I think about this poem every year right around this time,
when spring finally arrives wherever it is I’m living. May in Chicago is just the beginning of spring. The leaves are just now breaking out of their buds.
And flowers suddenly seem to be blooming overnight. When you live in the Windy
City, spring is no walk in the park—it’s about 30-day sprint to summer (on the
heels of a marathon of snow and ice and cold). Sometimes it seems like we only
have two seasons…. or maybe three. Spring, sadly, is the one that gets squeezed out.
I imagine one of the reasons this poem is so famous is because
it truly resonates with life. Here at North Park, students are preparing to
graduate in a few short days. I can’t help but think of my own college
graduation several years ago and remember the bittersweetness of it. There was
so much excitement leading up to the event—four years of intense study
culminating in one grand moment of triumph! And almost just as quickly, the
jittery butterflies of anticipation turned into what felt like a lead weight in
the pit of my stomach as I thought of what I was leaving behind: friends and a
campus that had become a home away from home. A life that I had created for
myself, apart from my parents and the identity I had inherited. And then I
thought about that proverbial “real world.” The daily grind. The rat race.
*Sigh*. Nothing gold can stay.
I remember that last western sunset from the window of my empty dorm room the night I received my diploma. Why was I feeling so melancholy? The
future was calling. Yeah, this was a sunset, but give or take a few hours, and
there would be gold on the horizon again.
Now here it is, so many sunrises and sunsets and springs later, and I have the privilege of looking back on all the wonderful
moments that transpired since that day in May when my world was ending and
beginning at once. Great life experiences—great work experiences, great
roommates, nights on the town, a fresh start as an adult, a chance encounter
with a handsome stranger, a beautiful marriage (to the aforementioned)….
Life has been a succession of new beginnings. A crescendo,
even.
I imagine the graduates preparing to walk across the stage
this weekend have similar conflicting emotions—joy and anxiety and impatience
and hope…. maybe even a little melancholy. That’s okay. I’m pretty sure it’s normal.
Green to gold, gold to green… and all the in-between stages
of orange and brown and blue and gray.
That’s the beauty of life and its seasons. They change.
~Jessica Bernthal, University Editor
