So I'm done with college.

I've written all my essays, taken my exams, and painted the interior of the college chapel in excruciating detail. I spent a week jumping into the river and reveling in the general glory of Minnesota springtime, and then I walked across a stage wearing a funny black frock and the president of my college gave me a folder with a piece of paper inside. I bid tearful farewells to a community that has defined my universe for four years, and packed up all of my worldly possessions into check-able airplane parcels. And now I'm done. When I fill out forms that ask for my occupation, I can no longer write "student." (Actually, this is an appropriate time to revisit a post I wrote back at the beginning of my Junior year: "When I was a student...")

As I write this, I'm sitting in a small airport in Bakersfield, CA, munching on brie cheese and trying to wrap my head around this incalculable turning point. I'm about to start my summer job working with teenagers in the foothills of the Sierras, but a large part of me still feels stuck somewhere in the Midwest, in the place where I poured my essence into books and people and questions and preposterously beautiful clouds. I'm excited that the f-bomb ("future") is falling with spectacular mystery and vividness, but I'm also kind of heartbroken. As much as I was challenged at Carleton, I loved it there. And now that imminent, formative section of my life is over in a way that makes me want to capitalize the word "Ending."

Bakersfield is an odd city. An incongruous, man-made oasis, it floats flat, shiny and hot like a mirage in a brown desert. I'm leaving soon to go to camp, where I will be up close to the sky in fragrant dusty evergreen forests. Hopefully I'll manage to learn something from the young ones, and, if I'm really lucky, teach.

And so life keeps turning, vividly and inexplicably. Fear not, however--I may be done with school for the moment, but I have every intention of keeping up with this blog. My plans for this falling f-bomb of a future are amorphous at best, but, whatever happens, it makes sense for me to write about it.

Cheers.