1999-11-09

10 years

I was a sophomore in college when the Berlin Wall fell. The college, a tiny Benedictine liberal arts school in rural Central Florida, for some reason attracted a high number of German foreign exchange students, relatively speaking -- the school had an on-campus enrollment of about 2,000, a dozen of whom were from Germany. One of them was my friend Henning.

That night, we sat in Henning's dorm room, drank vodka and Gatorade, and watched the wall crumble via CNN.

A million thoughts ran through my head; I couldn't even imagine what Henning was thinking. He was sitting in a musty humid dorm room in Florida while one of the most hated symbols of the 20th century was being reduced to rubble. Was he sorry that he was here and not there?

I remember the acrid battery-acid tang of the Gatorade cocktail burning the back of my throat as I sat there, unable to say a thing as Henning watched the t.v. and cried. I became acutely aware, at that moment, of how truly sheltered I was. What an insular little bubble I'd created around myself, despite the fact that I'd been feeling, heretofore, like one of the more worldly students on campus, with my Massachusetts I.D., my fuschia hair and my reputation as a person to approach regarding "cool" bands.

That night, in Henning's dorm room, I realized that I didn't know shit.

lisamcc at 13:35:39

previous | next