Chalk Full of Thick Description

Tuesday February 10th
2:15pm

I'm sitting in Spaights Plaza on the steps of the elevated "stage" area and looking across the white and gray concrete. All noticeable traces of our Sunday chalking are erased from the memory of the landscape and I wonder what effects it had, and what effects it will continue to have. There is some light chalk visible to the one side but it isn't legible. But that means it is still there in ways we might not know.... The landscape, its conditions, are still altered in a sense. In an e-mail to Mike and Shereen earlier I wondered if the rain washed the chalk away completely or if the physical plant crews were instructed to clean it?

Its already difficult to ignore the wind. The pages of my notebook are blowing back as I write and I keep adjusting my hat so it doesn't blow away from me. Despite the wind the sun is out and particularly bright and warm for a Wisconsin February. The warmth has drawn students out of the surrounding buildings and into the plaza.

I count about 16 students, all "traditional"-aged (whatever that means) and about 5-10 walking through at any given time. I see another woman sitting across the plaza writing in a notebook. Others around me smoke cigarettes and chat.

What I notice about this plaza is the ways in which it is surrounded like some sort of strange fortress. Bricks and administrative buildings. The Union. Peck School of the Arts. Is the plaza surrounded to keep people in or out or both?

I see a sign/banner in the union window that reads: "Christians on Campus." It's mocking me...and I laugh as I write that. I do wonder if they watched us chalk from up there in that window. The giant blue cross.

I smell smoke and want a cigarette. In September it will be 2 years since I quit but I remember the strange community of smokers around the union. Most of my time in Spaights plaza as a graduate student was either spent smoking or moving through quickly. The guy next to me asks the guy next to him for a cigarette.

Pools of water are scattered around a couple of drains, small piles of snow are still collected around the edges of the walkways and sides of the union.

Another man sits on the bench across from me writing in a notebook. I wonder if he wonders what I'm writing as I wonder what he's writing.

The concrete is overwhelming. It gives the plaza a very inorganic feeling, like nothing new will grow there. Sterile. Cleanliness. Easy-cleaning. sweep it up quickly, move along. no mess in this plaza. The administration likes their plaza neat and clean. These thoughts linger as I consider (what I perceive to be) the organic nature of writing. This contradiction pleases me in a way because complication and struggle seem to be important to this project.

What do the different shapes of these buildings tell me about this space?

The wind is still strong and because my thoughts are now on architecture I wonder if it is designed to funnel the wind through this space, like flushing people out and through, pushing students through, making them uncomfortable. Move along. I'm cold and I'm finished for today.