by my rough calculation, I've spent 12% of my life in Harrisonburg. today's my last full day in the shenandoah valley for the forseeable future, and I'm finding it fitting that it's sort of grey and dreary outside. it's hard to leave things behind, places and people; my internal landscape is tending towards grey, today. and yet some of my favorite people in the world have already begun to scatter from this small town. and some are remaining here, staying in Harrisonburg, to see what else can be gleaned from this place outside of the university doors. and I am heading home to lancaster, and then on to the NIH.
my facebook news feed has been full, recently, with friends and acquaintances three years younger than me. they're coming to the end of their first year of college, and are talking online about all of the things they'll do over the summer, the people they're excited to see back home, the friends they're leaving for the long summer break. see you soon, they say, and they can say it to either group of people and it will be true.
I feel ages older then my first-year college self. it all feels much harder, now. much more real. much scarier.
my facebook news feed has been full, recently, with friends and acquaintances three years younger than me. they're coming to the end of their first year of college, and are talking online about all of the things they'll do over the summer, the people they're excited to see back home, the friends they're leaving for the long summer break. see you soon, they say, and they can say it to either group of people and it will be true.
I feel ages older then my first-year college self. it all feels much harder, now. much more real. much scarier.
* * *
beginnings: also appropriate for a damp and clouded day.
"But faith is not necessarily, or not soon, a resting place. Faith puts you out on a wide river in a little boat, in the fog, in the dark."
I don't know where I'm going, I wrote in a book earlier in the semester. It would be nice to have a map. I still think that, some days. but I am also starting to feel eager - to do, to try, to see if I can make it in the real world that is out there, outside the safe bounds of my childhood, out past the walls of EMU. Jayber was right: it isn't a resting place, exactly. I am not calm or still when I think about the next year of my life. I feel a bit like I've been thrown onto a river in a little boat, in the fog, in the dark. but I also feel the truth of this other thing he said, which is that I have been led. I feel the truth of that down in my bones, which I guess is the faith that is causing me to stay on the raft (in the fog, in the dark), paddling with the certain thought that it will be alright.
“If you could do it, I suppose, it would be a good idea to live your life in a straight line...But that is not the way I have done it, so far. I am a pilgrim, but my pilgrimage has been wandering and unmarked. Often what has looked like a straight line to me has been a circling or a doubling back. I have been in the Dark Wood of Error any number of times. I have known something of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, but not always in that order. The names of many snares and dangers have been made known to me, but I have seen them only in looking back. Often I have not known where I was going until I was already there. I have had my share of desires and goals, but my life has come to me or I have gone to it mainly by way of mistakes and surprises. Often I have received better than I deserved. Often my fairest hopes have rested on bad mistakes. I am an ignorant pilgrim, crossing a dark valley. And yet for a long time, looking back, I have been unable to shake off the feeling that I have been led - make of that what you will.”
* * *
12% of my life in this place, though. Harrisonburg, a second home; the site of so many mistakes, so much growth. Ah - I will miss you. The ugly grain elevator, even.
May the Lord bless you & keep you, dear small city; dear, lovely EMU community. Until we meet again - because, Insh'allah, we will.
