Today of all days

Hats. Hoods. Stiff shirts. Scrubbed faces. A mock ‘document’ made from a piece of plain paper tied with red ribbon. Freshly washed hair. Shined shoes. Fussing. Itineraries. Grandparents, siblings, parents, Significant Others. Hoods that fall down your back until the neck-piece threatens to garrot you. Split parents reunited for the day and grinning and bearing it gracefully. Split parents reunited for the day and spitting at each other in between smiling for photos.

Today the photo opportunity is king (or queen). “Smile!” Today the most common sight is a group of three: father and mother with chests puffed out with pride. Father ill at ease in unfamiliar suit, mother in ill-fitting Marks and Spencers ensemble. Today if you want a table to eat out, you’d better be famous. Either that or be prepared to eat at 4pm. Today what seems like hundreds of secretaries have been promoted to be the Fashion Police, and are tip-toeing amongst crowds of people in their cardigans and their court shoes, wringing their hands at an uneven collar, or – heavens! – a girl who is wearing no tights.

Today is graduation day.

I remember mine last year. The memory has been changed somewhat by a beautiful set of pictures that my mother took, which I look through so often that they are threatening to take over the reality of what I actually remember. But bits of it are quite clear. The way that the hat slipped around on my head. How hot it was, and the unpleasant drops of sweat that slid down my back. The pins my Mum used to attach my hood. The way that my Mum didn’t flicker an eyelid when I handed her what appeared to me to be a tangled mess of cotton and fake fur and silk and such… she simply took it, shook it out, pulled at a seam or two and magically produced something that was not only symmetrical, but had a space for my head and everything. (How do mothers do that?)

My vague feelings of elation and sadness which kept cropping up all day. Elation as I remembered (as I am still apt to do now) suddenly, out of nowhere, that I’d got a first. Sadness as I remembered that all of my friends were leaving University Town the next day.

It was Jack’s graduation today. His mother and grandmother looked as though they were about to burst. His father regarded the whole day as he regards everything: slightly laconically, but smilingly, nonetheless. Jack seemed bemused by the whole thing. But then that’s an odd thing about graduation, it’s not for the graduates at all. It’s really for the parents.

Bits of it made me laugh. The University really don’t miss a trick… you’re given your degree ‘certificate’ which looks as though one of the secretaries ran it off on the photocopier. Then, as you walk round, just as you raise your head to say, ‘This is a bit shit!’ your eye is immediately caught by the building with a sign on it which says that they can sell you a beautiful, colour, framed one for improbable amounts of money.

The process of turning into my mother is now almost complete. Whereas she turned up with safety pins last year, and then insisted on taking more photos than anyone else was comfortable with (and she was right eventually- we are, as she predicted, really pleased to have them) this year I turned up with safety pins, and I commandeered the camera and started barking photographic orders,
“Right! Good! Smile! Now one of you and your Mum! Now just you and your Gran! Now all of you together! Smile!…”

Jack is a hilarious negation of my opinion that by suffocating children with expectations you just end up with unhappy drop-outs: his mother has been quite publicly preparing for his graduation day since he was a babe in arms. She even chose the institution. (Jack’s mother deserves a whole new entry to herself…)

And me? I enjoyed it. I liked being a part of Jack’s family group. I liked seeing all his hard work pay off. I felt sad at the beginning of the day, perhaps remembering the more difficult bits of last year, and perhaps also remembering the way that things change. That’s the odd thing about graduation. Most important things don’t announce their ending as publicly as that. They fade away, they slip away, you look round one day and realise they haven’t been there for years. Graduation takes all your worries about ending one stage of your life and decides to deal with that by wrapping it up in ceremony, ridiculous clothes, and photographs and expectation. Which is as good a way of dealing with change as any, I suppose.

I am fundamentally optimistic. My current job is coming to an end, and while I’ve loved it and I’m very sad to leave, I’m also aware that it would be a shame to leave it so late that I hated it… it would be a shame to stick around and be all cynical and bitter and then be desperate to get out. But at the same time, change is unsettling, and it’s also nerve-wracking and it somehow makes me feel sad inside. Perhaps that’s why we have a graduation ceremony. Because if you can fall into a routine, if you know that first thing is a check of the hoods and gowns, and then there’s coffee for parents, and then there’s rehearsal, and then afterwards everyone will go out for dinner with their nearest and dearest… if you can fall into a routine for the day you can use that routine to cushion you against the way you’re feeling, and you can walk through the routine without having to comprehend fully the finality of the ending.

I think we all do this. Like making a cup of tea after a terrible accident, relying on these little things, hoods, gowns, boiling kettles, we distract ourselves from truths so great and terrible that no one has yet managed to take it all in and survive. And I think that’s the way it should be.

yours thoughtfully
therumtumtugger
xxxx