatever they do with every fiber
in their bodies.
They get involved because
something fills their soul to the brim. It makes them whole in an
inexplicable way. And finding yourself means doing what you love
regardless of whether you're accepted or tapped. If you love to
sing, go out on Old Campus and sing your heart out. If you love
to dance, waltz in empty gymnasiums. Passion is what makes Yale
Yale.
Surrounded by over
11,000 phenomenal people, it's inevitable that at times I feel small,
stupid, and lonely. But in time I will find my own "guitar."
So if you're reading
this, guitar player, thank you. You opened my eyes.  |
