I got on the bus, the driver told me it would be an hour plus before getting to town. I was fine with that. I needed the time to sort out things.
A wise man told me that people go to graduate school for one of two reasons. One is utilitarian - how can I upgrade and profit from it? - in short, education as an investment. The other is Kantian - you go because you want to figure out yourself - in short, education as essential, an insatiable need for the restless mind. Then again, he left out a third option, my reason: avoidance. You go to school to avoid both the utilitarian world and high ideals. I went to school to delay the inevitable, to past time, to avert my eyes, to forget, to neglect, to preen and pose, and to wait indefinitely for a most definite - and inescapable - sentence. I went to school, on an island, to move on and purge her from my soul. It never did happen.
Sitting at the very back of an empty bus, I looked out at the modest and beautiful landscape around Swartz Bay. I took in a deep breath of the sea air. Being a dilettante and all, I honestly thought smelling nature is experiencing it. That misconception is borne from my inability to do anything else but smell when in nature. While I 'experienced' the natural beauty of the island, an acrid scent perturbed my reminiscences.
