Commencement

We’re sitting on folding chairs in the middle of a field, along with several hundred other people. The chairs are grouped in sets of mostly two or three, to create socially-distanced “pandemic pods.” In front of us is a stage with a podium and a microphone. To each side of the stage is a large screen, where video of the crowd is being shown. Now and then a group somewhere in the field sees itself on one of the screens and waves shyly. On the other side of the stage and down a slight hill is a sea of chairs where the graduates will sit. Despite the instructions we’ve all been given about not mingling with others, regardless of our vaccination status, people all over the field are standing in groups and chatting with friends who are not part of their official pod. We don’t mind – we figure some people are too excited to sit still in their chairs.

A speaker steps to the microphone and announces that the processional will begin in a few moments and asks everyone to please take their seats. We’re not sure what direction the graduates will come from, so we all peer around at the edges of the field, trying to see where they’re lining up. A video of the school’s wind ensemble playing Pomp and Circumstance begins and our feeling of expectation rises. Then we see movement off to our right. On the other side of a chain link fence, the faculty is beginning to process through a grove of trees.

They walk slowly, in a stately, dignified fashion, wearing their full regalia and their masks. They do not walk as if they are participating in a ceremony that has been delayed by an entire year, that has been curtailed in a dozen small and large ways, that is somehow less important than usual. Rather, they walk as they have always walked, and as they believe their kind always will walk, with gravity, with pride in what they have accomplished. They are the teachers, the carriers and transmitters of knowledge, the ones who take young minds and train them to ponder all we do and do not know. The faculty walk in quiet triumph.

As soon as I catch sight of them, my throat begins to ache and my eyes begin to tear. My breathing becomes stuttery, and my body, trembly. How do I put into words what I feel? Somehow, we made it through. Not all of us. Too many individuals have died and too many have been damaged. But those of us who’ve been lucky enough to survive, to be somewhat intact, are here. We are trying to carry on, for ourselves and also for those who are not here.

When our young people begin to process behind the faculty, we rise from our seats and cheer, as we have always done, but our pride, our joy, our relief, are deeper, more palpable than in years past. Perhaps we also cheer for ourselves, as we too commence, as we pick up our lives and begin again.