Long Past Stopping by Oran Canfield

Author:Oran Canfield
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2009-03-21T16:00:00+00:00

IN AN ATTEMPT to prove to the school that the thirteen thousand dollars they had given me in financial aid was a good investment, I volunteered to be the freshman representative in the student senate and joined the Model UN. Joining the senate seemed like a good idea at the time, but it didn’t really work out the way I wanted it to. The other kids didn’t hold us in very high regard, and we were all so ashamed of our involvement that we never associated with one another outside of our weekly half-hour meetings. The Model UN met only once because our teacher, Steve, was always leaving school for mysterious reasons.

Between class, work jobs, dorm jobs, sports, and study hall, we were left with only about four free hours a day, but that was four more free hours than I had ever had before. Feeling awkward, angry, and nervous around the other kids, I spent my extra time in the ceramics studio. In ceramics class, we were told that throwing pots was a kind of spiritual exercise—that centering the clay was an act of centering oneself—but it just made me frustrated. I was more at war with the clay than one with it. I spent four hours a day, and often ten hours on weekends, hunched over a spinning lump of clay that I couldn’t center for the life of me. As difficult as it was, it allowed me to be by myself. My back hurt like hell whenever I stood up from the wheel, and when I closed my eyes—even to blink—all I could see was a slightly lopsided lump of brown mud spinning around in my head. But like the early days of my juggling career, throwing pots gave the impression that I was passionate and driven, rather than antisocial.

I started smoking cigarettes as a remedy for my back problems. My cravings were like an alarm clock that reminded me to stretch my body and take a walk every hour or so. Cigarettes however, quickly began eating up two-thirds of my fifteen-dollar-a-week allowance.

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