The classroom’s harsh fluorescent lights flickered ever so gently, exaggerating the shadow cast by my imposing tower of musty library books. Outside, powerful gusts of wind commenced their fatal battle with autumn’s last stubborn leaves clinging desperately to bare branches. Cloistered away indoors from the storm, I perched awkwardly on the hard plastic chair, mass-produced for discomfort, numbly flipping through Facebook photos and trying to avoid eye contact with my to-do list. Each twitch of my fingers unearthed layers of memories, buried in the shroud of my collegiate past.
Just four years. Most of us really aren’t here on this campus for very long — maybe a little over 5 percent of your total life, if Google is right about the calculation for an average American lifespan. And yet the change I saw take place in my friends and in myself over the time documented by those photo albums was considerable. I could hardly help but stop and wonder at life’s rapid fluctuations. Round, youthful faces, now linear and hardened by the years, and faces long absent from my day-to-day life appeared before me on the electric glow of the laptop screen. How did four years put so much understanding in her smile? And does that mischievous light still glow behind his eyes these days as he commutes to and from his nine-to-five, workaday job?
When I drifted off to sleep that first night in Olds Residence beneath my neon-colored covers, in a room that looked like a highlighter factory explosion, I had no idea how dramatically different I would be when I woke up four years later. And it does all kind of seem like a dream now, a dream full of mac n’ cheese made in hot pots, and late-night Dutch Uncle runs, and decorating the Niedfeldt lobby for Christmas to the sounds of Relient K back in yon ancient days when the dorm housed men like it was supposed to. But it had its nightmarish qualities too. There are not many places on this campus where I haven’t shed tears, and there were days (or semesters) when you could have tracked me down by following my trail of mascara stains. Yet looking back now I can see that every tear, every belly laugh, every doughnut sculpted new lines and angles into my being. Today when you walk into my room you’ll find much gentler colors gracing the walls.
Shakespeare gives Prospero a line in the opening to Act 5 of “The Tempest” that I haven’t been able to get out of my head for quite some time. This character who holds his enemies under a spell and seems to control the outcome of the play admits towards its end, “The sole drift of my purpose doth extend / Not a frown further.” Prospero intends to show compassion toward those who have sinned against him, leaving the audience with smiles after the curtain closes instead of tears. But thanks to Dr. Smith and the wonders of the English language I now read “sole drift” with the double meaning “soul drift.” As human souls on this earth we all drift in one direction or another; we grow and change for better or for worse. And it can either feel like an easy cruise down a lazy river or a helpless tossing on a small piece of driftwood in a heavy storm. But part of the purpose of a genuine education, like the one we’re offered at Hillsdale, is to set our little bark off in the direction that extends “not a frown further.” Of course, the chances are extremely slim that we’ll reach that destination during our four years, or even over the course of our lives, but if I’ve learned anything thus far, it’s that there are way more reasons to smile than I had imagined, even though sometimes I lose sight of them in the midst of the salty waves.
You see, the funny thing about gaining an education is that the more I mature, the more I see just how small of a child I really am. I remember sitting beneath the stars in the middle of my junior year hurling pebbles at the unreachable horizon, feeling powerless and alone. But it wasn’t until I arrived at that breaking point that I could find all the peace and rest that comes with realizing that it’s okay to be powerless. I’m actually not in charge of what happens in six months when I step off the stage with my diploma. And I’m definitely not alone.
Still, the maturing process is far from over. In many ways, it seems like I’ve arrived exactly where I began. The first time I sat in Saga I didn’t recognize any of the faces around me, and here I am four years later, again unfamiliar with the new, fresh faces that surround the tables haunted by those who grew so precious to me as they passed through my life. And so another beginning beckons.
Prospero ends that speech in “The Tempest” by commanding the spirit Ariel to free his prisoners: “Go release them, Ariel: / My charms I’ll break, their senses I’ll restore, /And they shall be themselves.”
I think that’s the whole purpose of education: making us ourselves. And it’s a process that doesn’t end after we begin it here. So for those who will soon be joining me in the next phase of the soul drift, and for those who are just beginning to sail, bon voyage!
