That Thursday morning, I woke up super early, having crashed the night before around 8 pm. With extra time to spare, I decided to use the silence of the dawn, minus my roommate’s snoring, to finish the last 50 pages of Time Regained. As I read the parts about the stilts and falling off and all the other wacky Proustian metaphors, it was over. All 6 volumes, 3000+ pages, were read. I was done.
I closed the book, suddenly hearing all the noise that I blocked off. The snoring roommate had already left for class and the other was in the shower, humming indiscernibly. Outside my window, I could hear cars honking and the distant chatter of cosmopolitan movement. Through the broken blinds, the sun shined, blinding me.
As an NYU freshman, I am required to take a 4-credit seminar class my first year of college. I took mine this semester. The course was called “In Search of Lost Time,” borrowing the name from the acclaimed work of Marcel Proust that we would be reading throughout the semester. The course moved along quite fast: every two to three weeks, we would finish a volume of Proust. It took some time for me to get used to reading 300 pages per night, and even more to get used to the Proustian prose. When I did, I was already nearing the end.
I have to say, my greatest accomplishment from this first semester is completing the entirety of In Search of Lost Time.ˆWhile that might not say much considering all the parts that I skimmed through, the lack of comprehension through most parts, and of course the little that I will retain. But, all that aside, I feel a sense of pride in knowing that I did, complete something so substantial.
To borrow the words of a classmate, finishing In Search of Lost Time is like the plane ride back from a trip. And while, I can’t be sure what that means to him, for me that represents a sigh of relief as well as a fear of reality. My family vacations always consisted of arguments, which carried on for the duration of the trip.
The plane ride back would always have an uncomfortable silence as my parents sat with they dividers pulled to the top. I would feel a tension in knowing that when we returned home, the silence would turn into an angry conversation. The relief came from knowing that I had school and dad had work and that our family will not be alone together for a while (until the following vacation of course).
As I approach the end of first semester, I feel that similar sense of relief and fear. I find myself in a rush: I still have two more sit-downs, few more papers, and a room to be thoroughly cleaned. Time seems to be slipping away. But, I also know that in a week or so this feeling of responsibility and pressure will decompose into a moment in the past. The life that I live at this present moment and the time that I don’t use to the fullest will all be lost and forgotten. While I’m still unsure what it takes to not have regrets like that, I feel comfort in knowing that I now am in search of lost time, following the steps of Proust.
