Bleak, Cold, Dark January
I have a sad daughter back in college this week for spring semester. Spring is illusory, unfortunately, a dream many months away. There will be snows and much ice between now and then, and its warmth is metaphoric. Not only is she readjusting to being away from a cozy vacation at home, but she and her star-crossed lover are separating, at least they are trying to see how they get along without each other, and it is painful. I ache for them, imagining how they must feel, as it once was for me. And then there is a whole new set of courses for her to squeeze into and attack, probably a most excellent distraction. Going down to NYC and leaving her was worse than delivering her in the fall, and it has caught me offguard. I had assumed that the first semester would be the hardest one, but there was so much newness, and stability in her relationships, with so many distractions, and it was not so terrible, all around. And it was warm, and we went far away, to Maui, for a birthday party.
Her sadness brought to mind returning to boarding school in the 1960's. Driving and training into the Berkshires. Dark. Frozen. Unfriendly. And we knew we would not be getting out of that harsh place in the middle of nowhere for months, until Spring Vacation in late March. One has to laugh: we thought it was Siberia, a gulag. As little boys (I was the littlest of the little) we waited on tables and were always hungry, always in subjugation to older, bigger students. The teachers--we called them masters--were more terrifying than avuncular, and mandatory school assemblies were more of the same: terror, hostile, grim about summed it all up. I mentioned this to my friend, one of those formerly intimidating upperclassmen, and he concured. That return to school was always dreadful, a descent into gut wrenching winter,. We both related to the unfriendliness of January, then and now, nearly half a century later. They say that the first cut is the worst one, still remembering his return to college after a devastating Christmas vacation when he broke up with the girl he loved and thought he was going to marry one day. He is a pensive man, prone to morosity (?), and fortunately a strong man. He perseveres.
Out in the unprotected world, so many more harsh realities confronted us, and now her. From the daily exposure to creeps in the street to buses dowsing unwary pedestrians with oily black ice water, to the deadly wars against terror. From the extremes of religious misinterpretation and zealotry, to rescue operations in earthquake-flattened Haiti, where true life and death unfold, without water, food, medical supplies, drugs, and unanesthetized amputations take place daily. Or to a world engulfed in mountains (beyond mountains) of unrecyclable junk, a world where cancer and congestive hearts kill. Where failure to communicate creates wars against wars. These are a heavy burden, a hunded pound pack on an uphill climb, from the real to the imagined. That old bleak, cold, dark January I harken back to from school days, and now my daughter's age. It is all some kind of preparation, I think, for the rest to come. Stamina for the long run.
Her sadness brought to mind returning to boarding school in the 1960's. Driving and training into the Berkshires. Dark. Frozen. Unfriendly. And we knew we would not be getting out of that harsh place in the middle of nowhere for months, until Spring Vacation in late March. One has to laugh: we thought it was Siberia, a gulag. As little boys (I was the littlest of the little) we waited on tables and were always hungry, always in subjugation to older, bigger students. The teachers--we called them masters--were more terrifying than avuncular, and mandatory school assemblies were more of the same: terror, hostile, grim about summed it all up. I mentioned this to my friend, one of those formerly intimidating upperclassmen, and he concured. That return to school was always dreadful, a descent into gut wrenching winter,. We both related to the unfriendliness of January, then and now, nearly half a century later. They say that the first cut is the worst one, still remembering his return to college after a devastating Christmas vacation when he broke up with the girl he loved and thought he was going to marry one day. He is a pensive man, prone to morosity (?), and fortunately a strong man. He perseveres.
Out in the unprotected world, so many more harsh realities confronted us, and now her. From the daily exposure to creeps in the street to buses dowsing unwary pedestrians with oily black ice water, to the deadly wars against terror. From the extremes of religious misinterpretation and zealotry, to rescue operations in earthquake-flattened Haiti, where true life and death unfold, without water, food, medical supplies, drugs, and unanesthetized amputations take place daily. Or to a world engulfed in mountains (beyond mountains) of unrecyclable junk, a world where cancer and congestive hearts kill. Where failure to communicate creates wars against wars. These are a heavy burden, a hunded pound pack on an uphill climb, from the real to the imagined. That old bleak, cold, dark January I harken back to from school days, and now my daughter's age. It is all some kind of preparation, I think, for the rest to come. Stamina for the long run.
posted by Stonechuck at 8:33 PM
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