Find Your Sugar
Pineapple upside down cake. If I could describe my college experience so far, it would be pineapple upside down cake. Now maybe I am just really hungry while writing this, but I think it reflects how I’ve been feeling quite wonderfully. For the past year, UC Berkeley was all I dreamt about. It was why I stayed up late studying every night and what got me up early in the morning. It was what kept me motivated even when it felt like the weight of the world was going to crush me. It was sweet. When I got in and first moved here it felt like everything had paid off. All those hours spent studying and struggling was finally worth it. The best reward. A bite of cake.
However, after about a week, that cake got completely flipped upside down. For a whole year, my life revolved around getting into Berkeley, and while it’s an amazing school, I quite frankly have not liked it as much as I thought I would. Moving from a small, sparsely populated town where I’m surrounded by the cozy suburbs and miles and miles of fields to a bustling city with 46,000 kids on the campus alone is quite the jump. My apartment building even has more kids than the amount that was in my high school! It been an adjustment to say the least: one I’m not very fond of yet. The move was like a sour pineapple, where it’s far too acidic and makes your stomach queasy. It's clear someone forgot to add the sugar in this recipe.
For me, the sugar is music.
Music has always been my savior in times of need, but for me, the sweetest sugar is music that brings me back home. Back to the endless fields that line the backroads of my town. Back to riding shotgun in my dad's car as we scream the lyrics a little too loud. Back to baking with my mom as she sings the words a little off-key, but with the sweetest voice all the same. Back to sticking my head out the window, feeling the salty wind blow through my hair and the sun kiss my face as my friends and I drove to the beach. Back to shenanigans with my old coworkers that drove my boss crazy. It’s incredible how a single piece of art can take you back to such vivid memories.
Walking around Berkeley is…overwhelming. I walk past thousands and thousands of kids most days. Hell, some of my lectures have more kids than were in my senior class. It’s suffocating. When I can finally get shelter from all the busyness, I try to find a quiet space that has some view of nature. Once, I grabbed my trusty lifeline, Spotify, and pressed play on “Harvest Moon” by Neil Young. As I stared out at the trees by the Undergraduate Academic Building, suddenly it was senior year again. I was no longer at Berkeley, but had been transported to a dear ,distant memory. I was driving down the backroads of my hometown with all my windows down. It was nighttime, and the stars shone brighter on this side of town. The cold breeze kissed my face and ran its fingers through my hair. I smelled the familiar smell of horses, eucalyptus, and dirt. I felt at peace.
Though the campus is so incredibly large and busy, I often feel rather lonely. Instead of walking beside my two best friends, as I did every day at home, I often walk to class alone. My once very real, lively friends have been replaced by speech bubbles on a screen. Reaching once more for the sugary sweetness of Spotify, I press play on “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” by Bob Dylan. As the familiar guitar strings ripple through my headphones, I suddenly am back with my two best friends as we drive around Santa Barbara. It was summer and my friend had just moved an hour south of our hometown, and we were finally visiting her. The sun was bright as it beat down into my 2008 Honda Civic that smelt like sand and surf wax. We all put our hands up and screamed “Sing it to me, Bobby!” as the car was filled with giggling girls on their way to the beach.
Sometimes it hits me when I’m in my room staring at the walls, still so unfamiliar. No seashells that line every surface, no floral bedding that had rips all over it from my cat, no smell of wood, leather, and vanilla. Most importantly, no mom to just randomly barge in to see how my day went. This time I played “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac, my mom’s favorite song. I began to cry a little as I remembered her singing it while she cleaned around the house. Little did I realize, listening to her sing, how much I would relate to this song one day. “I’ve been afraid of changing because I built my life around you.” That line used to make me think of a breakup, but now it reminds me of home. I did not realize how much I would miss my little hometown until I came here. All the places and people I had built my life around are hours away from me. Slipped away like a landslide.
It's these songs, amongst many others, that bring me back to those moments for a few minutes. With the press of a button I’m home. I’m comfortable. I’m safe. So while I'm still not technically home and my cake remains upside down with some bitter pineapple, at least I can open Spotify and add some sugar into the mix.
Article by Madison Paramore