Just a tiny picture of my old stomping grounds in college: my alma mater’s theatre. I virtually lived in this building for 4 whole years. It was home. When I had to be elsewhere, I just itched to get back. When I was there, I never wanted to leave. I have never felt this way about …. well, any other place, really. My entire LIFE was up those wide concrete steps, past those columns, hidden behind those secret brick walls. It’s ridiculous in a way; I mean, I HAD a dorm room. I had roommates over the years. But I saw that dorm room only to collapse into a deep dead sleep. And if the roommates weren’t in the theatre program with me, I saw them, oh, maybe in the hall on the way to the bathroom or maybe at the row of sinks brushing our teeth at the same time. I was a lunatic with complete self-absorbed tunnel vision.
To this day, I can’t look at that lower right window without a lump in my throat — the office of my most beloved ornery demanding professor who died five years ago on my birthday.
I can’t look at the window on the lower left and not think of my other dear professor whose door was always open, any time, all the time. He was just there for all of us and it seemed he was available, without fail, just when you needed someone. You could always find a fellow theatre student in there, laughing, crying, freaking out about life. I mean, the door was, quite literally, always OPEN, so you’d just peek around the corner, join in whatever was going on — laughing, crying, freaking out — and if we all had a free period, dear professor would say, “Oh, c’mon. Let’s all go to lunch.” I’m not even sure something like that could happen anymore. And that’s just one of the secrets of this place. Spontaneous lunches at Red Robin with your professor and friends. Big dripping hamburgers that somehow made everything better. Don’t be fooled; magical crazy things happened inside this staid-looking building. Things that you just don’t forget. Things that — you know now, but didn’t know then — defined you. Things that linger now because, somehow, life seemed bigger back then.
Oh, you beautiful long-suffering old theatre! The things you saw, heard, endured! I will love you forever for all of it.
You were the warm refuge where I felt my very best, most open self.
I feel that way about my college. Not to take anything away from CO and the live we have, the life I love, but in many ways those college days will always be the best of my life.
I love your quote “Things that linger now because, somehow, life seemed bigger back then.”
That is perfect! As much as I love my life now, and wouldn’t trade it, I remember those days as being so large and full. It is difficult to explain, but you nailed it. I totally get this. It is a bond that will never break.