I stared wistfully at the yellowish-brown mush. With a heavy heart, I picked up the wooden spoon and attempted to prod it back to life. To no avail, my second attempt to cook Indian food produced nothing more than pained expressions. I peered into the pot at the burnt pungent mess and lamented that it had once been a perfectly good potato. It hadn't looked so grim when my teacher was making it.
Yet while this batch of aloo gobi squelched all hopes for a decent lunch, I had bigger plans, and thanks to the invitations I already sent out, plans I couldn't avoid. This culinary debutante was throwing her first dinner party the very next day. I promised Indian food and I, not Jewel of India, was going to deliver.
I chopped, I curried, and after an early morning remedial cooking lesson, I pulled it off. At 7:15 p.m., five people began to consume my cooking and shoot off compliments like flare guns from a sinking ship. I believe this illustrates a direct correlation between my guests liking me as a person and the positive nature of their comments. When someone eats your wet, overcooked rice with a smile, you know you've got a true friend.
The food may have fallen short of triumph, but the party served my purpose -- bringing together a small number of the people who make my life wonderful. As I happily served my friends mango sorbet and spiced tea, I added one thing to the meal that no one expected ... a video camera.
I don't recall asking them to commence acting strangely, but my finger on the record button seemed to have that effect. Luckily, the nervous laughter/deer-in- headlights phenomenon wore off and soon we turned to "What vegetable most describes your sophomore summer?" and other normal conversation. In 40 minutes of footage, I captured on film everything from random "remember whens" to predictions about our futures.
Then amid a flurry of apologies for needing to dash off, my guests left me alone with rapidly congealing leftovers and newly filled film cartridges. Given that my video camera predates Seinfeld by about seven years, I began the tedious process of transferring the cartridges to VHS tape. With the aid of only five cables, my evening suddenly streamed back at me on the television screen. In my quiet room, I sat back and relived the evening, watching the drama of what it is to be age twenty.
I saw myself and my friends from an external eye. I noticed the way we interacted, the things we said. And I must say, it was a good hair day. But even more than appearance analysis, I couldn't help but wax philosophical.
The video showed us as we are now, but it also brought up memories of how we met freshman year and how much dorkier we were in high school. At the same time though, I noticed that each of us had a feeling of being on the road to somewhere-- to a larger future. Having recently passed the half-way mark in our college careers, I sense that many of us are concerned that college is passing us by.
I've begun to hear things such as "What I wouldn't give to be a freshman again." Go back to being a naive freshman again? Go back to a time when I took Calculus just because I thought it would be fun? Return to the days when I could be suckered by upperclass guys? No way! The people I saw on videotape were far and away more articulate, stylish, funny and secure than when I met them. We may be two years closer to the end of college, but what a two years they have been! I wouldn't return to the naivete of Fall 1995 for all the granite of New Hampshire. Not even for the (gulp) $70,000 spent to date on Camp Dartmouth.
What I realized from my living room docudrama is that at any given time we are drawing on the mistakes of the past to propel a wiser self into the future. Life didn't start Freshman Fall, and it won't end Senior Spring. College prepares and polishes you for a life after, and I refuse to be afraid of that any longer, because the end of college is only the beginning of bigger and better. College is half over but the life to come is not.
When I was little, I learned how to bake banana bread. Now I'm working on Indian food. If my yellowish-brown food preparation skills are any indication, through the next two years and into adulthood, our horizons will explode with new and exciting challenges. No fear. Bring it on.
