May 28th, 2004 - 12:09 am
» ‘how did it go so fast you’ll say’
May 15, 2004
We sat in the dim cool of Baldwin Hall for what seemed like ages — over an hour, anyway — waiting for things to begin. Talking about the future mostly, connecting briefly with old friends, batting our tassels away from our faces. I thought of the first time I’d sat in that auditorium: August 13, 2000, my eighteenth birthday. I don’t remember any of the speech the university president made that day; my mind was with my parents and my sister, whom I’d just said goodbye to moments before, out on the walkway in front of Baldwin.
It took us another age to snake around the quad and around Kirk, past Science Hall and Pershing and finally down to the stadium where we shuffled in, passing through a double row of faculty half-unrecognizable in their big black robes and hats. Then we stood in front of our seats, turned to face the bleachers behind us, playing Where’s-Waldo with the crowd.
The weather had been fitful earlier in the week, and it had rained just the day before, but the sun was high and hot in a clear sky, and soon we were all getting nicely roasted in our black robes. The preamble was mercifully short, the reading of the names understandably long. Carl and I played rock-paper-scissors (and went through an eerie streak where we put down the same thing at least a dozen times in a row) and thumb-wrestled and had odd little wars with the silky ends of our honor cords.
When all was said and done we went back to the quad to pick up our diplomas, and we took pictures in front of Baldwin and in the odd bright dappling beneath a large oak. We ran into Kyle (above right) but missed Courtney and Kamiah.
By the time we finally started heading back to my apartment I was exhausted, sun-wilted and thirsty. The apartment was surreal those last few days, stripped down and echoing, our belongings slowly vanishing out into the cars. My walls were huge and unfamiliar, giant white swathes of space, and I’d been sleeping fitfully.
I’ll always remember lying on that awful purple couch, though, staring up at the ceiling and breathing in the warm spring air and thinking Goodbye, goodbye.
How did it go so fast
you’ll say
as we are looking back
and then we’ll understand
we held gold dust
in our hands