Dorm memories

Katie D.

February 21, 2009 - 5:45 PM

I already blogged that I'm in a Senses of Place class, and that we're writing place essays as final projects. In class I'll be writing about the "sense of place" I had in Chile, and I'm really excited about putting some of my nostalgia into literary format.

But the idea of writing about places has stuck with me, making me think of all the places I have visited and of the places I've lived, and how these places have a mark on my soul. Because when a place is important to you it becomes the context of your life, and the basis for your development. You cannot escape identification with a place, or with the memories there. So I've thought of all of the places that have left their marks on me: my old neighborhood, my grandparents' houses, my middle school, a campsite in the Rocky Mountains, my high school and the marching band field there, friends' houses, and my places here in Eugene. And because this is an Oregon blog, I figure that this last will be the most relevant and interesting to people. The memories and friendships I have of my life in the dorms freshman year have been absolutely central in the subsequent years of my college career. They were the context of a third of my time in Oregon, the foundation of friendships, and the setting for so many good times.

So, first let me say that my freshman roommate and I were completely incompatible. We didn't fight, really, and I can't say I spent much time being actively angry. It was more a slow sinking into a realization that we had almost nothing in common and no interest in trying to be friends. Sharing a space that small with someone you don't like can be a tricky maneuver. By the end of winter term we were speaking about 20 words to each other each week. Friends would come in and out, we would do homework and sleep and talk on the phone, all without really even noticing each other. My first experience sharing a room could have been a bit more comfortable.

Despite roommate issues, I had the most wonderful time in the dorms. I was in Walton-Decou Residence Hall, one of the three honors dorms. We were all there together: a big group of freshmen coming together and stuck together for the year. My first night in the dorm I was still a little bit scared I'd come out of the first week without close friends. By the end of the week it took me half an hour to get down the hall because I'd stop to talk with so many people.

One of my most intense memories of early college was one night when eight of us crammed into my friend Nathan's dorm room and sat on the beds with the lights out, listening to Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon." I'm sure not all of you will believe me when I say there was no substance usage going on, but it's true. It was just a group of us, who were slowly cohering from a group of strangers into a group of best friends, and we listened to music in the dark.

We spent a lot of time upstairs in Grant and Nathan's room. I was there all the time, because I didn't want to be in my room with my Cold War roommate. But every night a big group of us would gather upstairs to watch The Daily Show and the Colbert Report. We'd line up on the beds or sit on the floor, with homework in our lap, ready for a good laugh at the state of the world. Basically those evenings of intelligent ridiculousness were exactly what I'd hoped for in college: a group of good friends paying attention to the events of the world and having a darn good time doing it.

Then there was the dorm food. We complained, of course. Everyone always does. But the food was actually pretty good. There's a decent variety, and an increased availability of vegetarian and vegan options that mean more options for everyone. We'd go for soup and sandwiches at lunch, or for bean burgers, or for salads. For dinner we usually ate at the buffet-style meal hall, which was also pretty good. I developed a strong love for the Mongolian BBQ place, Fire and Spice. I ate lunches with different combinations of people as our class schedules changed throughout the year, but I don't ever remember eating lunch alone. And dinner was always an all-of-us-together event. We'd grab a big table at Carson and eat our meals together, just like I would with my family at home. We talked about our days, made weekend plans, laughed at each other, and just basically had a wonderful time.

The consistency of routine-class, meals, homework, and TV nights-was interrupted by the adventures we would have together. My friend Grant would come and distract me from my homework and a group of us would go walking for hours in the middle of the night, alongside the Wilammette River on the Autzen footpath. We'd take weekends and go to Portland or Bend to stay with friends' families and get out of Eugene. We took several excursions to nearby hot springs, and these trips are some of my favorite freshman year events.

Spring term freshman year I had the best double-feature concert event of my life. The Decemberists and Nickel Creek came to Eugene in the same four-day period. The Decemberists concert was absolutely amazing. They are one of my favorite groups anyway, and their energy together on stage was just amazing. And halfway through a song lead singer Colin Meloy got down off the stage, leaned on my friend Verni, and played a guitar solo. Oh, the presence of greatness! The McDonald Theater is a great place for a concert, anyway, since it's small and easy to feel a part of the event, instead of just being part of an audience.

And that was life in the dorms: a time of intense community. With so many people living in a small space, there was always someone to be with. Walking down the hall you walked past friends. Walking past the common room downstairs there were friends. Casual friendships resolved quickly into permanent ones. Drama developed, relationships changed, new plans and adventures came along, but all in a cooperative manner. That is what I miss the absolute most about life in the dorms: that feeling of perpetual un-loneliness.

I haven't been back in the Walton Residence Hall since I moved out in June 2007. I've left that place completely in my daily life, but it is still entirely present. I spend most of my available time with people from that time and place. It feels like I live in constant reference to that time when we were all living together in that place, coming together as individuals discovering their adult lives, and as friends becoming closer and closer in that close proximity.

That's the thing about place when you start to really think about it. Memory functions in a tricky way. If I think about it, I'm still listening to Pink Floyd in the middle of the night with seven friends. I'm walking by the river in the dark. I'm listening to music, avoiding contact with the roommate, teasing the same friends and falling in love with the same group of amazing people.

Do you ever really leave a place like that behind?