Goodbye, Home

After bidding goodbye to K&J at the totally reasonable hour of 6:30 a.m. Monday (I mean, honestly, probably the only good thing about being unemployed is being able to sleep in--something I really don't think anyone can appreciate until after you've gotten up at 4:30 a.m. every weekday for months for a 90-minute commute each way, and especially during one of the worst New York winters on record), I packed up (and forgot a pair of pajama pants) and got on the road. But first, a pit stop--at the old alma mater.

Bryn Mawr was my home for four beautiful years, and has never left my heart. I went around the campus, cataloguing the things that have changed (my old dorm has been gutted and renovated; there are hammocks outside the library) and the things that have stayed the same (my mail box still has the same stickers I put on it 13 years ago! Result!) Most of my coworkers from Canaday Library were sick and not in the office, but one, Beth, was around and generously offered to take me to lunch. 

With a few hours to spare, I went around campus. I entered Thomas Great Hall and left offerings to Athena to hope and pray for a job. I went to the cloisters and dipped my toes in the fountain--somehow ever since then I've felt a cold coming on. I went to the bookstore and tried to buy stuff, but of course my inherent insolvency got in the way of that plan in a hurry. 

Mostly, though, I tried to take pictures of memories. It's a bit of an impossible task, since everyone I knew who went there and even most of the people I knew who taught there have moved on now. But I snapped photos of the leaves changing color in front of Taylor Hall, of the light shining through Pembroke Arch and through the glass windows at Carpenter Library. I took photos of how Senior Row looks just from the pathway on Merion Green, and then, a few feet away, how the Campus Center and Radnor look from the far edge of the green. 

It's a good thing I had to drive to meet up with Leila in Maryland, because otherwise I don't think I could have kept all the tears at bay.