The Man Who Stares

My neighborhood is not a quiet one. I live on a main thoroughfare, just on the boarder of hipster-land, about to topple into "keep-your-gentrification-to-yourself" borough. My neighbors are friendly, there are urban dogs who have likely never seen a patch of grass spanning more than a block in their lives that I know by name. My landlord stops by regularly to check on the units. He has a warm smile and a lazy eye. The woman who lives upstairs is a story for another time.

I'm a stoop kid. I love a good stoop, and mine is pretty excellent. During the Summer I've spent long hours sipping yuenglings and passing the evening invested in the neighborhood bustle and how it evolves. People running the last of their errands in the late afternoon phasing into people  jogging into dusk, transferring over to squeals of laughter as small groups stagger home drunk.

I don't remember the first time I noticed him. Directly across the street from my safe and warm stoop, a hulking man. At least six foot five. Standing, his frame nearly taking up the entire front picture window of the brick building across the street, just looking out. Staring with his whole body. It was dark enough out and there was just barely enough light in the apartment he was looking from that he was just a silhouette. He could have easily been one of those life-sized cardboard cutouts people get at party stores of James Dean or Elvis or Jean Luc Picard. But he was not. No facial features, no color, arms at his sides and with a massiveness that was enrapturing and a stoic, breath-taking stillness.

At first I thought he was waiting for someone to come home. He had a sort of "waiting for his daughter to come home from a first date" look about him. But no one came. And he didn't move. He stood motionless for about fifteen minutes and because he was just a silhouette, he could have easily been staring directly at me. Or not. Or maybe.

This was months ago, when I first moved into this place. I still see him. Very frequently. He stands in his giant picture window at the level of the street and stares out of it, blinds open. Still. Watching. It's a beautiful image, though still disconcerting. I've yet to wave at him and I don't think I will, though I know he knows I see him. I've yet to see him outside of his house.

I try to fathom what he's up to. What he's looking for or at or to. Is he nervous? Waiting for someone who will never come home again? Protective? Curious? Angry? Paranoid? Appreciative?

I've come to taking a great amount of comfort in looking up and seeing him there. A watchdog of sorts. There's a good chance his brain works differently. Maybe in a way that isn't so okay with the outside world. A way that allows him to stare, intently, motionless at a window presenting unchanging scenery for an extended period of time. His consistency has become part of my scenery, part of my expectation, part of the stories I watch unfold in an evening.

I've come to be thrilled by most things I see that are not ultimately pedestrian. The Man Who Stares is no exception. Often I imagine we stare at each other and weave the most passionate and incredible stories about each other. I know I do. I at my stoop and he at his window. Never the two shall meet, so long as the street parts us.

Pulling a Gardner

Last week around lunch I was passing through the lounge and overheard one of my classmates in conversation say, "Yeah, I pulled a Gardner last night."

There are several reasons this made me feel bad ass. Allow me to present:

First. I didn't play a lot of sports growing up. I mean, I played some sports, but I was never very good. I was a fair swimmer but there was no swim team in high school and I loved soccer but was really terrible at it. Other than that there was marching band which I absolutely hated. What I'm getting at here is that even with a first name as common as it was, frequently leading to three or four Sara/h's within a vicinity to looking up expectantly no one called me "Gardner". (Bonus info: the "S" sound is one of the few syllables you can hear when people are whispering, no matter how quietly. This led me to a paranoia/self-importance as a child that people were whispering about me regularly). I tried to get people to call me by my last name for quite some time. Lack of friends people who needed to get my attention regularly and not being a part of a sports team delayed this for thirty years, apparently.

Second. Your very existence being literally verbalized (by that I don't mean spoken, I mean turned into a verb) is pretty great. Since this first classmate said it, I've heard it thrown around the cohort on several occasions. It makes me feel like a total rock star.

Keystone & Crossbones. For badasses only.

Are you dying to know yet? What "pulling a Gardner." is? It's a very bad ass, rock star thing to pull. It's so insanely cool. Are you ready? Here it is:

Mike was telling someone he went to bed at 9:30. You know, like Gardner does. That Gardner sleeps SO HARD! She's always getting 8+ hours. She sleeps like she's got something to prove.

Which brings me to: Third. I think most of my friends pre-grad school (meaning most of my friends) would consider almost anything else in the world "pulling a Gardner" before going to bed early. Here's a few thoughts:

• Saying yes to every project someone asks you to participate in.
• Consuming a pint of Ben and Jerry's for lunch.
• Getting three hours of sleep before working a double.
• Getting three hours of sleep before going into a tech weekend for two shows.
• Getting three hours of sleep be fuck you sleep, I got shit to do.
• Hoping on a plane and not telling anyone where you're going.
• Leaving anywhere without telling anyone where you're going.
• Being secretive for no apparent reason.
• Working 4-5 very part-time jobs.
• Consuming an entire pint of Jameson.
• Climbing trees at 2 am. 
• Picking drunken fights with strangers that kind of deserve it.
• Sending postcards to people with no reason.

Please understand: I know that none of these things are Gardner-specific. I get it. Just as going to bed at 9:30 is not relate-able to only me. And some of these things I still do. One of the reasons it made me feel like such a bad ass though, is it speaks volumes to what being in grad school has done to my life so far. I've prioritized my own well-being in a way that I always thought was selfish before. My program is highly physical so not getting sick and being fully present/rested is a safety concern first and foremost. Not to mention that getting a shit ton of sleep has improved my general mood immensely.

Gotta get up pretty early to conquer this city.

Don't misunderstand: I don't go to be at 9/9:30 every night. There are even nights when I'm up until 2 am still (but never on a school night, kids). Though, they are less frequent and it's pretty rare that I see the back side of 11 pm lately.

I don't have huge amounts of judgement for the person I was a year and half ago (I certainly have none for anyone who chooses to live their life similarly). She was pretty delightful. Likable, charming, all that stuff. But she would not have done very well in school. She likely would have been miserable and tired and sick all the time.

I'm beyond grateful to be studying here. These people. This place. Even with the seemingly never-ending changes that it's bringing into my life, and feeling like I'm in a constant state of re-adjusting, I'm learning things about performance and myself at an exponential rate that brings me so much joy and excitement.

So if you're feeling run down or overworked or a little lame and need an extra dose of bad assery to your life, try pulling a Gardner: for true rock stars and bad asses.