2006-08-25
the first day
I want to experience the first day of school again. There is that buzz, and you don't know if it is the omnipresent chattering (all conversation topics are ripe) or a brewing anticipation in your mind as thoughts swirl, filled with hope, expectations, and excitement. I remember slouching in the auditorium seats in Polson, Amy to my right and Lindsy on the left with Kara one seat over. We'd whisper and think and wonder what comes next. Cars are lining the high school here already. A part of me wants to return, if only to sense that anxiously wonderful feeling. In the movie You've got Mail, Tom Hanks tells Meg Ryan in the fall that if he knew her address, he would send her a bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils, yellow and crisply pointy and ready for paper.
As much as I love August, I have forgotten that September is on its way. It's so close. I love September. I love the leaves and the dryness of the air in the mild breeze. Keats has a line about it in To Autumn:
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind.
Yea.Maybe my thoughts of nature are an attempt to divert myself from facing what is going on. I'm just trying to feel what is real and here, even though both of those traits may become irrelevant soon enough. Thinking of the weather, the air, the sky, it gives me some comfort. It's not necessarily an escape. It's not keeping me from realizing that my best friend is going to China, or that Julian's probably in Connecticut by now.
I've already started naturally thinking of little remarks I want to say to him about things I see, little inane comments that are too frivolous yet special to share with anyone else. I think I've always just subconsiously pocketed those thoughts. It will be, like everything, an adjustment.
I'm not afraid of a void. I'm not even afraid of having to search for self-contentment like blindly feeling for something in a dark room. I am not sure what I fear at this time, but there has to be something. I can only be so excited. I can only have so much eagerness for some vague, blurry image that is hard to grasp from this many miles away. I don't question myself. I hope that I just leave everything okay.
The goodbyes have felt unnatural. They are scheduled, and I don't know what to say. I want to express how I feel about them- just to make sure that they really do know- but it seems like I can't do it without being wrongfully cheesy or out of place. Nobody seems to need to hear anything from me, and I wouldn't know how to word it anyway. They would sound like empty statements, those compliments that you just mindlessly respond to with a "thanks."
Don't tell me I'm overthinking this.
It means a lot to me.
Plus I still have the autumn thing on my mind anyway....
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue....
I hope I do get to see Petie more. I want to bask in her, it's been a while. I want a Petie tan. And I want to talk to Lizz (Louise) more about her new life. I want Katy to have the awesomest time, and for Adam to smile lots. I really do. I wish for Tabby to collect more interesting people, for Eric to keep evolving. I want Michael to learn so damn much in his classes and just get even smarter, for Dan and Jarrett to open themselves to everything that's there for them; for Vinnie to find a home there, for Amelia to enjoy her place and Ben to laugh in joy under Willamette's star trees. I want to think about Julian's bliss-infusing sagacity. I'll delve into his final statement, about what it means to be on a cliff on the verge of so much with all that promise, and to appreciate the beauty of it all. These people are so much beyond their names or any flimsy statments I could give to them. And still, once again, I am left only to evoke through words that are not my own, but I adopt them earnestly.
Though much is taken, much abides;
and though we are not now that strength
which in old days moved earth and heaven,
that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate,
but strong in will.
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield!
Everyone has something new and unknown becoming of them, in one way or another. And in sense, that peculiar feel of the first day-- that tickling stream of potential-- feathers upon us all. The anxious buzz is there. It's just metaphorical volume levels and stuff that is different this time.
As for me, I have another week before I meet my fate (haha, why do I talk like this sometimes? It's funny). I'll work on my tan. I'll read. You'll find me outside (and I really wish you would seek me, but you're probably already too busy with your future and such important school things) welcoming in the September. And if I'm not there, you just might want to check the halls of the high school. Haha, right.
leesah-likes at 6:06 p.m.