In the spirit of John Green’s book of the same title, our theme for the month of October is “the Anthropocene reviewed.” Writers were asked to review and rate some facet of human experience on a five-star scale.
For the most part, I didn’t enjoy college.
It was all fun and games to go to classes and debate with great spirit who Mary Garth from the novel Middlemarch should end up with (Team Fred forever). But after I left the camaraderie of my classes, I often found myself eating a burrito bowl alone or holed up in my room reading A Song of Ice and Fire. To me, college was a bittersweet scramble of intellectual stimulation and bone-chilling loneliness.
Until my senior year, when I unwittingly stumbled into a living situation that was lifegiving. Together we bought matching jerseys, we went dumpster-diving for kale, and we created an entire wall collage of people that inspired us. I remember going home for Thanksgiving break and saying to my family, “This is the first time I have been excited to go back to school after a break.”
My favorite photo that commemorates my time in that house is pictured above. I had never imagined the possibility of taking a photo of communal tooth brushing. There is something a bit repulsive for many at the idea of the germs found in the human mouth as well as the act of spitting out toothpaste. But there is an aspect of vulnerability in that grossness as well.
For the most part, humans tend to brush their teeth only with family members. It’s a ritual that comes after a social function, in the confines of your home. There are rare exceptions to the rule, such as sleepovers with your best friend and summer camp. But once one crosses the threshold into adulthood, opportunities for communal teeth-brushing grow sparse.
The thing about teeth-brushing is it is nearly impossible to be performative while doing so. Many human activities are tainted by the person who is trying to seem particularly witty or noticeably attractive. Such performance always subtracts from the potential for genuine connection.
But teeth-brushing? Nearly impossible. People instead almost go into autopilot. That involves anything from singing a song in their head to measure the length of the tooth-brushing to holding their toothbrush in both hands to allow for a more assertive brush. No one looks particularly cute. Except in the way that raw humanity is cute.
You can try to have a conversation. But because of the inevitably garbled speech, the conversation becomes disjointed and often leads to more laughter than actual substance. Instead, you are left to mostly stand and enjoy each other’s company.
The sense of community that I had longed for all those hours studying alone in the Hekman Library, was suddenly breathed into life in this ugly pink bathroom. With toothpaste dribbling down our chins and elbows knocking together, we were able to enjoy the messy reality of human connection.
No performance. No personal space. A need for clear communication to delineate the order for spewing out toothpaste.
In the years that have followed, I have often tried to convince my friends to brush their teeth with me as the night’s events come to a close. And my tiny New Jersey bathroom has a growing collection of photographs to commemorate the success stories.
All in all, I give communal tooth brushing five stars.
Susannah currently lives in New Jersey and works as a 7th grade ELA teacher in East Harlem. When she is not teaching or writing, she can be found exploring independent bookstores, going backpacking, and trying to roller-skate on all the cool trails in the city. She is also recently experienced in the art of citrus skunk repellent (I know you’re impressed).
