Seasons of Love

The year is over.

Yesterday, I said my good-byes to the students,handed over a CD with 431 pictures, turned in my keys, finished packing my bags and cleaned out my room.

As I went through each of these steps, I couldn’t help but wonder where the year had gone. This morning as my barefoot roommates helped me load my bags into Erik’s car, we realized that this year has ended where it began-barefoot on the side walk of Palisade Ave with suitcases at Erik’s car.

But how do you account for everything that happened since that day at the end of August. Or in the words of the wonderful, although slightly cliché, song Seasons of Love from Rent “How do you measure a year in the life?”

I think the song answers its own question well.

In daylight. In sunsets.

In midnights. In cups of coffee.

In inches. In miles.

In laughter. In strife.

In five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes….

It’s time now to sing out. Though the story never ends.

Lets celebrate, remember a year in the life of friends.

As I sit at LaGuardia airport, reflecting on these words, I find myself remembering all the fun and laughter. It is weird to think about this chapter in my life coming to an end, knowing that the Newark 8 will never be together again in the same way we were this year. I know that I will forever celebrate and remember this year in the life of friends.

They say a picture is worth a 1,000 words, so here are the thousands of words that provide a the measuring stick for the past year for me:

"That's when you move away"

“Are you sad to leave?”

“Are you ready to leave?”

They are such seemingly simply questions to answer-Yes or No. However, as I find myself frequently needing to answer these questions, I struggle to give an adequate answer.

As I sit on my fire escape looking at the New York skyline that has become so familiar, I discover a part of me will be sad to leave the sights and sounds that have become familiar here: the lady on her stoop feeding the neighborhood cats, the sounds of the bus routes outside, and the noise of the children at the Jubilee Center.

Over the past eleven months, Jersey City and Hoboken have become familiar and I have found a place here with my roommates, fellow interns and the Jubilee Center. I will be sad to leave these relationships behind.

Yet, as I pack my bags and prepare to leave, I know a part of me is ready to leave and return to something familiar, to the things that I have known: the wide-open spaces of Northeast Iowa the people there that I love, the slower pace of life and the place called home.

This year has been full of laughter and tears, joys and challenges. It has been a year of building new relationships and strengthening existing ones. As I board my plane to fly back to the Midwest, I know I will be taking not only be my suitcases but also many wonderful memories from the good times and lessons learned from the challenges.

As usually, I think StoryPeople sums it up pretty well (I would just edited to read people and places):

I think you love people until you get to understand them, she said

& I said, what happens then?

& she said, o, that's when you move away.

Chautauqua

I got a chance to get out of New Jersey and head 300 miles east back to Chautauqua Institution for the Fourth of July weekend. Over the past year, I have often been asked to explain Chautauqua to people. This seemingly easy task is actually quite difficult. It started as a training school for Sunday School teachers but has now become what Wikipedia calls “a non-profit adult education center and summer resort.” As I try to explain the place, people wonder is it an educational instituation, a gated community, a art and music school, a religious institution, an entertainment provider, a vacation spot? The easy answer is yes.

Yet, Chautauqua is much more than that. Each person will experience and define Chautauqua differently based on their reasons for being there. For me, Chautauqua is as much about the people and the community as it is about the place and all that it offer like:

*Deep feeling of welcome and homecoming as you drive through the gates

*Having a lane and lane partner who shares her paddles at Turner community pool

*Random conversations on beautiful porches

* Laughing children chasing rocket balloons on the Plaza

* Seeing a ballet on Thursday, Steve Martin on Friday and a symphony on Saturday

*Joining your voice with a congregation of thousand in the open air amp to sing “Holy, Holy, Holy”

*Using paper bags as cannons during the 1812 Overture during the 4^th of July Symphony Pops concert

*Lazy afternoons at University Beach reading, writing and sleeping

*Sitting on a porch listening to a lecture

*Ice cream with dear friends

*Making a big world smaller, and a small world bigger

*Children getting their faces painted on the porch

*Feeling connect to something that stretches back into the past and forward into the future

*”Street Musicians” made up of students from the symphony orchestra

*Feeling of peace while listening to Handel’s Largo on the organ on Sunday Night

*Unplanned conversations while wandering the brick walk

*Sunrises and Sunsets over Chautauqua Lake

*Music of the Miller Bell Tower

*Having a new place to call home and new people to call family

While all of these things are simply the experiences I can give voice to, Chautauqua is more that these things. It is a feeling, a sense and an experience. I wish my words could tell the whole story but they simply cannot, so I leave you with a few picture to attempt it.

For more pictures check out these albums:

From Summer 2010:

From this Fourth of July.