February 1st, 2024: Background Noise

Yesterday, I sat in the lounge of my dorm building reading a collection of poetry, as my friends played a card game a few feet away. I wasn't entirely tuned into the conversations they had, nor was I watching the game progress - I wanted to at least comprehend most of the poems I was reading - but the happy commotion slipped in and out of my focus from only a short distance away.

I write this in the library café, one of those places where I can joke "I basically live there at this point," even though classes haven't started and I have yet to receive any work to do. The routine, the waking up at 7, the breakfasts with a friend or two, comes back to me easily. Music in only one ear, I can still hear the staff and the occasional customer, though I tend to beat the rush, lines rare at this time of the morning, campus still quiet. My favorite time of day when I stop sleeping through it, when I have so much to get me up and out of bed.

I had certainly not forgotten how much I had missed this noise in the background of my everyday - the card games, the use of the espresso machine, the coffee orders.