Flock West

I went to the Commencement Office today ready to put up a fight. An e-mail and a phone call hadn't been enough to get them to send me the graduation materials that I rightly deserved and the that the other seniors had already received a week and a half ago. Instead, yesterday I received a mass e-mail from the Commencement Office in which they declared that all the packets had been sent out a while ago and that basically they took care of everything and if we didn't receive the packets the problem must be that our address was listed incorrectly or something else.

I walked into the Office today after a long day in class and at work. The lady at the desk greeted me with a sneer as I said hi. "What's your name," she demanded.

I told her, and began to spell out my last name but as I was doing so she cut me off, excited. "Oh, I know you!" She almost shouted, flapping her arms in the air. "I know you!"

I had never seen her before.

Surprised, and unsure how to take her reaction, I nervously joked, "Yeah I'm the one who called and e-mailed, maybe you..?"

"Yes, yes. I sent you--you left your address on the phone, right?"

Yes, exactly. She sent me off with the contention that my graduation materials should be in my mailbox when I get home today. Holding my breath, and somewhat relieved, I bid her goodbye.

I did receive my graduation packet in the mail today, and with that I'm leaving in the dust another block between and my emancipation.

Walking down the huge hill back to my dorm at the end of the day I fixed my eyes on the thick, gray March sky instead of heeding the hunky, privileged boys and the pretty-pretty, rich girls passing me by. As my eyes wandered from the tip of the old clocktower that scrapes the sky to the vast clouds, I noticed a huge flock of birds. They flew in several massive V-arrangements directly west over the hills on the opposite side of the narrow, long finger lake.

If I had wings I would have lifted myself right off this steep hill and headed west with them, too. That is, after all, where I'm from and where I want to go--back to the great northern plains, or the vast stretches of Wyoming and Montana, or the mountainous desert, or maybe even sunny, warm Hawaii. Though I'm originally from an ocean and a sea further east from this East Coast, I suppose if I fly west long enough I'd eventually get there, too. Nevertheless, I fear that might be a long journey and a long time away. But flocking west with those free birds is a good first step.