A sponge, my AP English Language & Composition teacher described me in my letter of recommendation. Evy is a sponge, just so eager to learn and absorb all sorts of knowledge.

As an anxious individual who did not break through the stereotype of the quiet Asian kid, who admired those who spoke up but did not trust herself to possess enough knowledge to contribute to discussions, this certainly did not feel like the most directly positive compliment. I couldn’t imagine many people would enjoy being compared to sponges. With this awareness of how she perceived me, I re-evaluated all of my actions from a sponge-like lens.

Communicating between club members, being a conduit for knowledge rather than a knowledge contributor themselves, Sponge. 

Reading books, consuming media, Sponge.

Absorbing neighboring conversations, noting what people are wearing, Sponge.

A soft and open-minded person, Sponge.

Perhaps the habit can be traced back to a sandbox childhood, where my hours could be occupied spectating ants spilling out of domes punctured several times over by destructive curiosity. And the next day, squatting to inspect its aftermath, or lack thereof — a seamless bandage indistinguishable from the rest of the grainy complex.

A simultaneous source of awe and disgust the anthills brought – awe for its regenerative properties, its impressive urban density and disgust for its triggering of trypophobia. A safe twig-length away, I squinted at the granule composition, the fine, porous weaving of black specks and clear silica, tapped the top to observe its structural integrity. I brushed it iteratively to see how far I could pare Wall before I hit Ant.

Other days, I’d feel the morning dew on our grass, watch crystalline spheres merge into rivulets traveling down verdant blades. Or I’d prod the ground in our yard with the pole of a broken shovel, creating dirt clouds. I wish I could say early case studies in my backyard inspired me to be a myrmecologist, biologist, or some sort of natural scientist. Frankly, I did not know those professions existed, and instead, my knowledge of anthills, like most other knowledge, stops at blunt qualitative observations.

Perhaps even that was too intellectual of an example to start off with, and a better one would be the hours spent Ripstik-ing up and down the driveway, carving S’s through the wind with the wheels jolting on the concrete seams as my only indication of time’s passing. Or the ungodly amount of time I spent on our back porch staring into the thickets of forest and attuning my ears to hear different bird chirps. Or sitting in the glass office room during autumn thunderstorms, relishing the concept of protection amidst a turbulent natural reset.

Such passive learning rather than inquiry drove my awareness of the world. All other intake of information, books, videos, school content, I similarly memorized or observed with no contest of thought, believing the world to be an objective truth collected through whatever bits and pieces I was given. In the liminal state of non-commitment to a topic of study and lack of self-pioneering, perhaps what I am saying is I lack a visualization of belonging. I can not imagine my parents talking about their ant scientist daughter. Or someone exceptionally good at any of the extracurriculars that I more or less quit: piano, tap, ballet, swim team, math team, and tennis.

Or perhaps what I am saying can be best demonstrated by the Tybee shoreline, a sight that can keep me occupied for hours in its magnetism of rumination, when the water laps at your toes, pulling a veil over your tracks. Confronted with air lashing against your face, the outstretched sky, and no history to trace back to, there is an infinitude of directions to advance and an equal appeal to stay stationary.

I could fool myself by saying I philosophize at the beach and mull over alternative lives, consider our purpose as humans more than to bask in the immensity of nothingness. But sometimes I do fool myself, and stirred by the dark, mysterious oceanic force dictating the magnitudes of pushing and pulling, I am endowed with an inactionable type of agency, an artificial motivation that almost always dissolves steadily once I am back in the car. But before that, I hold on for as long as I can to the Yes, I will call that person to check in. Yes I will finally read this, learn this, achieve this, dream big. Yes, I will go on more adventures.

Or on the west coast, a new home, the waves knocking their heads against the crags, a type of conscious forgetting.