Mixtape Blitz

Okay so obviously I mean mix CDs not mixtapes, because it's (unfortunately) not 1997 anymore. Mixtape sounded better as a title. Why am I explaining this?

A few days ago my car iPhone connecter player thing stopped charging my iPhone while it plays music. This is a totally dumb development because it totally drains the battery and then I can't spend all day checking Twitter. So I decided to go super old school (besides the ultimate old school that is the radio) and play some old mix CDs I happen to still have in my 500 CD case thing I keep in my car JUST IN CASE! I am a big loser. The magic of this, though, is that most of the mixes in this case don't have any important details on them. Like, what's on them. Or when I made them. Some of them say "that mix I made for ____" and some of those have a date on them. One says "Casey and Jenn's Driving Mix" -- WHICH IS FULL OF GEMS, LET ME TELL YOU -- from the summer after 10th grade when Jenny got her license. One is a mix we made as a project in 10th grade English, where we had to make the soundtrack of if the book we read became a movie. Our group's book? Kafka's Metamorphosis. The tunes we chose are seriously priceless. Some of it's serious, like there's some Explosions in the Sky, some Clint Mansell. Then there's some BSB, some Linkin Park, some Britney. No jokes, you guys. Jake and Andy and I were probably the best 10th graders of all time. At least, I think we were. [Jill, please remind Jake of this incredible project, if you get a chance.]

Because I got so much joy out of these listening experiences, I'd like to walk you through some of the best discoveries. Some of them are silly, some of them are heartfelt. As usual, I suppose.

Classic. Fletcher, you'd better be doing hand motions right now.

Maybe I shouldn't have called. Was it too soon to tell? What the hell, it doesn't really matter. How do you redefine something that never really had a name? Has your opinion changed?

One of the CDs is like half of Jay-Z's Black Album with some other songs Jonathan and I loved thrown in. It is clearly a mix from when he and I went to Lou's on Saturday afternoons and picked out a CD we thought each other would like. [The first one he chose for me was Justin Timberlake's Justified. Genius.] What a weird tradition that was, but also totally rad.

I try to jump away from rot that keeps on spreading, for solace in the shift of the sinking sand. I'd rather feel the pain all too familiar than be broken by a lover I don't understand.

This was on our Metamorphosis project. Brilliant.

It's okay if you had to go away. Just remember that telephones, well, they work in both ways. But if I never, ever hear them ring, if nothing else, I'll think the bells inside it finally found your "someone else." And that's okay. 'Cause I'll remember everything you sang.

This might be Britney's worst song. Let me know if you think there's a worse one.

I was reading a book, or maybe it was a magazine. Suggestions on where to place faith; suggestions on what to believe. But I read somewhere that you've got to beware -- you can't believe everything you read. But the Good Book is good, and that's well understood, so don't even question, if you know what I mean.

Bobby + Matt

One of my college roommates married one of my college neighbors yesterday. It was a joyous occasion, mostly due to the mini-CLU reunion it functioned as. It was so so so good to see the faces of those boys again. Always sad to have to leave them again, though. But, such is life. Here are some sweet pics of how much fun we had:

The beautiful bride and groom making their grand entrance.

We were supposed to blow bubbles while they walked in, but we had some trouble. Looked cute doing it, though.

Bree and I shared some champagne while we waited for dinner.

All the CLU alumni in attendance! You're welcome, CLU Magazine.

My life changed forever when these boys transferred to CLU. <3

Anyway, there are a zillion more pictures on the Facebook, but these are my favorites. Being at this wedding just increased my excitement for all the weddings of the rest of our friends, however far-off those may be, and for all the weddings coming up next summer! Don't you just love love?

I made an important new friend.

[I wrote this a few days ago, but didn't make time to post it. So, all mentions of time are in reference to Friday, July 22.]

Yesterday, I was on the third floor doing rounds when I ran into an old man by the nurses' station. He said, "I believe that I am lost," to which I responded, "Happens to me all the time. Where are you supposed to be?" He wasn't sure, said a room number which turned out to be wrong, but eventually we figured out where his wife was admitted. He was in the wrong tower (hospitals are like mazes) so I walked him across the skybridge to the right place. As we were walking, I asked about his wife. He said they'd been married 63 years -- quite an accomplishment. They were married in 1948, just after the war, he said. He told me their first house had been a tent. I laughed, assuming he was exaggerating. He smiled broadly and said, "No, no, I am meaning it." [English turned out to be his third language.] I asked why their first house was a tent, and he replied that the settlements in the new nation of Israel hadn't been built yet.

I was talking to my very own, real, live Holocaust survivor. I stammered something about that being amazing, and he just smiled that same, wide smile. At this time, we were at his wife's room, and his grandson and the nurse were there, so I just dropped him off, mentioning what an honor it was to meet him, and moseyed back over to the other tower.

I couldn't believe how lovely he was. I went back today to check on him and see if he would tell me his whole life story, basically. He was overjoyed to see me! It was glorious. He gave me a hug and thanked me for helping him find his way the day before. He claimed he was getting senile, but I told him it was just the complicated hospital layout. It took me about a week to realize there were two different towers, so, I'm pretty smart and stuff. I peeked in at his wife and asked how she was doing. He said she was doing okay, and that the hospital staff was so wonderful. He said that his main concern was that she not have any pain, and that was what they were doing, so he was very happy. He seemed content that his wife would die peacefully, and that that would be okay. He said, "she has been through much worse." I nodded, trying to comprehend what she'd probably been through before. He read my mind, and asked if he'd told me how they met.

He'd been at Buchenwald, she at Auschwitz. She hadn't immediately gone to Auschwitz, it seems. She'd been a teacher, and therefore spoke perfect German. This, combined with her blonde hair, had managed to keep her safe, though she'd met Dr. Josef Mengele on two separate occasions. Can you even imagine the terror of those encounters? He didn't suspect her of being a Jew, so she thought she was safe. A terrified neighbor eventually turned her in. She was at Auschwitz long enough to have those five identification numbers tattooed on her arm, but also long enough to be liberated. Her cousin was at Buchenwald, and had made a new friend. (I bet you can guess who.) He'd been separated from his family, and didn't know if they were alive or where they were, so he went home with his friend, her cousin. They met and fell in love.

A long life and beautiful romance that could so easily never have been. He told me that it was not a scary thing to die at this age (he's between 85 and 90, I'd guess) because they thought they were going to die when they were very young. Having lived through imprisonment and enslavement and all manners of horror in Nazi concentration camps, this death she is now dying probably seems light-years away from what death once meant. This (relatively) painless, quiet, dignified death seems like an entirely different concept than the deaths their friends and families had by gas chamber and by disease and starvation.

I took a class on Holocaust literature and film senior year of college. You may recall a post or two from that time; I don't even remember if I wrote any. It was a devastating semester. I came out of that class every Tuesday night heartbroken at the lives and losses of those people. I watched hours of film and read pages of memoirs and saw pictures of faces and bodies and so little hope. The people who made it out of the camps alive are the greatest manifestations of triumph of the human will that I can imagine.

I remember most from that class many words from Elie Weisel. He seems to be the most recognizable Holocaust survivor. He said at some point that the most important thing we must do in a post-Holocaust world is never let anyone forget that it happened. To never forget those who lived and died in a Holocaust world.

The piece of human history that I met today does not consider himself to be anything out of the ordinary. To him, he is just a man, sitting in a hospital as the love of his life slowly slips away. He says he is lucky to have made it out of Buchenwald, lucky to have met his wife, and lucky to be sitting here, telling it to me. He is a beautiful human being and I will never forget him.