As another semester comes to an end — another long academic year — I walk through the halls of Clothier Hall. Through my earbuds entering my ears, I hear the soft strings of a ukulele being plucked in this wistful nostalgia. The sun is going down, glistening with its orange rays and this ephemeral kind of glow and I sit here as I write these thoughts. In this quiet space, in the back couches near the IT office.
Lately, I have been able to see people’s inner child appear next to them. For instance, turning to my chemistry professor, I watch as she curiously asks her students how fibroblasts and collagens work. She ruffles her brunette bob, signature pink lipstick, and glasses. Suddenly, I can see her little past self appear next to her. Gazing at her with this admirable ambition, a prideful kind of look.
I have also been thinking about the ways tradition is sustained. Kizuna, my current Japanese club, has three graduating seniors. They were leaders of the club, spearheading the way forward and keeping the long-standing traditions of the club alive. I remember when I first discovered Kizuna in my first year. It was sweltering; sweat was gliding down my forehead as I kept searching for the Kizuna table. I knew it had to be somewhere here. Before coming to this school, I had looked up the clubs that were offered here and desperately searched for a Japanese club. Thankfully, there was one. I had yearned for a Japanese-speaking community that my past years of education had lacked. Finally, along the aisle of tables nestled between the ice hockey club and the SPAA club was Kizuna. Gathered here were the first Japanese members I met at Swarthmore. However, time lapses and these members have long graduated, leaving the next graduating seniors.
Although I am not graduating, there is a bittersweet aroma permeating this spring. I feel it more than last spring and perhaps the spring before. A percussion that hails the air when one baton is passed down. When cherry blossoms, blown by the wind, lie sprinkled on the pale gray pavement next to Martin Hall. When students work until the sun rises and the birds chirp and you hear the lawn mowers echoing, the construction clanging and dust clogs your throat, and the workload seems to get heavier. That’s when you know that there are only two more weeks left of classes. I am entering this coming fall semester with fresh eyes. I will be studying abroad next year, but all of my friends will be scattered across seas and mountainous land. I wonder what we will look like in two years, when I am a senior. I wonder if I will still feel this quiet sadness that appears when I study into the late hours, the moonlight shining through the glass windows of Clothier Hall. The one left still awake because she spent her childhood and her ripe young twenties, back bent, studying, reading, writing –– where does this all lead to? The sun is rising, glittering with bright rays and this ephemeral kind of glow and I sit here as I write these thoughts. In this quiet space, in the back couches near the IT office. And flowing through this atmosphere, if I listen closely, I hear the soft strings of the ukulele still being plucked in this melancholic nostalgia.
