18 years ago I met a girl in the college dormitory. Her name is Sezgi. I loved her because she was just so exotic to me, a small town girl who just finished 6-year of Catholic high school. Her hair wild and her big round eyes were vivid green. She was like a butterfly; with her bag full of notebooks and textbooks, she flashed her smiles and flitted from table to table to chat with friends in the cafeteria. I was very jealous. It was the first time I left home to live in a big city in a foreign country. I was shy. I could not speak English. I looked at her talking to everyone and energetic smile at ease and wished I could be like her.
We lived next door on the 8th floor in the dormitory. Each one of us lived in a double room but since our roommate either never moved in or moved out early, we simply enjoyed our single living status and enjoyed our companionship from a distance. On the other side of my room lived a girl who went to Columbia College, a famous art school in Chicago. Her name is Jolyn. She always had big smiles and was always friendly to foreign students. She collected the phrase "You are crazy, I love you" in different languages and greeted me with that phrase in Mandarin each time she saw me. She was pretty 'clean' compared to other art students in the dormitory. Tidy hair and clean clothes, but sometimes she would sport a rotten apple as her necklace. However friendly she was to us, she never invited us to her room. Her room remained mysterious to us until one morning, she forgot to close her door behind her, I peeked into her room. OMG! There was no, zero, nada space on the floor in her room that was not covered by stuff; books, drawings, garbage. The only place that was clean was her bed. Very girlish. Very tidy. But the rest of the room...I cannot believe someone can live in it!!!
Every night after dinner and study, Sezgi, Jolyn, and I met on the hallway. Sat on the floor and just chatted about anything. Three 19 years old girls became friends.
One evening, Sezgi suggested that we went running. It was a beautiful July night. The full moon was high in the sky. We ran along Lake Michigan and saw our reflections on the water. We ran from the Buckingham Foundation, passed the lakefront, and headed to the lighthouse near Navy Pier. We looked the lighthouse and decided that the lighthouse should be our destination. We walked carefully on the narrow path leading to the lighthouse and tried not to be blown over and fell into the Lake. The whole Chicago was in front of us. The skyline, the lights, and the darkness... We enjoyed the serenity around us. Then I told them that in Chinese culture, we often prayed and talked to the moon, especially a full moon. So we put our hands together telling the moon our secrets.
We walked back to our dorm rooms in silence. We said good night to each other and went to bed with our sweetest dreams.
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