May 4th, 2014 (Grand May Day) – The Intervening of that Strange Day

Tea is Served (The Delightful Middle)

As the sky vacillated between rainy and sunny, I sat tucked away. Blissful streams of a capella music washed over me. It was a lull in the frenzy of activity I had planned and later enacted. I rode in a tea spun by myself and my teacup-mate–spun so crazily we both got somewhat ill and dizzy and only just managed to stumble drunkenly out of our specially chosen red teacup. I got a henna flower on the back of my right hand. Took photos in a photo booth, wondered if there was a real white rabbit at the petting zoo to soothe my lack of a stuffed one, and watched as Mawrters trolled around in the trackless train.

Leaving the buzz, I located some friends in Thomas Great Hall and sung for them. By then the sky had made up its mind: sunny. The sunlight was greeted by Mawrters with multiple Anasses and general clamor.

I yelled with them.

Live Like Horses

Gut-wrenching sobs and glistening eyes abounded.

But not from me.

And it wasn’t because I’m heartless but rather, because for me it wasn’t goodbye. Just because the juniors now occupied the Senior Steps didn’t mean that it was goodbye for me. That’s what I kept thinking. I still have commencement and Garden Parties.

Who knows, I may cry then.

It seems incredibly fitting to me that this quasi-ending to my freshman year and my time with the all too glorious dark blue class (the originals!) is so altered from the semi-start–Parade Night. Then I was the audience, not a participant.

At that time it was a new dawn for me, the start of a year, a time when the leaves were just beginning to fall but I was blooming. Times of the morning were (and are) calling.

Parade Night celebrated a beginning: of sophomore/freshmen rivalry, senior apathy, and junior-freshman love. May Day celebrates a beauteous end (and a beginning too) as our old seniors “depart” and the juniors rise to ascendancy. Thus indeed, there is a message in these.

Seniors: good luck in that dark, glittering, brilliant, and sharp world.

Juniors: ‘tis your last hoorah, savor it.

Now the ascendancy was complete. The juniors were now seniors (or something…)

A run down Senior Row was called for.

As my graduating senior friend and rising senior friend sped down Senior Row, I and another friend trailed them. We raced fast as four bullets shot out of a gun. The wind whipped by, freezing me, chilling me as I laced through the trees of Senior Row like a needle through fabric.

Cold air filled my lungs and I imagine I felt as colts must feel: free as the wind they chase with the world spread beneath them.