altissimus, 1994-2001

i know who you are.

really? how?

i used to pour over those pages...i mean i could probably recite the words- i can see your picture right now. youre wearing a hood and looking to the side and carrying a big book and someone has their hand on your head. oh its nothing personal, i could with any of you.

i was in 5th grade when he graduated, and i wasnt even at altamont yet. but i managed to get the yearbook from the year before i came, and i memorized the senior's pages. they got a full one each, since there were less than 30 of them, with a few pictures and whatever quotations they wanted on it. they were the most unattainable, the coolest, the most essential faces i had ever seen. i was terrified by them, and by who would be the next seniors and then the next. i would never be a senior, i decided, regretfully, and even if i did eventually reach my senior year, my face would never be as timeless as these, my legacy wouldnt be as potent. it was the first time i felt a sentiment that would stay with me for the rest of my life- the realization that you are a bystander, you are simply watching, and though others may be watching you, theres no way to ever, ever feel anything but. i knew, even then, that these seniors had no idea how untouchably cool they were, and that one day,
some skinny girl with braces and bangs might look at my senior page in envy, in awe, in respect. but i couldnt imagine them being that way- i couldnt imagine them staring at a strangers face for so long they begin to look familiar, i couldnt imagine them questioning their own coolness, or trying to conjure it from some immature place of need, of want. and i as i began to get older and "the seniors" (the seniors from my 1st year in altamont, when i was in 6th grade) moved on to college, even graduated, and "the sophomores" (the ones who graduated when i was in 8th) were even already in college, i started thinking, its all a matter of perspective. before its all over, we all get to be skinny with braces, and we all get to be immortalized in the senior pages. and maybe we are as cool as they were, though we wore no flannel and there were only a few solid supporters of thrift store shirts,we didnt plan on quoting REM or the Pixies, we didnt have parties where sarah featheringil
l broke the chandalier at scooter's house because she stood on the dining room table as the cops walked in the door. maybe, i decided as i approached the age when i had to start thinking of my senior page, my college plans, when i was forced to start reflecting on my seven years at altamont, on my imprint in the school that had become, quite literally, a home, that we were just making our own standard. we were just re-setting the bar for the younger kids to dream of reaching. we weren't the same as the seniors before us- but we werent supposed to be. i graduated with this feeling, this sneaking suspicion that its just the way of life, that its all flowing in the same direction, that its inevitable for people to leave and new ones to take their place.

tonight i looked through the old yearbooks, the ones that hoodie and i dove into almost every day, sitting on my blue futon with "mermaids" on in the background, scrutinizing every photograph, every quotation. and i realized, four years after graduating, that what i secretly thought was true about us getting our turn at being "the seniors," isnt actually true. it isnt true at all. they are still, and will always be, infinitely, inescapably, and inexplicably cooler than us. than we ever were or ever will be, no matter who's perspective its coming from.

i guess, though, that its still hard to tell- the only perspective i will ever be able to understand is that of a skinny girl with braces, terrified of being in the same tiled halls as sarah featheringill.