Oswego

March 26, 2002

On the cusp

College of Charleston
May 26, noon

It’s noon on a beautiful spring day at the college. My lunch hour. Time to escape to this tranquil garden full of azalieas and wisteria in bloom.

It’s also at this time of year, and especially when I am on campus, that I am transported back in time and memory to this month in the spring of 1973. I was on the cusp of big and dramatic changes. One month to go until graduation from college, one month until the floodgates opened and released the pent-up need to be free from years of study, tests, papers, and unending self-motivation and discipline.

For me, that ‘s what it took.

I would lie in my beat-up old bed in the little one-bedroom apartment on Wisteria Street in the Gentilly section of New Orleans, letting the wind be sucked into the room by the big window fan down the hall in the kitchen. The curtains would flutter in the breeze. Dreaming, planning, wondering. What would the future hold? The threshold of adulthood loomed. I was 22, and everything about each day in some way hinted at, pointed toward, and even cried out, “FREEDOM JUST AHEAD.”

I got to thinking about all this again last week after talking to a senior at the college. He was finishing his last courses, graduating in May. Ah, sweet relief. I could see the anticipation written on his face. But he had chosen, unwisely, an elective that he was not prepared for and which had required research that led him down all kinds of dead ends. Thus, there was that look of great intensity and anxiety. I couldn’t help but notice it Nothing would get in his way. This course, too, would pass. The goal was so close.

For a few minutes I almost wished I could reclaim those feelings again. I wish I could have years and years ahead of me to do anything I wanted in life. It is when you look into the eyes of someone that young that you see the young person you once were.

Yes, of course, I am much older and wiser now than I was 30 years ago, and I have fought hard for that wisdom, for whatever sense of peace and security I now have. But in spring, on a college campus, I cannot help but be young again for a little while, to remember the ecstatic sense of possibility that comes with freedom. To look up into a warm March sky with birds singing and flowers blooming and realize, that, yes, I am not so different from that youth about to graduate. Each day I can close the door on the past and enter a new world for the first time. The world of the future. I feel like I’m doing it now.

The springtime of life, once again.

Shi

March 27, 2002

This one made me sigh, thinking back, yet smiling all the while.

Edelweis

March 28, 2002

How strange, many among us must have similar recollections at this time of year. I can relate so much to what you are telling here. Sigh!! Only a few days ago I sat in the backyard, close to the magnolia. Looking at its bright georgious pink dress I smiled, and the magnolia smiled back at me…the brid’s choir in the background made me suddenly see myself, as in a film, at this time of the year…

sitting on a bench under the pink cherish-blossom in the wonderful spring-garden at the conservatory. A few months later I would graduate, and I too was dreaming and wondering about the future. Very special feelings which I felt now again, almost in the same way. It’s only our bodies that grow old, in spirit I think we still are the young ones from long ago! Beautiful entry my friend, Take c

Hmm…why is the last word not there??? It was when I posted this note! So,…again, take care!

Freewind

Yes, it is so very true, Oswego! From the past we must go forward, no matter what age but life is constantly renewing itself, especially in spring. There are new challenges, new sights, and new dreams always waiting just as new grass, new blooms, and trees that are never twice the same. Each season is totally its own one season. We are lucky to have many, many seasons.

zhnee

I can’t help but to come reawakened in Spring. It has an energy that beckons me to be a part of it. I can’t do Spring without planting something. :o) Here it is still cool. Rains brought crisp air and tried to push away Spring. Though still cold, I see the pear and peach trees budding – Spring is not far. I’ve been closed up all week with Powerpoint – I know how that young man must feel.

That is a feeling that wraps me up also. If I am on a campus or driving past one during the spring, I feel just a bit of that release. The feeling of being free!

Sago

To go back and feel that and move forward from there would mean I’d give up what I’d had since…so not for me to linger long in this kind of reverie. I feel grown up and beyond, and satisfied at 60. I do cry with joy and regret when I see babies being born with their lives before THEM, tho…not so different from this after all. Life can be sweet, even another’s life.

HarpHill

March 29, 2002

May 26, noon, recalling 30 years… if I had my live to live over, I’d do it all over the same…. memories are great companions between sunset and sunrise. Thank you for sharing.

GeekPoet

i wonder how i’ll feel, looking back on college days. i never felt “freedom is just ahead” tho. i always felt “you’re wasting time, decide what to do now”

Christ, and I pine for the boy-man I was five years ago. In thirty years. . .I think I’ll be wise to some degree, but I can’t help feeling I might be drowning in something else. Bah. I don’t know what I’m saying. This is just the impression made upon me by your entry. Not that I didn’t enjoy it. . . . Take care of you.

ryn: Clean hands and no perspiration…where’s the fun in that? :o) This weekend I hope to get to the dahlias and crepe myrtles. I’ll send a pic.

March 30, 2002

Oswego, thank you for the beautiful and moving note!!! You are a very special and wonderful person, my friend!! You give so much to all of us…at times, I really wonder if you know that? You bless us all with the beauty that comes from within you and I hope you are never ever sad or really alone! Your friend always,

HAPPYEASTER!!

Doodlebug

April 2, 2002

Although this entry is about spring, I heard the Song “Summer Breeze” in the background of my reading after the lovely description of the fan and the wind through the window. I’d love to take a big swig out of that bottle I drank from in youth, too. 🙂

I graduated from college in 1968 and was also once dreamy eyed about the long future ahead of me. Wish I knew then what I know now, but I guess certain kinds of wisdom comes only with age.

Always spring….always somehow, always always spring.

yes… you have captured the sense exactly. Why do i let so much time pass between reading here?

forever in motion

April 6, 2002

I read this before, but I see I didn’t leave a note. I often come back and read your entries over and over and over. Just thought I’d let you know 🙂 xxoo,