The Art of Missing

I remember this poem “One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop, about the heartbreaking way the speaker perfects the art of losing items and people in their lives. There is a special type of melancholy in the way it is told, and this poem, this mood, always comes to mind in my first week in America.

Today is our convocation day. It was a word that I had never heard of before, meaning a sort of for mal orientation into the university, the start to the journey that will end with graduation. I would also take advantage of this opportunity to rant about how nobody told international students that this was happening and that you most definitely should pack some nice formal summer clothes. Having missed that memo, I am left with either winter clothes or a few leggings and shirts for exercise to choose from. It felt bad to be so underdressed in jeans while almost every girl I see is in a dress, and almost every guy pulled out a suit.

That fashion crisis is not the point though. I thought that if I were to be sappy about anything I should do it now and leave my emotional baggage at this point. So, this is about how I have been perfecting the art of missing in the past few days.

Let me tell you about walking around a new place by myself. I found the solitude very enjoyable because I was free to explore my own itinerary and efficiently find out so much about my surroundings. Here the bell tolls every hour, and it is so very romantic. The red bricked buildings that barely reaches the sky, trees in the yard that make you feel so small, the novelty of this place has yet to wear off. However, I started wondering why I did not look at Singapore with the same set of eyes. I have never found things to romanticize about, never felt motivated to stare at the satellite image on Google Maps to find the next area to explore, never created a bucket list of what I want to do here. I missed out on being a much more engaged Singaporean.

Let me also tell you about the very first party I did not go to, and the very first shot of vodka I did not enjoy. I was dozing off with my eyes open from the jet lag, sitting in a common room in senior house listening to the awkward silence between people. Then someone got alcohol, and everyone who did not quite enjoy each other’s company headed out to drink. I was curious, but also feeling strangely peer-pressured into not having an empty hand, so I nursed the shot of vodka slowly and was surprised by how mild it tasted. Someone girl drunk, and some guy swooped in with his arms pressed around her shoulders and it made me lose whatever mood I had to power through the discomfort and go for the very first party of the school year (Freshman Fling, it is called). There was a queue that winded past buildings, and I decided I had to leave behind everyone left in the cold drizzling mosh pit.

Here comfort zones are being broken down at every decision point. Each time I come up to someone – in a queue, along a run – it is a choice to talk to them and socialise in a way I have always thoroughly disliked. Never have I ever had to make so many consecutive decisions to meet new people. I feel a little traitorous becoming someone I am not, torn between having to adapt to a new environment and the nagging feeling that I seem like a platonic whore out for friends. The big dining hall that is Annenburg, is an entire microcosm of this hysteria to make new acquaintances. You grab your tray of food and try to balance the oddly weighted cutleries on the tray and the even heftier politics of finding the right group of people to insert yourself in and introduce yourself for the X times. Conversation goes through a template, and you try to talk over the echoes of the thousands of other students trying to fit in. I wonder why I choose the discomfort of wedging myself into groups of strangers to start conversation, and maybe I should challenge myself to resist the social pressure and just sit by myself and enjoy the meal alone. I think that requires a lot more courage.

I packed a “care pack” for myself, a collection of letters and notes from important people in my lives. However, I keep it at the bottom of my drawer, below a manila folder for my COVID testing kits, so that it remains out of reach and allows me to get busy enough to forget about the longing for Singapore and what is familiar.

Today is our convocation day. Maybe it would help me get over this deep pang of longing for the past and look forward into the future. We stood, all 2000 of us, shoulder to shoulder and breathing spaces overlapping into the neighbours to our up down left right, for 30min trying to arrange the massive cohort picture. We sat in a beautiful outdoors theatre, where the sun warms the ground through the green of the leaves, and the cicadas were disturbed with the unromantic sounds of sirens blaring around the busy Boston around us. That is a common occurrence, every hour here punctuated by the bell toll and some choice between the ambulance or police siren.

The deans and president spoke about two very important things that I doubt people listened to. About listening, and about humility. Here, where everyone thinks we have made it, and are full of opinions that got us selected in the first place, I was surprised to hear about the wisdom that the faculty was trying to share with us.

That being said, I think that any institutions no matter how amazing and prestigious it seems, are only maintained by the illusion in our starry-eyed newness. I have come to learn that Harvard, just like OCS or Hwa Chong that proclaim to take in the best, will also have people who make you shake your head and wonder if this is really the standard of the best. As we filed out of the rows of chairs for a reception, the programme booklet that has been distributed are scattered everywhere, on the floor, beneath the chairs, left there for someone else to pick up.

I never get home sick, but this little bruise in my heart I have nursed since setting foot here is an amalgamation of many other types of longing/sickness that I can’t just rid yet. I miss not having a 12-hour time difference with my friends. I miss holding hands with my boyfriend and talking about things outside of what a green text bubble can afford. There is a special kind of melancholy that blurs the line with excitement till I cannot be sure which of the two I am. Within a few short days I have already perfected the art of missing. I think that with the long years ahead I most definitely can perfect the art of letting go, and embrace what this new life has to offer.