Graduatin'

The Final Column as it Actually Appeared in The Righetti High School Legend, June 2009

Well, folks, it's that time of year again. If you listen hard enough, you can almost here strains [of] "Pomp and Circumstance" echoing in the wind. This year, the song is playing for me. That means that this is The Last Issue. But let me stop before I go all sentimental on you. I hate to admit it, but I really am a sentimental person. I thought I was immune to the boo-hoo graduation sickness, but I guess I'm not. I actually wanted to give a speech at graduation. I tried my darnedest, but I didn't make the final cut. But with this big, empty page of newspaper before me, I can give my speech anyway!

****

So, here we are graduating. Here I am, giving a speech about it. Life is funny. But, before I say anything else, I must give thanks and commendations to the band. They are sitting right over there; cold, bored, and ruing the day Edward Elgar composed Pomp and Circumstance without a thought to the pain it would bring generations of band students. I was over there every year of high school and remember listening to speeches just like this and thinking APff. What does this have to do with me? I=m not graduating yet!@ and AHow could you ever feel sentimental about Righetti? High school is totally not that great.@ AWhen can I eat lunch?@ So, guys, I=ll be brief and try to stay away from sappiness and cliches.

When I first witnessed this ceremony four years ago, it was strictly business: I came with the band. I didn=t know the graduates that well and they seemed old and distant. And after 30 minutes of playing the same four lines of music over and over, I was tired, bored, and pessimistic. The rest of the ceremony floated over my head with the A>06" mylar balloons.

The next year, I brought my knitting and completed much of a shoulder bag as I listened to the speeches. I still regarded them and the whole event with disaffection, maybe even more than before. Sophomore year had been the height of my antisocial days. I rolled my eyes at school spirit and laughed at the idea that I could ever be sad or wistful about leaving.

But last year, something changed in me. That time, I felt different as I watched the stream of purple squares ascend the stage. These seniors were closer to me, and I felt more affected by their passing. But the bigger change was within myself: I was then aware that I was in the second half of high school. It was the better half, too. I felt wiser, friendlier, more open. High school was finally making some sense! We reach a point, sometimes sooner, sometimes later, when we groove into our situation. I did just as I realized that this was the last graduation I=d watch from the band bleachers. Next year, I=d be the one in purple, the one looking old and big and distant, maybe even the one given the sappy speech.

This revelation brought with it a wave of sentimentality. Oh, man, even me! Darn it all, I=m just a big softie. But I think there was reason behind my sudden nostalgia. I redefined school spirit in that moment. It doesn=t have to be this blind love of high school, the time or the place; but rather, it=s camaraderie (and sometimes commiseration) with the people who went through it all with you. After enough time, bonds develop regardless of where we fit in (or don=t). Until this time, I=d thought that high school and all its pageantry was just for the popular kids, the recognized names, the frequently pictured in the yearbook faces, the Abest of the best@ winners. But no, it=s not. Those methods of judging worth are bunk, utter and complete bollocks, because our experiences are way bigger.

I=m getting pretty philosophical, huh. Sorry. This is all to say that I feel impelled to give a speech so that I might reach out to all the unrecognized people, the also-rans, the non-winners. This speech is for you. I=m one of you, myself.

And speaking of this speech, well, geez. That day last June as I packed up my saxophone and first considered writing a speech seems so distant now. My head swarmed with ideas and I don=t even remember half of them. This whole speech writing thing is actually really, really hard. I am sorry I ever looked down on past speakers.

At this point in our lives, we seniors are feeling a great many strong emotions, some contradictory. It=s hard to say anything neat and nice and unifying about it. It=s confusing: we have joy, we have regret; we have excitement, we have fear; we are commencing, we are saying good-bye. We want to be cool, shrug this off and get on with our lives, but the people, places, and experiences we are leaving behind demand some recognition.

I can=t tell you just what you should make of these conflicting emotions. Graduation seems to be composed of antithetical ideas and there=s no escaping the push and pull of this growing up time. But, we shouldn=t even try to escape it. Now we must become the thing that lies between the opposing ideas, stoked by their friction into a greater sense of who we are and what we can be. As one of my favorite authors, F. Scott Fitzgerald, said AThe test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind and still retain the ability to function.@

Gotta stop myself before I get any more grandiose than that. We are all being tested and that=s a good thing. Sometimes, it gets really hard to function (I bet I=m not the only one that procrastinated like mad with that senior project). But function we did, because, well, we=re here aren=t we? And what better way to end my speech than on this obvious statement with convoluted existential undertones. Never stop pondering.

Thank you, everyone, for staying awake. My ego is much better for it. I hope you got stirred up or at least a trifle amused by that speech. If you didn=t; at least it=s over now. Good-bye, everyone.

****

So, you won't be hearing that speech at graduation, but if you go, you will get to hear me perform a certain march for 30 minutes or until I have an aneurysm, whichever comes first. Yes, I decided to play with the band this year as a volunteer. After all those years of loathing the performance, I realized that it was actually sort of important. And this year, with so many seniors leaving the band, we were very much in want of musicians. I decided I wasn't really interested in doing the rehearsed walk into the bleachers, anyway. My place is in the band. That's...nerdy. Darn right. This has been Confessions of a Nerd with Maya Garcia. That's all, folks. Thank you very much. You have been a very lovely audience. I'll see you in the funny papers. Live long and prosper. Good night, and good luck.

So it goes.

"College-Level Insight" or something like it:

I think I got a little egomaniacal here. It was hard not to -- I received more praise and social acceptance as the writer of this column than I as a nerd knew what to do with. So I got a little wordy and also used my page to give my graduation speech (which was deemed by the judges to be too long and too highbrow for the audience -- a pretty nice rejection, as far as they go) a place. It was also a convenient last-minute change from my big love confession. I'm still ambivalent about the whole thing. I like my writing in the intro and end paragraphs (minus that typo and the rambling towards the end...), but feel they were pretty extraneous and made the whole thing pretty long. But the Vonnegut reference at the end co-ordinates nicely with my drawing of a Tralfamadorian...(I had just read Slaughterhouse-Five). About this time I also began to take up a bit of a Tralfamadorian worldview -- life will be life and the past is past. I cannot change what I did, so I must find peace with it.

But unlike a Tralfamadorian, I can't see the future, so I look forward with interest to the nerdy experiences and humorous commentary in my life to come.

I even wrote a sonnet

The Final Column as I Wanted to Publish it, Until I Ultimately Changed My Mind

Well, this is it. My last column. I suppose it ought to be a sort of reflection or wrap-up, but you know what? That=s what everything else I=ve had to write/read lately seems to be. Yes, yes. The year, and with it my entire high school career and time living in Santa Maria and being a child is ending. Strains of APomp and Circumstance@ waft through the air. Somehow, I=m not feeling it right now. I haven=t even got my gown yet, and I=m tired of endless meditations on graduation. I bet that by the time you=ve gotten to this part of the newspaper, you=re a little tired of the whole deal, too.

My columns have gotten more and more personal, I=ve noticed. So, I think I=m ready to be absolutely frank and admit that my mind has been occupied by one thing in particular lately, and it=s not graduating. I=ve been thinking about graduating, too, but only because other people keep bringing it up. Darn other people. No, the thing that=s really on my mind is actually...a boy. Not a thing, but a person. It=s not the guy I mentioned last issue (we still haven=t corresponded since I gave him that lecture on Keats). It=s not Keats, either, though I do think of him rather often, I=ll admit. This guy is actually alive and physically present in my life (and probably reading this paper B er, I hope this doesn=t mortify you terribly much. I promise not to print your name). This is a bit of a departure for me, as you might have gathered. It certainly complicates things. It=s so much easier to be in love with a guy who=s been moldering for nigh on two centuries: you don=t have to worry about what he thinks or ever face rejection or embarrassment.

But as hormones would have it, I=ve fallen for a flesh-and-blood guy. It=s hard to say when it happened: we=ve known each other for years, but it wasn=t until probably two years ago that I first thought I liked him liked him just a bit. My emotions shuttled around obnoxiously for a while as a teenager=s are wont to do, but eventually settled on him. After months of reticence and tension, I decided to pull another ACarpe Diem@ maneuver (I wasn=t going to go through high school without a single romance if I could help it, by god!) and took the plunge. It was the single most frightening thing I=ve ever done in my whole goddamned life. Maybe that speaks more to the banality of my life, but geez, was it an ordeal.

He wasn=t interested in dating me, and I tried to take this in stride. You know how it goes: ha! I=m fine, I=m cracking jokes, I=m smiling, everything=s dandy, life goes on, don=t need him, ha ha ha...lies. Damned lies. My bravado eventually wore away and revealed me to be just as crushed as any other lovelorn adolescent. I told myself that I didn=t have those feelings for him anymore, but the bizarre and uncomfortable temperature changes and gut wrenching I found myself continuing to experience whenever I saw him rather disprove this presumed indifference (or signal a premature menopause).

I=m in a bad way. I=m writing frigging love poetry. But it=s actually kind of good, I think. Take a gander at this sonnet:

Why was it you, among the many fools?

While we're all sneezing pollen-love, you stand,

Your countenance unshook, your eyes clear pools

Not rosied with the disease by springtime fanned

To the lungs of the rest. You acted bland;

Aloof and pocket-handed when I was

High on dust from old poetry books and

Coursing all through with a day-seizing buzz --

Blame your blinks of smile and laughter like fuzz

(The soft wisps tickle my throat fever hot) --

But all my ardor was in vain because

I loved the only sane one of the lot!

Spring is love's season, I guess, for the ease

Of blaming one's tears on her allergies.

I think that gives you a fair idea of what I=m feeling. When a nerd falls in love, acrostic poems just don=t cut it (although the sonnet type I used is a reference to his name. Yes, I know that I=m weird). I hope you=re laughing with me, not at me.

And as to the addressee of the sonnet, well, this is awkward. Er, please don=t be too wierded out. It=s all true, and you know what? You should be pretty damn pleased with yourself. It=s not every guy who inspires sonnets and has girls confess their of love of him in the frigging school newspaper. I rather envy you, myself.

I would, I think, be O.K. with the whole world knowing how I feel about you. You=re pretty awesome, and, well, I=m a journalist, so I have this sort of compulsion to get the truth out. But, as a journalist, I know that if I was to use your name here, I=d be compelled to show you this before it prints and ruin the surprise. Plus, I don=t want to embarrass you. I suppose this will frustrate some readers, so I=ll give out a couple clues which will require some research: 1) As previously stated, the type of sonnet I wrote has a name similar to his. 2) His initials are the atomic symbol for my favorite element (when a nerd falls in love, it=s all chemistry).

Commentary:

Ah...yes. I so wanted to pull a teen cinema move and confess my love in the school paper in one big gush. I came really close. It's been ages and I've gone through so much (including a bigger romantic trauma...stay tuned) that I can't quite recall what exactly kept me from running this. I think it was a combination of new inspiration (I finally DID get a bit of that graduation introspection sickness that was going around) and (mostly this) the realization that despite my rationalization, this still had the potential to really embarrass my crush. He was a quiet guy who didn't like drawing attention to himself, after all. I decided to end our time together on a quiet note and that was that.

It took history repeating itself on steroids for me to finally realize one year later that falling for shy, introverted guys was not going to work for me. Oof. I tried to write verse about my last crush (and have a bunch of unfinished odes buried deep in my desk), but eventually gave up love poetry entirely. Hrmph.

I hate to end a post on a "hrmph." I'm not bitter about my high school crush, on the contrary, I think the way things happened was the best possible outcome for me. I left high school with no romantic experience, true, but I had at least one big crushing rejection under my belt, so I was ready for anything. OK, that's not quite true. But it helped. And as I looked around my new home at Berkeley to fill the void for a guy to pine for, I learned a lot about myself and love and, um, Russian literature. But that is a confession for another day.

A snapshot from back when the craziest thing I did for love was volunteer to be the only graduate not walking down the aisle so I could play one last song with him. I've come so far.