strange memories, where do they come from...?
woke up just a short while ago, and not even coming out of a dream the very first conscious thought to surface in my mind was memory of a young woman that i briefly encountered when I was a student at UCSC back in 1998. her name was unusual, Guru Inder, given to her by hippie parents that had raised her while living on a Sufi ashram somewhere in the Santa Cruz mountains.
she was one of those people that stick out in your mind, the first week of classes, as someone that is attractive and seemingly intelligent and you throw out a hope that somehow you'll get into a class that she's taking and that maybe you can become friends. well, two years after i had first seen her during the beginning events at the anthropology board to get all the students and professors acquainted, she faded into the mist of the student body and we never had a class together. not until my very last quarter.
i had taken one other class by this professor, Steven Feld, a class in ethnomusicology and he had easily become my favorite teacher in the entire anthropology department. his class on the peoples and cultures of Papua New Guinea, where he had done over 20 years of research was going to be amazing. i was in the class with a few people i had met in other classes, none though that in two years time became close friends. except for Katie. i met Katie in Family Student Housing 2 weeks before classes even began and we became brother/sister-like buddies over the years. she and i are still in contact via Facebook. she LOVED Professor Feld and sat in the front row of the lecture room. that was too much for me, i sat about 6 rows back, alone.
there were about 30 students in the class and there was a cluster of them that had become good friends over the years. they all sat together in the back of the room. were always chatty and laughing but never contributed to the discussions during class time. Guru Inder, her friends just called her "Inder" now, was in that group. The youngest of them all. Katie and I were the main instigators of questions and discussion during the lectures though, and i think this is what brought me to Inder's attention.
one day, maybe after the second week of class, oh, and i had not been paying attention to her. i wasn't paying attention to anyone. one day she walked up and asked if anyone was sitting in the seat next to me. i was a little embarrassed, flashed a nervous glance around the room suspecting that someone had put her up to it as a joke, but no one was looking, so i said "no. please..." and took my book bag off so she could sit down.
she introduced herself. offering me her hand to shake. before she could say her name though i spoke over her, "i've always loved your name, Guru Inder." "But everyone just calls me Inder now." "Is it ok if I call you Guru?" I think I made her blush.
she sat next to me every class meeting until the end of the term and after class i would walk her to the bus stop where she would catch the city bus into town where she lived and worked. gave us about 15 minutes to chat idly, and i remember that on one of the last times i walked her out there i asked her if she would be interested in getting something to eat sometime. it was not a big deal, college students sharing meals together. the campus had a dozen eateries that served breakfast, lunch, dinner and late night coffee, beer and snacks. she was accustomed to leaving campus after classes though, so i said i could meet her in town. "town" was only a 10 minute drive away, so this was not an awkward suggestion either.
what was awkward was that i knew how much older i was than she was. she was a freshman straight out of high school. 18 years old. now, here is the god's honest truth of my positioning. i had been living ON the campus of this college for three years. walking around 18-20 year old female students every day. took classes with many, many of these students. and i had never come into as close of contact with any of them as I did with this young anthropology student, Guru Inder. i never would have singled her out of the crowd and approached her. i NEVER single ANYONE out of a crowd and approach them. if any sort of connection ever happens in my life, it is because someone else has singled ME out and approached ME.
i didn't have any preconceived ideas about what i thought could happen between us. i just wanted to spend time with someone. she was smart, pretty, talkative, and liked me enough to follow me around. so meeting one time to have dinner together could easily be a one-time-event, no harm done. we set a date and for some reason, i felt nervous. i'll have to write more stories about the 3 years i spent in Santa Cruz because there are a couple of other encounters i had with women there that are noteworthy, but i don't want to ruin this story now. my point is that there were so few encounters of this type that it was understandable, to me at least, that i felt nervous.
we met at Jalapeno's, the fad burrito shop downtown that was always packed for dinner. we sat in the window and ate vegan burritos together. she said, "you didn't have to order vegan just because you are with me, you know." i said that "i wanted to because i was with her." dinner was the easy part. you stand in line at Jalapeno's for up to 20 minutes waiting for your turn to order so there is a lot of idle chatter, nervous glances into each other's faces, a lot of looking at the other people that are standing in line... after dinner i asked if she wanted to get coffee. she did, so we went over to Cafe Pergolessi, just two blocks away. it was a nice warm evening so we sat outside on the patio. this was where the evening became a little more uncomfortable for me... the first hour we spouted back and forth our summations about college life and what we were going to do next with our lives. not a lot of personal exposure, until later...
the second hour of discussion, after all the busy talk was over we either had to go deeper or we had to find a way to bail. she wasn't ready to go deeper, but wasn't ready to bail, so she kicked into super-intellectual mode and started to go into extensive detail about who her favorite authors were regurgitating text by text her favorite books by each one. my eyes glazed over until i realized that she was interjecting memories of situations with her father in a lot of her statements. she didn't talk about her mother, just her father. but i did my normal reaction when i'm overwhelmed by someone that is such a chatterbox, my eyes glaze over and not being as knowledgeable of everything she was talking about, nor really being all that impressed, my mind started to wander. i started to look at her physical being more closely.
she was really a very cute, and attractive young woman. very long, wavy hair. petite body build. she always wore long dresses too. also, i knew that i was old enough to be her father so i restrained myself from letting my thoughts go anywhere indecent. still, the lure of there being someone that felt any sort of attraction to me, that might be interested in spending time with me... going to bookstores, going to the beach, sitting in cafes reading... there didn't have to be romance to be someone's friend. and this is the modern age, right? older men can be friends with younger women with no ill intent.
she finally wore herself out talking and realized i was not contributing equally to the conversation. i think she realized that i was just plain not as smart or as well read as she was, and maybe this was a disappointment. i suggested that we leave, it was getting late. and i offered to walk her to her car. turned out that she had parked right next to my car in the parking lot across the street from Pergolessi. she drove an old, 70's model VW Bug. she didn't want to leave yet though. she leaned against her car, i leaned against mine. she started to reveal more about her life.
"i know you are probably the same age as my father is, you are, aren't you?" I said, "yes, i am." she said, "hmmm, that's ok, i think." almost as if she was just saying it to herself, under her breath. then she went on to say that she was in a difficult living situation right now but that she was planning on moving out at the end of the next month, and that then she would be "more free". what she was alluding too, i was not sure. i did not let my mind run away with ideas, but did have a gentle sense that i would like to be able to have more meetings like this with her. she gave me her phone number, both at home and at work. i never called the home phone, but i did call her at work a couple of times to ask if she had time to meet for coffee. both times she sounded flustered and said that there was a lot of trouble "at home" and that once things settled down she'd call me. turns out that i never heard from her again.
that was 13 years ago. and now, just this morning she pops into my head for the very first time. never thought of her before now. i don't know what to make of this other than i feel a presence of the spirit of Guru Inder. she had a pure heart and a youthful energy that made me feel healthy and appreciated. good being a young persons friend, although i don't really know what it was she wanted, or needed from me. i think maybe in class she respected my intellectual integrity. whether she had any desires to cross a line into a more enigmatic friendship or relationship, i think not. that night in the parking lot, i could tell that she knew it was the last time we were going to see each other and i think she wanted me to touch her, or kiss her. i couldn't tell that then though. i didn't realize it until later, when it was too late.
she was one of those people that stick out in your mind, the first week of classes, as someone that is attractive and seemingly intelligent and you throw out a hope that somehow you'll get into a class that she's taking and that maybe you can become friends. well, two years after i had first seen her during the beginning events at the anthropology board to get all the students and professors acquainted, she faded into the mist of the student body and we never had a class together. not until my very last quarter.
i had taken one other class by this professor, Steven Feld, a class in ethnomusicology and he had easily become my favorite teacher in the entire anthropology department. his class on the peoples and cultures of Papua New Guinea, where he had done over 20 years of research was going to be amazing. i was in the class with a few people i had met in other classes, none though that in two years time became close friends. except for Katie. i met Katie in Family Student Housing 2 weeks before classes even began and we became brother/sister-like buddies over the years. she and i are still in contact via Facebook. she LOVED Professor Feld and sat in the front row of the lecture room. that was too much for me, i sat about 6 rows back, alone.
there were about 30 students in the class and there was a cluster of them that had become good friends over the years. they all sat together in the back of the room. were always chatty and laughing but never contributed to the discussions during class time. Guru Inder, her friends just called her "Inder" now, was in that group. The youngest of them all. Katie and I were the main instigators of questions and discussion during the lectures though, and i think this is what brought me to Inder's attention.
one day, maybe after the second week of class, oh, and i had not been paying attention to her. i wasn't paying attention to anyone. one day she walked up and asked if anyone was sitting in the seat next to me. i was a little embarrassed, flashed a nervous glance around the room suspecting that someone had put her up to it as a joke, but no one was looking, so i said "no. please..." and took my book bag off so she could sit down.
she introduced herself. offering me her hand to shake. before she could say her name though i spoke over her, "i've always loved your name, Guru Inder." "But everyone just calls me Inder now." "Is it ok if I call you Guru?" I think I made her blush.
she sat next to me every class meeting until the end of the term and after class i would walk her to the bus stop where she would catch the city bus into town where she lived and worked. gave us about 15 minutes to chat idly, and i remember that on one of the last times i walked her out there i asked her if she would be interested in getting something to eat sometime. it was not a big deal, college students sharing meals together. the campus had a dozen eateries that served breakfast, lunch, dinner and late night coffee, beer and snacks. she was accustomed to leaving campus after classes though, so i said i could meet her in town. "town" was only a 10 minute drive away, so this was not an awkward suggestion either.
what was awkward was that i knew how much older i was than she was. she was a freshman straight out of high school. 18 years old. now, here is the god's honest truth of my positioning. i had been living ON the campus of this college for three years. walking around 18-20 year old female students every day. took classes with many, many of these students. and i had never come into as close of contact with any of them as I did with this young anthropology student, Guru Inder. i never would have singled her out of the crowd and approached her. i NEVER single ANYONE out of a crowd and approach them. if any sort of connection ever happens in my life, it is because someone else has singled ME out and approached ME.
i didn't have any preconceived ideas about what i thought could happen between us. i just wanted to spend time with someone. she was smart, pretty, talkative, and liked me enough to follow me around. so meeting one time to have dinner together could easily be a one-time-event, no harm done. we set a date and for some reason, i felt nervous. i'll have to write more stories about the 3 years i spent in Santa Cruz because there are a couple of other encounters i had with women there that are noteworthy, but i don't want to ruin this story now. my point is that there were so few encounters of this type that it was understandable, to me at least, that i felt nervous.
we met at Jalapeno's, the fad burrito shop downtown that was always packed for dinner. we sat in the window and ate vegan burritos together. she said, "you didn't have to order vegan just because you are with me, you know." i said that "i wanted to because i was with her." dinner was the easy part. you stand in line at Jalapeno's for up to 20 minutes waiting for your turn to order so there is a lot of idle chatter, nervous glances into each other's faces, a lot of looking at the other people that are standing in line... after dinner i asked if she wanted to get coffee. she did, so we went over to Cafe Pergolessi, just two blocks away. it was a nice warm evening so we sat outside on the patio. this was where the evening became a little more uncomfortable for me... the first hour we spouted back and forth our summations about college life and what we were going to do next with our lives. not a lot of personal exposure, until later...
the second hour of discussion, after all the busy talk was over we either had to go deeper or we had to find a way to bail. she wasn't ready to go deeper, but wasn't ready to bail, so she kicked into super-intellectual mode and started to go into extensive detail about who her favorite authors were regurgitating text by text her favorite books by each one. my eyes glazed over until i realized that she was interjecting memories of situations with her father in a lot of her statements. she didn't talk about her mother, just her father. but i did my normal reaction when i'm overwhelmed by someone that is such a chatterbox, my eyes glaze over and not being as knowledgeable of everything she was talking about, nor really being all that impressed, my mind started to wander. i started to look at her physical being more closely.
she was really a very cute, and attractive young woman. very long, wavy hair. petite body build. she always wore long dresses too. also, i knew that i was old enough to be her father so i restrained myself from letting my thoughts go anywhere indecent. still, the lure of there being someone that felt any sort of attraction to me, that might be interested in spending time with me... going to bookstores, going to the beach, sitting in cafes reading... there didn't have to be romance to be someone's friend. and this is the modern age, right? older men can be friends with younger women with no ill intent.
she finally wore herself out talking and realized i was not contributing equally to the conversation. i think she realized that i was just plain not as smart or as well read as she was, and maybe this was a disappointment. i suggested that we leave, it was getting late. and i offered to walk her to her car. turned out that she had parked right next to my car in the parking lot across the street from Pergolessi. she drove an old, 70's model VW Bug. she didn't want to leave yet though. she leaned against her car, i leaned against mine. she started to reveal more about her life.
"i know you are probably the same age as my father is, you are, aren't you?" I said, "yes, i am." she said, "hmmm, that's ok, i think." almost as if she was just saying it to herself, under her breath. then she went on to say that she was in a difficult living situation right now but that she was planning on moving out at the end of the next month, and that then she would be "more free". what she was alluding too, i was not sure. i did not let my mind run away with ideas, but did have a gentle sense that i would like to be able to have more meetings like this with her. she gave me her phone number, both at home and at work. i never called the home phone, but i did call her at work a couple of times to ask if she had time to meet for coffee. both times she sounded flustered and said that there was a lot of trouble "at home" and that once things settled down she'd call me. turns out that i never heard from her again.
that was 13 years ago. and now, just this morning she pops into my head for the very first time. never thought of her before now. i don't know what to make of this other than i feel a presence of the spirit of Guru Inder. she had a pure heart and a youthful energy that made me feel healthy and appreciated. good being a young persons friend, although i don't really know what it was she wanted, or needed from me. i think maybe in class she respected my intellectual integrity. whether she had any desires to cross a line into a more enigmatic friendship or relationship, i think not. that night in the parking lot, i could tell that she knew it was the last time we were going to see each other and i think she wanted me to touch her, or kiss her. i couldn't tell that then though. i didn't realize it until later, when it was too late.
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