wasted days

And then it’s over! So fast, and almost effortlessly. With nothing now standing between me and graduation except a Calc final and some ceremony, it’s looking like a big wide world of summer right now. I still can’t really process that it’s all done though - it hasn’t sunk in. I thought I would start getting nervous months ago, but instead it’s remained entirely unreal until even now, when classes are finished and all is arranged for an ending. I cannot help but feel a little guilty I’m not more emotional, more caught up in the finality of it all. But, for whatever reason, I’m not. And so instead I blink occasionally at everything rushing up off the edge of the cliff, but don’t scream. It’s not a bad way to go, really - the silence is just a little uncanny.

And, undoubtedly, made easier by the many things to look forward to: graduation itself, parties afterwards, a blissful summer beginning with an 8-day trip to Scandanavia and then Bonnaroo. And then hot days at home, trips to New Jersey, and no real responsibilities until late September. Here’s hoping for a few glorious aestival months.

Sometimes I watch myself on a tape or in the mirror and think, “Good God! He’s so old!”

It shouldn’t come as such a surprise, time moving as it does, but a mild shock it is nonetheless. And these things just Happen, and before you know if your friends are getting married (married?) and you’ve outgrown all the old haunts and the old habits. It’s a little alarming.

I had always assumed this time would be turbulent, highly charged and emotional. But, it seems, not so. I drift towards the end of this chapter of life without so much as a casual backwards glance. The necessary practicalities keep my mind from dwelling on it too much, and frustration with people and things I don’t like or want to do make me hardly even sorry to be leaving. I have a summer left. Two weeks and a summer. The two weeks will go fast, although I still can’t really comprehend what they mean. The summer is longer than most, but undoubtedly will still seem to short.

And after it all: a whole new life. Or mode of life. Wide-eyed and unsuspecting, I’m heading toward it.

Two new episodes of Muse are available via podcast. Check it out:

dare to muse

I am going to work on getting the MP3’s available for direct download as well, as soon as I find the time. And songlists and whatnot, too, but again it’s all just a nice idea for now.

And the winner: Stanford, Stanford, Stanford. In the end nothing can compare to the almost mythical opportunity it affords me, the nearly unreal weather, and the thick, visceral lure of California. And so I prepare for my own revisitation to manifest destiny, fixing my eyes on the western horizon and humming to myself. Onwards.

background noise: “Cobscook Bay” The Mountain Goats