Tranquility and Laughter
The O’Connell house is ancient and haunted. It smells like whatever your grandparents’ house smells like. Cobwebs have collected on the ceilings and who knows what lurks in the shadows of its most neglected rooms. Its floorboards are loose and creak when you step on them, and the house is nearly always dead silent during the day. Any one of these reasons may be why many fellow freshmen living on upper campus avoid this commonplace.
No Boston College tour guide will bring you to the O’Connell House. Thinking that I was being sarcastic, my hallmate laughed when I told her it was one of my favorite spots on campus. Seldom are the students that would rave about this place, but I am one of them. Because to me, the spookiness that others find repelling, I find alluring. It is the mystery of the mansion that first enticed me enough to explore it. The ancient, rundown and victorian features are endearing and all the more intriguing. The scars and blemishes it has, suggest that it holds a great deal of history. Not only am I curious about what has happened within these walls decades ago, I am also anxious to create my own stories in the house and leave my secrets in the foundation of the house with the others.
The portion of O’Connell house that is most commonly frequented is its dimly lit basement into which you enter through large side doors that look like they lead to a dungeon. It is the laundry room. But honestly, my first experience doing laundry there was a good one. It was my roommate and I figuring out the system in which the dryers worked. The laundry detergent smelled like adulthood. The hum of the machines sounded like the wheels of time turning and all of us teenagers growing. Watching all these people of my own age perform a task I had just recently learned made me feel like I had abandoned my childhood. But sillily, I felt proud to be carrying out this simple chore because I felt older, wiser and more independent. The O’Connell house has managed to create personal meaning out of an ordinary laundry room. In many aspects it has opened my eyes.
I am in this house alone just as much as I am there with others, yet I still see it in the exact same light regardless of the company. This ancient house across the way from my dorm room is space with the constant potential to provide me with a new experience. Somehow, it entertains my desire for introspection and peace as much as my desire for amusement and social interaction.
A couple hundred feet from the entrance of Fenwick Hall, the O’Connell house steals me away. I abandon my plans of studying in my room. Upon entering, the echoes that travel through the halls of building at 4 in the afternoon are from my very own footsteps. Every move I make creates a seemingly booming noise that breaks the silence of the still house. The front doors shut behind me and the crash of its close shakes the walls. My eardrums are shattered by the creak of the floorboards below me and the screech of the tall wooden doors as they open into the piano room. The echoes of each noise are comforting, reminding me I am completely alone and free to what I wish to do. Plastered on the doors to the piano room are smudged mirrors, like they suggest that the room inspires self-reflection.
I sit at the piano and press a key that sounds clear and powerful. The consecutive key sounds dull and weak. Have previous players worn this note out and exhausted its voice? At first, my singing is quiet under the notes of the piano for fear of disturbing a student hard at work upstairs. When I am reminded of my solitude, I do not hold back and I let every ounce of sound out of my chest when I reach the climax of the song. The tall ceilings of the room complement my voice so nicely and somehow the acoustics obliterate any imperfections in the notes I belt. I think a lot about the way sound waves travel in this space. The mansion is vast but it is empty and still, so I know my voice feeds easily up through the ceiling and into the smaller rooms upstairs.
My eyes are free to explore the corners of the room as I absent-mindedly tickle the keys. So much of what I see makes me question the history of this room. The white borders that decorate the corners of the room are ornately sculpted designs that remind me of the Victorian age. There is a large dark painting with a gold frame hanging depicting a religious scene. It is like traveling back in time. I am sitting in the music room of an ancient French palace. I know the mansion is old, from the scratches scarring the floors, the faded dinginess of the mirrors and the charred fireplace. But its Victorian design leads me to believe I’ve traveled back centuries. Features that always catch my eye and make me chuckle are the cryptic messages people have left scattered around the room. I examine the carving in the piano music stand and wonder what in the world “ToVS” and “ToLis” could mean. On the glass of the grand mirror above the fireplace, I see the word “you” scribed in red marker while the rest is smudged and illegible. There is a square drawn in the fireplace at the base of the chimney and a note for santa: “Exit Here.” I am puzzled by these mysteries, but somehow I accept the fact that I will never know the stories behind them. It is part of the room’s charisma.
As much as I scan the room while I play, my eyes are most often glued to the glass to my left. Seven tall windows circle the piano. They expose the highly-trafficked road that leads to each dorm building. The street is constantly littered with my classmates trekking up to their rooms or rushing down to the main campus. I find the placement of the windows such a thoughtful design, because not only does it provide me a theatrical show to fix my eyes on, but it also provides me a link to those around me. I have chosen my isolation from others to clear my head and enjoy my own company, but I also enjoy maintaining a connection with the happenings of the outside world. These windows are the key to this one-way interaction with my peers. Seeing floods of students passing by as I sit alone makes me feel that I am still involved in the circuit of student life that runs on no end. But what I like most about this connection, is that to them, it is unknown. At the piano, I am at a seat of power. I am hidden from the passerby-ers; I am a silent observer. With their eyes glued to the ground, or their attention fully captured by conversation with companions, it is rare that they look up in my direction. They are engrossed in their own busy lives and pass by my looking glass, oblivious to my gaze. It is like a one-way mirror, and I have no shame in staring down the stream of various students below me. I am able to play any particular tune to fit their walks. It is as if I’ve created a music video and these passing figures are my unknowing stars. When I catch a glimpse of three of my closest friends engaging in lively conversation, they suddenly look so foreign to me. My solitude and the glass shielding me from them has created this distance between us. They look like strangers to me because they pass, wrapped up in their personal world, so much so that I go unseen. But again, I don’t mind taking a break from constant social interaction, because right now my company is my thoughts, my observations and my music. In this moment, it is all to myself and I don’t wish to share it. Besides, I know that those strangers passing me by will once again become my best friends tonight, when we find ourselves all together on the same side of the glass, harmonizing in the same space in which I earlier sat alone.
Beside my four closest friends, I take advantage once more of the wonderful acoustics of the O’Connell house piano room, but my voice now is complemented by the harmonies my friends have brought. My friend from Ireland has taken a seat at the piano and revealed to us her talents. Stunned by how hauntingly beautiful her playing was, I realize that were it not for the presence of the piano, I never would have discovered her angelic voice and the songs we could sing together in the future. We rotate the piano player and next up was my musically-inclined drummer friend who somehow managed to pick out an entire piece by ear due to his experience with the xylophone. I got to know my friends better and discovered remarkable details of their identities.
A shy boy one night wanders in and asks my friends and I if there is another piano in the building. But I offer up my seat to him. He plays around with the keys and produces a beautiful piece that he had memorized. I discover we share the same fascination with the piano but we both have never taken formal lessons. He plays us the rest of the songs in his repertoire and I listen in admiration. The piano is a mutual friend of all musicians that invites them to come and reveal their talents. Its familiar and comforting shape give people the courage to sit down and expose their love for music. The mere fact that we sit in the piano room is enough proof that we all share this passion.
So many connections have been proven to form this way, through music. On my second night at Boston College, my friends and I were playing a game of pool when suddenly the prominent chords of a familiar song begin to feed through the thin walls of the game room. With no hesitation, I grab my friend by the hand and follow the sound of the piano into the adjacent room. We plow through giant wooden doors and while belting out the lyrics to the song, we barge in on the complete strangers who were circled around the piano. But with smiles on all of our faces, we proceed to finish the song before we formally introduce ourselves. The songs we sang together obliterated any small talk usually needed in order to make friends. The spontaneity of the moment gave me a thrill and brought me an overwhelming sense of faith that the next four years at this school would bring me exactly what I wanted. I connected with strangers through a couple of songs on the piano one random Saturday night before classes had even begun.
Weeks later, my roommate and I dance around the room like maniacs as we sing with the others. The windows at night have created our reflections in the glass that block our view of who passes by outside. Instead, the mirrors that are surrounding us all around, displaying our reflections, make me feel that I am amidst even more people. It has given me an illusion of extra company.
In contrast to during the day when I am able to hide from the outsiders, at night, the piano room becomes a fishbowl into which anyone can peer. It often draws the attention of those who walk by it, as its warm lights illuminate the area and the seven large windows expose its every inch. But in this case, it invites these spectators on the street to actually come in and join us. Any one of our acquaintances can peer in and find us there. With burning desire to be a part of the social hour, they will be drawn to the O’Connell doors and soon they sing along. Many times this has occurred and hopefully one day our show we put on in the windows will invite a stranger in for us to meet, so we can grow this wild group of music enthusiasts.
If you look at the building as a haunted house, then great; take advantage of its spooky essence around Halloween. Muster up the courage to enter on Friday the thirteenth and explore its dark depths and experience the thrill of fear coursing through your blood. Take the strange victorian design and envision an 18th century-themed ball being held in its large common room. Transform the great big balconies on the second floor into a spectator area, looking down on any event that could be held in the main hall: improv shows, intense professional table tennis tournaments, or acapella riff offs. Every corner of the house holds potential. Any room can develop meaning to you if you drown out the skeptical opinions of others and give the house a chance, even the laundry room or the funny-smelling green house-type rooms that look out onto the secret garden or overgrown bushes and overpowering vines, where you can be one with the squirrels that jump on the windowsills and shake the walls as they jump to their trees. Its flaws can be morphed into perks. Its curious design can turn into appeal. While personally, it has provided me a silent haven and a breeding ground for forming friendships, the O’Connell house has the promise to arrange any experience you wish to receive. For me, it has delivered.
Nina Giulianini 