may 18th

Your graduation is on TV right now. If I didn't have to go to work, would I sit in rapt attention as the letters of last names move interminably toward yours? Would I watch you on the screen getting your diploma? I probably would. Through the A's, B's, I would read a book, pretending I didn't care, but around the E's I would look up from the book and try not to feel too pathetic about watching. Maybe you're not even there. I didn't ever know you well enough to find out if you were going.

Hanging over this, my view of the blue-robed figures on the TV screen, is that day sitting with you on the lawn at Lambda, asking if you were excited to be graduating. It was such a beautiful day. April 15. Only hours before we kissed by the sea. You, before leaving this place, still having schoolwork to do, still in classes, still interested in me.

I always view time as a place. That little bit of time I knew you, the last times you would be as you were, in college, sitting on that lawn. The time I spent with you is a place. I can't go back there, but I'm learning that that's okay. When you graduate, good luck.