My very favorite thing, of course, was catching up with old friends. As I said, several were there, none of whom I see as often as I’d like. It was great to see who everyone has become, get to know spouses better, and meet children.
I also enjoyed visiting with my grunge-era, early-twenties self. I’ve read travelogues about returning to a place the writer knew at a much different life stage, and I imagined I’d learn a lot about how far I’d come by comparing my modern self to my collegiate self. And I did, but honestly, I also enjoyed the illusion that I still was my collegiate self. Scurrying across the green, bumping into friends at the Hop, hanging out with old roommates at ’tails…all these things were once so commonplace that it was possible to pretend that they still happened every day.
I’m not saying it’s healthy to live in the past, but I do think it’s a nice place to visit.
Other favorite moments:
- Swimming in the river. I never do this at home. We don’t have any major rivers in the East Bay, and it just doesn’t get that hot here anyway.
- Summer cloudburst. I was hoping for a full-blown thunderstorm, but even just a nice, warm summer rain was a good thing.
- Eating an EBA’s chicken sandwich at midnight. It wasn’t the size of my face the way I remember (I guess nothing’s ever as big as it seemed when you were young), but it was just as good.
- Rodent watch: Pipi and I took a walk by my old dorm, and Pipi swears she saw a beaver in the cemetery that’s next to it. There is a little brook running through there, so I’m inclined to believe her.
- Bumping into one of my freshman-year roommates at lunch at the Bema. She remembered that the last time we saw each other was at a class gathering--also at the Bema--the day before we graduated. So here’s what I’m wondering: Does she think I’ve been up there all this time?
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