turning of the seasons

thinking about graduation as colleges around us have theirs... the elm tree in the park is producing millions of those fluttery papery seeds that always remind me of the end of the year at harvard... every year moving out of a room that had seen so many ups and downs but overall another good year of friendship and scholarship... i think i DID appreciate those things at the time tho i allowed myself to get very strung out on highs and lows... was always hard for me to pack up because i hated the endings associated with the packing-up. hollis, then E-11, E-31, G-31... remember? at graduation my head nearly imploded from being unable to handle all the good-byes. "i'm sure i'll see you again before we leave," i told each person, to avoid having to say it. i don't know what i said to Amy... it's a complete blank... but i don't suppose i can possibly have avoided that goodbye. i don't remember saying goodbye to nadine but i remember after she left ("a cloud shifts, the plane lifts, she moves on..." - not that that whole song applies, but phrases of it ran through my head for a year thereafter) going down to sit by the river and feel... whatever one feels in that situation at 21.

i wonder if the elm tree is dying, i suppose they all are. it looks like it has nothing but an enormous sheaf of seeds for about the top 2/3 of the tree. is that how they normally look? or is it some kind of last-ditch survival effort by a dying tree? i wonder how all our old courtyards are looking these days; how many of the old trees have died, and with what have they been replaced? that evergreen by the administration building where john harvard's statue was always looked out of place and weird. i hope they didn't continue in that vein.

that all sounds very mournful and morbid but that's not how i'm feeling at all. just - things bring back memories, is all.

so, well, anyway. graduation. just have to hang in there til the end of the school year now. gotta get through that Black Panthers project... a little stressed because i've fallen behind in the extra responsibilities i took on. i'm afraid i'm going to be "found out" as someone who doesn't follow through. i spent the whole weekend on a meditation retreat so i didn't get anything done this weekend - despite having played hooky on friday. *sigh* looks like i'll be staying late all week again.

but, that's life. life is good, overall. life is good.