All the Rage #7

The night air is cool against my naked body. I can feel dew creeping between my toes and coating the bottom of my bare feet as I race across the grass. Ahead, I hear the wild giggles of my best friends and the pounding of their legs against the ground. Shadows dance in the piercing beams of huge lights pointed toward the field. Then, as quickly as it began, it is over.

That's probably my most vivid memory of the last week of my college career: streaking Deering Meadow at Northwestern University at 2:30 a.m. And doing so while sober. There are many great moments that stand out in my mind from those final days, but as most of us would willingly admit, life experiences involving nudity are inevitably more memorable and affecting than those undertaken while fully clothed.

On the whole, though, trying to process an event as monumental as the end of college is a dizzying effort. It's like trying to memorize a pointillist painting; you can grasp a few dots at a time, or the entire picture at once, but the mind isn't powerful enough to hang onto each piece of the image. Inevitably, most of the dots slip away. All you can cling to are tiny pieces of the whole.

It's these little pieces that will stand out when I think back on my last week at Northwestern. For example, there was the sobering moment on a beach in Glencoe when I realized that there were a few of my friends that I might never see again. The end of college offers what for me are the first real "farewells" I've ever had to give. Sure, we say goodbye to people every day, but it's rare to say goodbye to someone with the knowledge that the lives you each lead may never cross paths in the future, that the connection which brought you close for four years could deteriorate to nothing without the proper maintenance.

There was the scene in the lobby of the Chicago Hilton and Towers during our Senior Formal, where my friend Karl-Dieter Crisman amazed us all with his piano skillz by finally playing the theme song to "Mr. Belvedere." For the past two years, we've insisted that he learn this seminal television tune. We couldn't believe that in five years of training, not one lesson had covered the intricate beauty of the "Belvedere" theme. When he hit those opening tinkles on the ivory keys, I learned what true closure and great music are all about.

Unsettlingly towering over them all, though, is the moment most might remember with pride, joy, and a tremendous sense of completion: the actual awarding of my college diploma. There we all were, myself and about a thousand of my classmates in the liberal arts school of the college, all of us sitting patiently as each name was read and each student took their fateful walk across the stage to receive their degree and a handshake from a department representative. I don't even remember who the English department trotted out to do the honors this year; it's irrelevant. What I do recall, and what may haunt me for the rest of my days, is that this woman DID NOT LOOK ME IN THE EYE WHEN SHAKING MY HAND TO CONGRATULATE ME. Instead, she looked past me to the next graduate. I even stood there holding her hand in mine for a split- second, dumbfounded, expecting her to look up at me out of sheer impatience. Alas, it was not to be. I'm sure the stunned, blank expression on my face in the photo taken as I left the stage will reveal my shock better than any of my words could.

Of all the memories I'll carry away from my last week as a college student, this is the one that just refuses to file itself away. I've crammed my mental shoeboxes with plenty of comments, snapshots, and bittersweet symphonies, but this woman's refusal to meet my gaze remains active, clawing at my brain during every idle moment. I just can't attach a feeling or explanation to it. Well, that's not true; it fills me with discomfort, fear, anger, and disgust, so my feelings are pretty well sorted out. Explanations are a bit harder to come by, but I suppose the fact that she's probably a simpering moron when it comes to people skills works well enough.

Maybe what I'm really looking for is some kind of personal meaning. (Not in the Zen retreat Phil Jackson sense, goofy; in this specific moment alone. Gimme a break.) Is this refusal to look me in the eye some sign of weakness in myself? Was that her secret way of condemning me to decades of talentless wandering, searching in vain for focus and a drive to consume me? Did I have a big-ass chunk of sausage crammed between my teeth, and she felt very embarrassed for me and my family? Does she know something I don't about my job prospects?

Perhaps what it hammers home more than anything is that humanity is actually buried deep within the institution of COLLEGE. This moment of towering significance for my life was just another graduating class for Northwestern, and evidently just a very boring, misspent afternoon for this random English professor. We stood with pride and sang our alma mater that day, and we teared up a bit as if on cue, misting the purple and white surrounding us on every side. But these are just colors and a song, inflated to massive importance by the INSTITUTION that is NORTHWESTERN. Placing a human face on that institution is impossible, and even when it is forced into place, it fails miserably.

I've got a piece of paper with my name on it that says I studied real hard for four years. Allegedly, it will soon get me a nice job making enough money to live, eat, and buy CD's. I have a drawer full of shirts with wildcats and block "N" designs on them. Pictures will soon arrive back from the local photo development joint depicting me in the same pose at literally hundreds of locations around the campus, taken over the two days of graduation weekend.

But what is college really ABOUT? People. Memories. The first time a girl touched my butt...the last time a girl touched my butt...okay, ANYTIME a girl touched my butt, it's been very very memorable. I got a bit sidetracked there, but the underlying sentiment (which I'm trying hard to temper but not stifle with a bit of well-placed komedy) is true. Northwestern will fade from my memory and drift from my heart. The information I crammed into my brain to pass tests and write papers will evacuate to make room for song lyrics and particularly important lines from the "Star Wars" prequels. But the people I met, the relationships I made, and the memories I cherish are each tiny, crucial points in the picture that will rest in my heart forever.

Schmaltzy? Oh yeah. Obvious? Probably. But utterly true? I'd say so.