Occasionally I find in myself the capacity to be a friendly, sociable human being, and today this happened as I was climbing up Oak Drive and met a man standing by the bridge carrying a large camera. I had seen him around before, so I stopped to ask if he was the person who took the viewbook and Scene pictures for Colgate, to which he responded that he did a lot of them, anyway. This began a long conversation about photography, Colgate, its scenery, the library and science building projects, reunion weekend, and so on. We said what a shame it was that so many nice trees had to be cut down because of construction, but that at least Colgate was pretty good about planting new ones. Then he pointed to the grove of flowering trees beside the creek that we were standing over. He explained that those trees are the class of '61 (?) grove, and that when a member of that class dies, they plant a new tree there. In all my time here, I never knew that. What an amazing idea. I wish the class of '05 would do that!

I feel like I ought to have something insightful or heartwarming to say about graduation, but I don't really, except that all over again I have this sense of time as being incredibly, terrifyingly erratic. When I scrolled to the bottom of my blog to click on the Blogger link to write this, I realized that all my Copan posts from January were still on the front page. For most of the semester -- in fact, for most of the year -- I've been wishing time away, convincing myself that I need to get out of here and that I can't stand this place anymore. It's not entirely untrue. I am tired of the college life. But for all my complaining it was utterly heartwrenching to realize it was over, which only hit me for real as I was processing in for the graduation ceremony and I looked over the top of the tent at the tops of the hills that have framed my life for four years. But I got a handle on myself and managed to stifle the dizzying sensation of time gone all wrong until the next day, when my roommates of three and four years drove off to Pittsburg and left me standing at '34 House, my still-unpacked stuff occupying just a small fraction of the blank, empty room that was our home for two years. I know that I will never again be as close to them as when we were living together, and their departure drove me into a panic. Much as I was ready to leave this place, I was far from ready to leave my friends.

But ironically enough, they have left, and I am still here at Colgate. After another month working on the library project I too will be gone. But until then I will haunt this town and be haunted by memories of people gone away: walks to Roger's, setting up sound gigs, driving to Walmart late at night, watching the Daily Show together. And maybe during that month time will right itself again and the fact that these things are memories instead of daily realities will seem okay and normal after all.

earlier -- later