Category Archives: nostalgia

The Collegiate Years.

graduating from Bucknell

More years ago than I can fathom, my parents drove me to little Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, where I would spend the next four years becoming myself.

I remember driving onto the Bucknell campus, and coming to a stop in front of Veddar Hall.  I remember feeling grown up and childish at the very same time. I remember that I couldn’t wait to climb those stairs.

My parents and I didn’t have to haul my worldly possessions up four long flights. Instead, the fraternity boys—assigned as stevedores for the incoming freshman—did us that favor. As you no doubt have already guessed (but I didn’t discover until later) the fraternity boys were also there to check out the new girls. I was too excited to notice.

My roommates and I were assigned to 4th Vedder East. I was nervous and filled with anticipation. I was definitely ready.

I remember unpacking my precious possessions carefully—my stuff!—and trying to respect the boundaries of my two roommates. We’d been assigned to the one triple on the hall and space was tight. In the pre-Facebook era, we’d sent letters to one another that summer, and spoken with each other once or twice on the landlines from our parents’ homes. Our mix was this: Elaine hailed from New Jersey; Diane, from Long Island, NY; I was most recently from North Carolina, but had called Virginia, Florida, and Pennsylvania home at various times through the years. In that respect I was alone at this school, surrounded by girls and boys who’d lived all their lives in lovely homes with sprawling lawns in New Canaan, CT, Madison, NJ and Brookline, MA.

I remember gathering with the entire class that first week, to hear President Sojka speak. I remember him telling us, essentially, how lucky we were. But I didn’t need to be told.

I remember bid day, standing on the porch of the sorority dorm, looking over the balcony with 39 of my new best friends. I remember singing the songs as loudly as we could, our arms wrapped tightly around each others’ shoulders, linking us together like one long caterpillar, as we swayed back and forth and sang along with the music blasting from the windows.

To this day I smile at the words Bungle in the Jungle, as I recall the fun frenzy of the party my sorority threw my sophomore year. I hear those words and I see my sorority sisters, all of us dressed in jungle-y attire, laughing and dancing and flirting with fraternity boys on the dark dance floor.

I remember the note pads the RA of our freshman hall put on all of our doors (pre-texting). I remember the notes left there by the boy I liked “Stopped by to say, hi,” he’d write, or “Sorry I missed you.”  I squealed and showed my roommates. And I saved those notes—every one—for all of these years. Sometimes, now, I pull them out and show them to my husband.  “Do you remember leaving these on my door?” I ask. He smiles.

I remember retreating to the beautiful academic quad to be alone with my sophomoric thoughts. I filled page after page in my flower-covered journals as I wrote down words to sort out my life. It was there, in the refuge of the quad, that I cried hard, bitter tears when my boyfriend broke up with me, where I later breathed in the fresh, sunny, hopeful air of spring, and, always, where I went to contemplate life’s big decisions.

I remember the sectional couch in our sorority suite. I remember snuggling in, pajama-clad, with girls who cared about me. We felt safe there, as we shared our hopes and dreams and, sometimes, fears. I can close my eyes and feel it, even now.

I loved the academic rigor. I’d never been in a classroom where people said what they thought with such force and feeling. I’d never met so many other eager students, desperate for knowledge and validation. I loved the conversations, the thoughts, the arguments.  I especially loved seeing something, hearing it, and understanding it in a new way for the first time.

I write these memories because Aidan Donnelley Rowley did so on her blog, and asked readers to share ours, too. So many of Aidan’s memories rang true for me, too, but especially this thought:

“They say you can’t go back, but the really amazing thing is that you can. You can sit in a Starbucks at 6:34am on a Friday morning in February with your cup of coffee and computer and your mind and you can go back.”

It’s 9:44pm here, on a Saturday night and I’m at home. I’m not drinking coffee, but Nut Brown Ale, and still, she’s right. I can close my eyes and remember it so clearly. I can go right back.

What about you? You can read Aidan’s memories, and join her conversation, here.

The End and The Beginning

My littlest son came stumbling into the kitchen this morning, giving me a cheery “Good Morning” hours before his big brothers will roll out of bed. I was already downstairs because I snuck down early this morning to get some work done.  I figured it was my best chance for productivity today. Despite the fact that it’s New Year’s Eve, our weather is lovely so the rest of the day will involved hiking the trails and heading to the park—not the best place for my laptop! So I rose early and tiptoed downstairs to write.  And to enjoy a peaceful morning, drink hot tea, and listen to birds sing in the background (presumably about this wonderful weather).  What could be nicer?
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It’s also the day for those pesky resolutions.  I haven’t put any on paper yet, but the ideas are tumbling around in my head. If I have extra time today, I’ll be checking in with my favorite bloggers to see what they’re saying.  I love a little sisterly inspiration!  How about you?  Do you resolve?  Or eschew the very idea?
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Thinking forward prompts me to look back. As I do, I know that one of the best moves I made this year was joining Meagan Francis’ writing class, not only because Meagan had lots of wisdom to share—although she does—but also because my classmates are such smart, interesting women.  Our interests and life experiences are diverse which gives a depth and breadth to our class that I cherish. Here’s a shout out to some wonderful women bloggers and writers—check them out this year:

Hoobing Family Adventures

Powers of Mine

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My 2012 wish for them:  all they can imagine. Plus, a little luck and lots of joy.
Happy New Year!

Does Facebook tether us to the past?

After the rush-rush of the morning, with two boys off to the bus stop and one delivered to school, I enjoyed a peaceful moment alone.  I listened to the radio, sipped my early gray, and drove towards my Pilates class.
On NPR, Diablo Cody was being interviewed about the new movie Young Adult, which stars Charlize Theron and for which Ms. Cody wrote the screenplay. It’s Ms. Cody’s second screenplay to make it to the big screen; the breathtaking and award-winning Juno was her first.
Ms. Cody talked about writing the screenplay and developing the character Mavis Gary, played by Theron.  It was a fairly typical interview, and then, as they were about to wrap up, she added a short commentary that stopped me cold.  Having arrived at the gym, I stayed in my car for an extra minute and listened, transfixed. In a few simple sentences Ms. Cody was able to articulate something I’ve been wrestling with, something that’s been on the outer fringe of my consciousness, but blurry and indistinct for some time. Here’s are her clarifying words:

“I feel like I’m part of a generation of people who are stuck in the past and are really self-absorbed. I mean, we’re actually taking pictures of ourselves and posting them on Facebook, and keeping in touch with people that should have been out of our lives 15 years ago. Obsessing over who’s getting married, who’s having kids, who’s more successful. It’s like we’re recreating high school every single day using social media. And it’s weird. 

 Sentence by sentence her points resonated with me.

1.  “…stuck in the past…”  This makes me think: Can we linger in the past and fully embrace the present?

2.  “…taking pictures of ourselves and posting them…”  She’s right.  It’s weird.

3.  “people that should have been out of our lives 15 years ago…”  We grow up, we move away, we move on.  Sure, some friendships last a lifetime, but how many of your cherished lifetime friendships came about because you reconnected on Facebook or Twitter? See also points 1, 4 & 5.

4.  “Obsessing over who’s [got what].”  Enough said.

5.  “…recreating high school…”  Lord help us all.
At the heart of why her words affected me so deeply, I think, is that I like seeing old friends on Facebook.  I like knowing where people live and how many kids they have, if any.  It’s fun to see that we all turned out okay—we grew up and got our acts together and no one ended up in a ditch by the side of the road.  In high school, I mean, who could know? Even more, as a military brat my high school friends and their parents are scattered across the globe. We don’t have a common hometown where we bump into one another at the grocery store when we’re visiting our parents for Christmas. 
But all the while that I’m posting and connecting and stalking old friends’ family photos, I find something disconcerting about the whole thing. I haven’t been able to pinpoint it—I’ve danced around all of the things Ms. Cody articulated—but I didn’t let myself look in the mirror quite so closely until she held it up in front of me.
What do you think?  Does social media encourage us to become more self-focused, to concentrate on putting our shiniest, best self forward, to the detriment of authenticity with others?  Does it drag us into envy and tether us to the past with consequences for our current social and emotional growth?

I think I’ll go ask my friends on Facebook.