Memoir
by Kevin Chow
I haven’t written in very, very long. Not since I went to architecture school in New York, and the happy arc of my hedonistic years didn’t so much dip (though it did) as become inflected and itself the very object of my study, persistently. Rather than indulge in curriculum vitae or work samples, I prefer to try at memoir, I guess.
So I’m finally writing now, one day after the conclusion of my first teaching experience, which is the first day of August 2020, in the midst of this protracted period of the pandemic. I was teaching a two-week long art class that was titled “Creative Thinking” and subtitled “Projection.” I added the subtitle, because I thought that the class title provided was difficult in its nonspecificity and trite as nothing else; another reason is that “projection” is one of those words that architecture school has taught me to be infinitely malleable and itself the perfect substrate for projection, actually; if we think of a beam projector, the word implicates space, light, the flattening of dimensions; if we think of augury, then time; if architectural drawing, ideation and representation. Considered with an abridged act of synthesis, we have every component of creation.
At least this was the premise I articulated to my students, who, trapped somewhere in the anti-intimate space of Zoom, gave me shallow nods, or muted blank stares, or black rectangles with their full names in white sans serif. So as we prepare for what you are to read next, we can frame it as memoir and a demonstration for my ex-students as well:
One of my high school friends was to leave the next morning, back to college, that is, which is absurd, considering the prematurity of travel in what remains a time of protraction; the institution had effectively conceded that it was incapable of proving its full worth beyond its physical campus, which I think is fair. His departure, according to my gut, meant that summer was over. After all, I wasn’t sweating in my long pants as I arrived at the park, the first one to do so. I found a picnic table approximately four social-distancing units (really, we ought to call it “physical distancing”) away from the nearest group (four people who looked like three guys and one girl savoring the liminal period between high school graduation and the beginning of the end) and splayed out on the grass beside it. My neck and back ached. The sky above was filtered through layers of evergreen branches.
The rest of the group came a bit later and sat more-or-less one unit apart, and one or two joined me on the grass with a picnic blanket, definitely less than a unit apart. It was clear that we were here not just to say our farewells to one of our friends, but also to reenact an elegy to the summer and those high school days that these things always seemed to evoke. Or maybe, we were here to breathe the suburban air through our masks and crave surreptitious physical contact on the grass.
How was teaching? they asked. Fine, I said. Tiring though, but worth it, maybe. What did you teach? Uh, kinda complicated. Projection. Like in the double sense of projection as a way to abstract space, like with architectural drawings, and as a mindset for ideation, like when you project forward an idea without total rationalization, but like both in the context of drawing. Something like that. I don’t know if it makes sense.
Zoom-faced nods. As with most hangouts, I’m realizing, things progressed as a vacillating composition of maybe three identifiable states, as we were spread out in various states of repose on the grass or stood somewhat gathered around the table: (1) discussion of a specific topic or event, (2) response to currently-observed phenomena and (3) tentative physical horseplay, which maybe partially defeated the ethos of our mask-wearing.
But so we talked about the picnic date that one of us has planned for tomorrow, so he can show her that he’s willing to put in effort when it comes to their hangouts, such that he has a hour-by-hour breakdown of an intended agenda for the day, which involves a summer-y selection of post-peak activities like take-out poke, canoeing, drive-in theatergoing, etc. It’s well done! We were all proud of him for acting non verum ad formare. (Update: he says the results of the date are “complicated.”)
And, we speculated on the relationships between those of that other grass-sitting group closest to us; one of the guys (A) was on his phone while another guy (B) was playfully prodding (?) the girl (C), and yet another guy (D) was trying to get involved; there was the strangest tension between B, C, and D, especially in contrast to the aloofness of A; look at them! we said with barely an attempt at whispering, our arms occasionally blatantly outstretched with fingers pointing, giggling.
And, also (or maybe “and so!”) we gradually drew closer; someone’s foot, which I grabbed, was at the small of my back. This physicality was surely some sort of release.
But more importantly, what was their deal? Why was A even there if he neither physically nor verbally engaged? And why was D so engaged? Couldn’t he see that B and C were satisfied in their twosome? Why had B and C even invited A and B? And why weren’t A and D talking at all? We were confused and intrigued, and from our manic speculations, a few coherent worldlines emerged:
B and C are girlfriend and boyfriend. A and D are their mutual friends. They’re just hanging out!
B and C have found success in the double date. A and D have not.
A, B, C, and D have decided to quarantine together (they weren’t wearing masks, after all, but maybe that’s just what we’ve come to). They’re at the park together for convenient away-from-screen leisure.
B and D both have feelings for C. C prefers B.
A, B, and D all have feelings for C. C prefers B. In perfect duality, D incessantly rejects her preference while A pushes his feelings to the side, hiding behind his phone.
A, B, and D all have feelings for C. C prefers A, but doesn’t really mind B. Or D, for that matter.
A, B, C, and D all have feelings for each other. What my friends and I are seeing is a mere snippet, and one that is certainly not representative.
And so on! (The speculations were endless. I’m personally most swayed by 5, but I don’t find it fully convincing. As with many of the others, 5 ignores the improbability of what appears to be voluntary third- and fourth-wheeling. Maybe A, B, and D were hanging out, before B decided to invite his girlfriend C? Maybe, but then the speculations fractalize and we are no closer to the answer.)
But maybe, it’s as simple as this: Are you actually going back to school? asks B, and A replies with a nod that B doesn’t see. Dude, school’s just gonna close immediately. Just stay, says B. A looks up from his phone, pausing for a second at the contact between B’s hands and the small of C’s back. But my lease though. I dunno. He looks back down.
I’m back on Thurs
Yuh bro lets get destroyed
Yeeee, his fingers tap.
B tries again. Dude, imagine how much fun it would be if you like stayed though. Like, we could just do our classes on the beach or some shit. Or, like, I dunno, it’d be cool. But it’s all a bit garbled, with B laying down with his eyes faraway into the sky, and C resting her head on his chest, with their fingers intertwined, and B’s thumb lightly tracing the edge of her shirt and the smooth abdominal skin.
Dude it’s gonna be fucking lit
Tap, tap, tap. Yeah fuck this covid shit
What A says is, I dunno. My lease dude, I can’t cancel that, as if insistently. He doesn’t look up. D is laying down too now, perpendicular to C, somewhere next to A’s feet, or something, reaching up haphazardly to grab at A’s leg just for fun and for physical cohesiveness.
I’d like to think that at some point, A looks up, puts his fucking phone in his pocket, and says to B, C, and D, Don’t even worry. This shit we have here slaps. I’m gonna be gone for a while, and yeah, it’s not really about my lease, but I’ll be back, and we can do this shit again, even if you, like, if you two keep acting like you’re gonna fuck on the grass. Like what do you think D’s thinking. You know, B, maybe it’s like some shit about how you’re rubbing it in his face ‘cause of what happened with the last girl, but like, dude, fuck that. I dunno, it’s not my business. But dude, it’s C. She’s not just some girl. If you guys actually fuck, don’t fuck up the group when you break up. That shit actually kills friend groups. Don’t fuck up this thing. But, dude, seriously, I’ll be back. You know, when we all go to college and come back, the best shit is seeing how we’ve—I don’t fucking know—grown, or some shit. That shit’s, like, living. No one else is us. I’ll be back, ok?
So I get that tight feeling in the back of my throat. I’m clutching that foot at the small of my back, feeling an arm against mine, as I watch them pack up their stuff and shuffle towards their car, with A lagging in the back, looking at his phone. Dude… I say, and I think my friends know what I’m trying to say, and as I try to get up to run over breathing hysterically with watery eyes, so that I can say something like please, just say it A. You have to say it for it to work, someone’s hand is on my wrist, so I look back, and it’s the hand from the person with the foot at the small of my back.
Class, if I hadn’t been held back by my friend, if I had rushed up to that group and interceded, and thereby been given a definitive answer to the status of that group, I would have truncated my act of projection. There is a notion of projection, which I know you’re familiar with, which is used in a colloquial sense and is more accurately termed “psychological projection.” You do this when you have undesirable feelings that, rather than resolve, you attribute to—you project onto—another person. This is not the lesson. That is a false resolution. What I’m trying to show you is an act of augury or forecasting. By construing that which is only barely definite, I’ve taken the other group’s interpersonal relationships as an empty vessel with which I represent my own ideas.
Does that make sense? Projection and creation are the same. Nothing is definite. By an act of faith, through projection, we create. Do you understand?