Two Graduations

Since I am walking in the commencement ceremony this May, I have been receiving all the emails about speakers, songs, tents and appreciation. We are going to be honoring the profs with benches. The emaculately clipped, kept, naked, etc. lawns of the Fledgling College will have benches on them by next year. Students can sit on them and get sun burnt in the treeless place. Visitors can read them and wonder who and what they did until the student guide tells them about the gift. This class wants to use last year's verse again and they want to sing Be Thou My Vision. No class speakers as of yet but we managed to avoid having the valedictorian/salutatorian speak again. Everyone wanted to vote on the speaker. I was one of the nominees for the girls. It is interesting to fantasize about Graduation and imagine yourself the speaker. The turbulence of this last semester and knowing about it and then standing up there with that secret and never saying anything about it (not directly) in the clear, bright air of Commencement Day. I am fairly certain this dilemma will not fall to me, but it was startling to imagine. What words could suffice for everything?

Yes, Travis, Andrew is graduating (top ten or something like that). Very proud of him (oops? is that allowed--or is it too submissive, unmodern, and archaic?) Anyway, he has worked hard and I plan to go up for graduation and hollar a few accolades in his honor.

Graduation is one of those really intimate/public affairs that is always so confusing. In a way it is the sum of everything and yet is all so formulaic and created for an audience. I already feel awkward thinking about it. I might trip out of self-consciousness as I walk across the stage. The worst part is that the audience is kind of watching us walk into life and they are there after it is over waiting for us to accomplish something else like getting a legitimate job.