Graduation

Turns out the enormous ship standing off PCB was not to glide by 7H after all, she was making for East Terminal to load wood pulp. On our way from Holy Nativity Episcopal School graduation last evening we stopped by downtown marina and watched the ship, a real treat.

It was a treat too, a mood-lifting event such that I always desperately need after sinking emotionally deep into graduation ceremonies and letting them take me away to wherever it is that I go, I’m never quite sure. Maybe my own graduation from Bay High spring 1953 and all that followed, the entire rest of my life. But more likely my own times after watching and loving my HNES graduates all their years at my school, as they leave never to return or be seen again. Though I always loved the “rising seniors” who arrived for eighth grade the following August, the halls and my room always ached for those who’d graduated the previous May and scattered to various high schools in Bay District. The thirteen-year-olds who were my last class long years ago now head into their mid-twenties, but my heart still aches every year at graduation with that loss, the memories, “Father Tom! What’s for snacks today?” I will never stop missing them.

Turns out too that the second grassfire apparently was carelessness with fireworks, I hadn’t heard any, but maybe it was sparklers or such, a lot more mind-easing than the fear of arson.  

Every day is a beautiful day, and here’s a Friday more beautiful than ever.

Did anyone but me ever notice that no matter who else is around loved and loving, we actually live life alone, inside here all by ourselves, looking out? It's been said that we die alone too.

DThos+