Graduation

Well, here I am again, in the Haymarket Café in Northampton MA, on a Sunday morning. I remember the my first time here, up visiting with Anne, an early "relationship challenge" -- I'd ordered this laptop but it hadn't arrived yet, so it must have been the Fall of 2008 (I hadn't yet committed to move in because I required a computer at my place, wherever that place might be), and I was using her laptop after eating -- and that trip, and that brunch, was the first time Ben and I actually met and hung out together. If I remember right, we all had our noses in the books we'd bought the day before.

Yesterday was Ben's graduation from Hampshire College. We came up on Friday, in time to see his final presentation: he and his friend Jason had translated the works of several early-20th-century Russian poets for their senior projects, and they talked about the issues involved, like sound vs. meaning, grammatical structures and themes and plays on words -- it was pretty fascinating, how they chose between various compromises and emphases, to bring the essences of the poems into English. We had a bit of a party at his dorm afterward, students and parents, burgers and hot dogs and 2 pony kegs of Pennsylvania homebrew.

Commencement was yesterday, on the Hampshire campus, and it was really nice despite the weather, and far less formal than most. (I realized that there's a lot to be said for having the graduation ceremony on the college campus, as opposed to my graduation, held all those many years ago at the Garden State Arts Center.)

We came back to Northampton, and regrouped for a bit before heading over to Jason's for another party, this time fewer parents and more intimately student-oriented. We really got to hang out and BS with the kids -- it was pleasant to be around a diverse crowd of intelligent, and intellectually curious, youngsters, and fun to see how their tastes were informed by their intellectual curiosity. (Banjos and fiddles in the corner, Art Tatum jamming on the boom box, and all sorts of Russian posters, presumably Jason's, on the walls.) We were the fools who brought the fake mustaches, and they were a big hit...

Anyway, now it's downtime -- it was a great few days, but there was also a fair amount of stress involved, and now we're gearing up for a long drive home with a car full of Ben's dorm room. I think we could use a staycation next weekend.