Tiny green buds are peeking through the branches, timidly sticking their faces out in the clean spring air, while trees nearby them are blooming with color and shape. At the sight of this, students start running to a tree, any tree, to hang hammocks and lay suspended between the two trunks, basking in the warmth of the sun and the promise of growth. I travel down from my college on the hill and head home to discover a continuation of blooming. Trees are at different stages of growth, some with green on each branch and others still looking bare and scraggled against the blue sky. But I sit here and breathe it all in because everywhere, everything is growing. When I came home today, I set the alarms off as I attempted to disarm the updated security system in my house. I just now look up to see my dog hesitantly climb on his new bed and carefully make a nest for himself. Our world is characterized by moments of uncertainty and discomfort, but that is how we grow and learn. These past couple weeks on campus there has been a lot of pain, a lot of discomfort, and a lot of sadness. People's identities have been threatened and characterized by fear. The events on campus certainly do not compare to any day to day discomfort I may experience. Through all of this, I have wondered how me and the rest of the St. Olaf student body can help make this world a better place for people of color. And I have realized that sometimes, you have to make yourself vulnerable and make mistakes. It is the only thing that will help us grow. After all, trees make themselves vulnerable all the time. They stand firmly through the cold, frozen winters. They stand long enough to be touched by the sun's warm glow, and then bloom into a flurry of color and texture. And so why can’t we bloom, too? I would like to say that this post is inspired by friend Maren, and her blog, Dear Crohn's. She has taught me to find inspiration and comfort in the nature around us, and I hope this can bring comfort to other people as well.
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As Gretchen and I each cherish our last bite of chocolate chip cookie, we give each other a look with question in our eyes. Knowing what we both are thinking, we smile at each other. The two of us walk quickly out the door of the restaurant and down the winding brick path that leads to the green open space. It is dark at this point, but the air still feels warm and has that Florida smell that always makes us nostalgic. We reach the area of green space that has a big concrete circle. In the dark, I can see the circle is dotted with tiny lights reflecting blue, green, purple, red and yellow colors. We slip our sandals off, letting our bare feet warm on the concrete surface.
Gretchen skips over to the button located on a tiny pole nearby. Excited, she pushes it, and we look to the concrete circle eagerly. Suddenly, soft spouts of water bubble up from the surface. The spouts got higher and higher, creating fountains, the water droplets reflecting the dim yellowed glow of the street lamps. With high pitched voices emerging from our mouths, we run across the circle, dodging each fountain with ease, as if we remembered exactly where each water spout was from our childhood. Eventually, we grow more confident and familiar with the feeling of cold water on our skin. We start leaping through each fountain, letting the water splash freely onto our dresses. We scream as we were faced with streams of water arching high above us, threatening to splash down upon us at any moment. Soon, the fountains lower to the ground, as if bowing down to us. Faces flushed and shining, we take a curtsey in our water weighted dresses. Laughing, we run through the puddles we have created, back to the edge of the park where our grandparents are waiting. It is amazing, those small details we remember from our childhood. Last night I realized just how precious these small, delicate memories are. My friend and I watched a favorite childhood movie, The Emperor’s New Groove. As with every other Disney movie, I realized how much more I get out of the movie now than I ever did as a kid. But among these new connections are feelings and pictures of familiarity. The small things my young mind noticed, the little details I loved. Sometimes it was a sound, a word, a picture, or a color. In the The Emperor’s New Groove, we both commented on how we always loved the viles - the delicacy of them as they spilled out of the cabinet and clinked against the floor. The bright red liquid inside that I always thought looked sweet and delicious. The rubber, squeaky corks that sealed each one.
This got us talking about other childhood memories -- specifically picture books. I mentioned that I had this big book of children’s stories, but I really only loved one: D.W. the Picky Eater. The story centers around D.W. refusing to eat many types of food. One day, she has to promise her parents that she will eat whatever is on the menu. My favorite part of the whole story was the picture of this menu. I always interrupted my parent’s reading so I could read the menu. I loved the little pictures of each dish. I loved the names of them, especially “Goldilocks Griddle Cakes” because I loved the way the words all sounded together on my tongue. There was another book, A Bargain for Frances, and Frances is trying to get a new tea set. The old one is a white plastic set with red flowers which I always loved the image of. But the new tea set sounded beautiful: a real china set with pictures in blue (at least those are the details I can remember right now). I was again drawn to the delicacy of these details. Another book is calledChrysanthemum by Kevin Hankes. Chrysanthemum is the name of the main character, and she is embarrassed by how long her name is. But I loved the way it sounded and I loved that they wrote it in icing on her birthday cake. Lily’s Purple Plastic Purse was another one by Kevin Hankes. I loved the three coins she had in her purse that jingled and glittered. When I was younger, for Christmas I was given little beads that shimmered like jewels. They were in a little basket and I stored them at the top shelf in my closet. It was always special when I could take them down and admire their glimmering colors and cup their small shapes in my hand. I apologize for all of these different references, they all kind of spilled out! But I just love thinking about the fragility of these small details that I still remember so fondly. I would be interested to see if you remember some of these same stories and details too. Or, if it made you think of other stories/movies, please comment! I would love to read about them. To conclude, you may notice that I have done some adding to the right side of my blog. Little details that I would like to share -- feel free to take a look. (I am hoping to update the “current favorite” movie trailer and music often, so stay tuned:)). |