East

I am in New York City, sipping a latte in a hip coffee shop with a preponderance of mirrors and shafts of light shining artfully through bottles of vintage wine. I just submitted my first graduate school application.

I flew to Boston on Sunday to visit Harvard's Divinity School, and now I'm in New York to eat some bagels and realize my dream of ice-skating in Central Park whilst wearing a billowing scarf. So far I've spent a lot of time taking trains in the wrong direction on the underground. Also, my dear friend Kai and I split a pitcher of sangria last night and wandered the parks and streets of this place, pondering how the myth of a city can affect our experience of a particular tree.

It was fascinating to visit Harvard -- it feels absurd and audacious that I would consider that institution (speaking of myth), but their Religious Studies program is full of inspiring people that I would love to work with, so I really can't resist. That does not mean, however, that I was not thoroughly intimidated by the vast numbers of chandeliers and shiny shoes that I found on campus. It scared me somewhat, all of the history and the opulence and the ego. I walked through the historical architecture of Harvard Yard, dwarfed by monumental panes of stained glass and old stones engraved with Latin phrases that struck me as foreign incantations. I felt a deep pain in my chest when I compared the steeples and the slate-gray sky to my home in Oregon. If I were to study on the East Coast, I would be so far away from the forest and the mountains and Eugene.

But then it was three o'clock, and the bells tolled the hour, beautifully. There's a circular labyrinth outside of the Divinity School that's shaped exactly like the one that I know on Orcas Island at Indralaya -- I stood at the heart of the winding paths and used every fiber of my being to bind New England and the Ivy League to the salt-smell of the Pacific.

I met with a professor that teaches an entire class on eye-contact. She works with prison inmates, studying the way that Buddhism and Neuroscience can be integrated and then taught to prisoners in such a way that they can live free, meaningful lives behind bars. I remembered that I read a book by Thich Nhat Han when I was an exchange student in Chile. The monk is writing for prisoners of all sorts, from the literally incarcerated to those ensnared in the inevitable constraints of civilized culture. He says that, if you feel trapped, you should listen for bells, because every bell means that you're free, no matter where you are. Since then I've always been listening.

I'll be back home on Monday, to feel festive and celebrate my 24th birthday on the 24th of December. I will no longer be prime, but rather very highly divisible. I'm kind of excited to find out what that means.