I headed to New York this past weekend to escape a dawning sense of ennui prompted by a few too many late, lonely nights slogging through work in the Tisch Reading Room. When I started to hear bottom-floor stacks teasing and taunting me, I knew I had to get out. The obvious cure, I thought, was a 60-hour trip to the country's cultural epicenter: Manhattan.
As appealing as Somerville can be, I'm just not fully stimulated by the artistic activities that I've been privy to so far. How many times can you visit the Museum of Bad Art, or handle the one-part intoxicating, five-parts nauseating stench of popcorn in the lobby of the Somerville Theatre? Boston is great, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Institute of Contemporary Art are worth visits early and often. Still, I was longing for a full-on dose of culture, and I got it in New York. But I actually couldn't be happier to be back. I guess it's a case of not knowing what you've got until it's gone.
One of the reasons I chose Tufts over a school in a more exhilarating location, if you will, was because I knew that the proverbial "bright lights" in the heart of a city would distract me. When all is said and done, the ultimate goal of going to college is to get a degree and to learn more about others, yourself and the world, and I knew that I would lose sight of those aims if I was too busy gallivanting around Chicago or Philadelphia in search of "culture" — whatever that means. New York was absolutely a worthwhile diversion for three days, and I didn't do a stitch of a work amid the shopping, bookstore-dwelling and museum-hopping. But I found myself thinking wistfully of Tufts on the long, dark bus ride back here.
Regardless of the somewhat-isolated nature of our campus — let's be honest: getting to Boston proper is kind of a schlep, though always worthwhile — I've found myself adapting to and loving the environment here.
The culture — popular and otherwise — in New York City is so specific and singular. Good or bad, there's nothing like searching in the pouring rain for a small gallery exhibiting a tiny David Hockney collection. A friend and I alternately tried to navigate through the huddled masses, cover ourselves with a tiny pink umbrella, type an address on a phone's Google Maps application, search for street signs and share a $4 can of Diet Coke purchased from a street vendor. It's the kind of experience that a local or a transplant eventually adjusts to, but it's both thrilling and totally overwhelming to an outsider.
The same sense of "only in …" applies to Los Angeles, my hometown — paying unspeakable prices for a small popcorn at the Arclight Cinema on Sunset Boulevard, avoiding accidents while glancing at the stunning graffiti murals on the side of the 405 freeway, gazing at stars (walking past you on the sidewalk, not in the smoggy sky).
Those are the kind of experiences I thought I would be giving up for the next four years. But I've found myself enjoying culture in a quieter and perhaps more fulfilling, enriching way through the languid pace of life here: delving into books I've never previously found the time to read and having endless, meaningful, pretentious discussions about movies and the meaning of life. I could get used to this. New York and Los Angeles have their merits, but semi-urban Somerville is in the process of gripping me — and I don't expect it to let go any time soon.
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Derek Schlom is a freshman who has not yet declared a major. He can be reached at Derek.Schlom@tufts.edu.
