I love summer. It is a time to relax and slow down, sleep in, catch up on reading, renew ourselves with family and friends. I love the lazy days of summer, sitting on my porch in the sun with a book and a cup of iced tea, watching the world go by, or strolling one of the beautiful beaches nearby.
But I also love September. It’s actually a little bit of a relief to return to a routine, to feel the renewed energy that the students bring to our little town, and to be a part of the hustle and bustle of university town life.
For those of us who live in small university towns, this is the last weekend of summer, and in some ways, the end of the old year and the beginning of a new one. Although there are many other facets to our town, because our population increases by 50% each September, our town’s heart beats largely to the rhythm of the academic year. Varsity athletes and international students arrived on campus at the beginning of last week, first year students arrived on Thursday, and by Tuesday, the first day of classes, the returning students will be back on campus and in town. And thus, another cycle begins.
At our university, we have several days of orientation activities for first year students, the “frosh.” One of the highlights is the Commencement Service. It is a service which introduces the frosh to some of the traditions of our university, and also blesses their time and activities at university. When I look around at the assembled faces, I always wonder what the next four or five years will hold for these students. Which courses and professors will inspire them? Which students will emerge as the leaders on campus, in their clubs, on the sports fields, in student politics? Which students will make a difference through their quiet inspiration? And will they leave the university with the same life goals that they had when they entered, or will they undergo a transformative experience that will flip their life plans upside down?
The frosh students are easy to pick out. They are a little bit nervous, slightly terrified, and really excited. Some of them arrive alone, others with parents and other family members in town. When it’s time for the parents to leave, sometimes there are tears, sometimes smiles and laughter, but always there is great anticipation mixed with equally great anxiety. Four years from now, when these same students graduate, we will experience similar emotions, but instead of welcoming them into our community, we will be watching them leave, and, as Jane Siberry writes, “wondering what in the world will the world bring.”
I’ve been at both ends of this spectrum as a parent, with two children who have attended Commencement as frosh, one of whom has also graduated and left home. Letting my kids go has been paradoxically one of the most difficult experiences of my life, and one of the most fulfilling. After all, isn’t this the goal that we have set as parents – to raise children who are self-confident enough to leave home, and capable enough to make their own way in the world and meet their challenges head-on, and well-adjusted enough to be happy and fulfilled wherever they are? Yes, I worry about them and where their lives will take them and all of the possible obstacles they will face, but I am more excited by the possibilities and adventures that are ahead of them.
We’ve seen a lot of amazing people come through our small campus over the past twenty years. They have become professional athletes, doctors, lawyers, clergy, entrepreneurs, moms and dads, teachers, actors, journalists, politicians, and live all over the world. It is humbling and inspiring to witness their accomplishments as professionals and as people. It’s even more humbling and inspiring to witness the lives of my own amazing children as they unfold.
So here’s to another year of beginnings, of as-yet untapped potential, of experiences beyond everyone’s wildest dreams, with lots of learning and exploring, new relationships being made and old ones strengthened. Here’s to another cycle of football, hockey and basketball games, recitals, plays and exhibits, special presentations and speakers, and lectures, assignments, and exams. I can’t wait to see what this crop of students will achieve in our town and beyond!
Sunday, 31 August 2014
Saturday, 9 August 2014
Going Home
My husband and I have just returned from a three-week vacation. We “went home” to southern Ontario, where we spent our first eight years as newlyweds and a young family. We wanted to see people and places that were once important to us. We had a wonderful time – visiting with former students from Mount Allison University and old friends and family, going to museums and art galleries, attending three Canadian Football League games courtesy of our son (including the first ever home game of the Ottawa RedBlacks in their new stadium), shopping, and eating various ethnic foods that we just don’t have access to in our small town. We were tired when we arrived home, but in a good way.
I really miss the variety of life in southern Ontario. I love driving on back roads, and where we live now, we have a very limited number of back roads. To drive to Moncton, we have basically two realistic routes. It gets old pretty fast. I love shopping (not necessarily buying, but browsing and looking), and Moncton is full of chain stores, but really has very little in the way of unique and different shops. Halifax is a little better, but it still can’t beat the sheer number of quirky, funky, interesting, artsy, independent little shops and markets scattered throughout the towns of southern Ontario, and the dizzying variety of ethnic foods represented there. Although I love the architecture of old Maritime homes and towns, the old homes and buildings of rural Ontario also speak to me.
At one point, we discussed whether we could ever live in southern Ontario again. We have been gone for over twenty years, and in that time, the places we once knew like the backs of our hands have changed considerably. The little country road where we used to live is now advertising a subdivision, the closest major town to us has monster homes and townhouses and condominiums way out into what used to be countryside and farmland (I was completely disoriented even though we used to drive down those roads frequently), and even our favourite little conservation area, which used to be isolated and underused, has undergone improvements and beautification (and now charges $12 for day use!). The major highways have been expanded, box stores have sprung up in places we wouldn’t have dreamed of putting box stores twenty years ago, and the population of the area has exploded.
I was reminded of the saying that you can’t go home again once you’ve left. Thomas Wolfe, an early twentieth century American writer, wrote a novel called You Can’t Go Home Again, and he wrote "You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood ... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time – back home to the escapes of Time and Memory."
In many ways, that is true. Life moves on, people and places change, our dreams and goals undergo revisions and transformations, kids and families grow up. But near the end of our trip, we stayed with a family that “adopted” us when we were young newlyweds far away from our own extended families. They made us part of their extended family which included themselves, their children, and their children’s children. We spent many Sunday afternoons at “The Farm”, became good friends with their daughters and their families in particular, helped out once or twice during maple syrup season, and spent a memorable Christmas Day with them when I was pregnant with our first child. Although we haven’t lived near them in over twenty years, it was like no time had passed. We immediately felt the way we used to when we drove up the lane – that we were “home.” Yes, a lot has changed at The Farm. They have retired from raising cattle, the trees in their front field which were mere babies when we left are now almost forest-sized, and their grandchildren have children of their own. But the love and friendship which was so much a part of our lives back then is still there. That is what makes a “home”, and it is what makes it possible to keep going back home, even if we never actually live there again.
We have a lot to be grateful for, friends who are our family, warm welcomes and emotional farewells, and the promise of “next time.” At the end of our vacation, we were glad to be home again, but I left a little bit of myself “back home” in Ontario too. Till next time.
I really miss the variety of life in southern Ontario. I love driving on back roads, and where we live now, we have a very limited number of back roads. To drive to Moncton, we have basically two realistic routes. It gets old pretty fast. I love shopping (not necessarily buying, but browsing and looking), and Moncton is full of chain stores, but really has very little in the way of unique and different shops. Halifax is a little better, but it still can’t beat the sheer number of quirky, funky, interesting, artsy, independent little shops and markets scattered throughout the towns of southern Ontario, and the dizzying variety of ethnic foods represented there. Although I love the architecture of old Maritime homes and towns, the old homes and buildings of rural Ontario also speak to me.
At one point, we discussed whether we could ever live in southern Ontario again. We have been gone for over twenty years, and in that time, the places we once knew like the backs of our hands have changed considerably. The little country road where we used to live is now advertising a subdivision, the closest major town to us has monster homes and townhouses and condominiums way out into what used to be countryside and farmland (I was completely disoriented even though we used to drive down those roads frequently), and even our favourite little conservation area, which used to be isolated and underused, has undergone improvements and beautification (and now charges $12 for day use!). The major highways have been expanded, box stores have sprung up in places we wouldn’t have dreamed of putting box stores twenty years ago, and the population of the area has exploded.
I was reminded of the saying that you can’t go home again once you’ve left. Thomas Wolfe, an early twentieth century American writer, wrote a novel called You Can’t Go Home Again, and he wrote "You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood ... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time – back home to the escapes of Time and Memory."
In many ways, that is true. Life moves on, people and places change, our dreams and goals undergo revisions and transformations, kids and families grow up. But near the end of our trip, we stayed with a family that “adopted” us when we were young newlyweds far away from our own extended families. They made us part of their extended family which included themselves, their children, and their children’s children. We spent many Sunday afternoons at “The Farm”, became good friends with their daughters and their families in particular, helped out once or twice during maple syrup season, and spent a memorable Christmas Day with them when I was pregnant with our first child. Although we haven’t lived near them in over twenty years, it was like no time had passed. We immediately felt the way we used to when we drove up the lane – that we were “home.” Yes, a lot has changed at The Farm. They have retired from raising cattle, the trees in their front field which were mere babies when we left are now almost forest-sized, and their grandchildren have children of their own. But the love and friendship which was so much a part of our lives back then is still there. That is what makes a “home”, and it is what makes it possible to keep going back home, even if we never actually live there again.
We have a lot to be grateful for, friends who are our family, warm welcomes and emotional farewells, and the promise of “next time.” At the end of our vacation, we were glad to be home again, but I left a little bit of myself “back home” in Ontario too. Till next time.
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