The beginning of a
new year is always an interesting time, here. There are new people to
meet, and the various versions of astonishment and confusion to
watch—and the days after Brigid always remind me of my own first
days, and also every subsequent year of being thus reminded, an
ever-complexifying echo chamber of self-reflection.
Have I really been
part of this community for eight years, now?
June has moved into
my room. We discussed the possibility of my moving into hers, but the
reality is I don’t just live in a room. I also live in, and belong
to, a dorm, and I don’t belong to her dorm. Dorm membership isn’t
a huge part of the program here, but it is part of it, and since I’m
still a student and she’s not, it makes sense for me to stay in my
dorm. It does feel strange to have a room-mate all of a sudden.
She has also just
returned from a few days at her parents’ house. Usually, parents
come pick up graduating students at the reception the morning after
graduation, and while June isn’t leaving, her home is with me, we
all thought it was better for her to leave campus as a student
before returning as an ally,
plus she hadn’t spent a lot of time with
her parents in a while.
There
are forty-one new yearlings, now, a big class. I haven’t really
spoken to any of them yet, at least not in a more than incidental
way. I did have dinner with Steve Bees last week, while June was
away, to welcome him back. We’re
in the same dorm, but we took our plates downstairs to eat at the
little table by the window next to the library. From there we could
look out on a world white with snow.
“So,
how was the real world?” I asked, joking.
“You
know,” he told me, “this world feels like the real one. The
outside...it’s like I don’t quite believe in it anymore.”
I
told him I knew exactly what he meant.
“So,
what did you do this past year?” he asked. We had talked a few
times by phone or email during our Absence, but we hadn’t ever
really caught up, and of course after I came back we could have no
contact at all.
“Same-old,
same-old,” I replied, casually. “I taught some classes, went
hiking a lot, got married….”
As
intended, my deadpan delivery made him come very near to spitting his
drink across the table.
“Oh,
wow!” he exclaimed, when he had swallowed. “Who’s the lucky
lady?”
So,
I told him all about June and about our year together and our plans
going forward.
“What
about you?” I asked.
“I
passed the bar exam, got a job, and, um….” he showed me the
wedding ring on his finger.
“Congratulations!”
I told him. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be there.”
“Likewise.”
“Ollie’s
married, too. When I got engaged, I thought I’d be the first, but
everybody’s getting hitched.”
“Sorry
to steal your thunder, man,” Steve offered, “but that’s not the
half of it. We’re
expecting.”
“No
kidding! When?”
“Any
day, now.”
“Then
what are you doing here?”
Steve
laughed.
“We
don’t live that far away. When I get the call, I’ll meet her at
the hospital.” He showed me his cell phone. “Anyway, I was there
at the beginning of the pregnancy, so it’s probably ok if I’m not
there at the end, too, right?”
My
turn to laugh. The joke bordered on the ribald in a way I didn’t
remember Steve doing much,
but I suppose four years (and law school and marriage and impending
fatherhood) might change a person. Come to think of it, though,
something else about Steve seems different, too. I don’t remember
him joking very much, but he seemed always to be smiling. Now...it
took me a while to put my finger on it, but the difference is that he
doesn’t smile if he doesn’t have a clear, obvious reason.
He
seems tired, too.
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