Skip to main content

Pomp and Circumstance

The pomp was provided by the bagpipe. The circumstance? Three small letters that represent hundreds of thousands of others written, pages and pages of prose boiled down: MFA.

But there was no "Pomp and Circumstance" at this graduation. There was "Scotland the Brave" instead. There were the dozen brave, the members of S3Q2 who took the long walk down the aisle, smiling, smiling, around the fan, up the center, a squeeze of a hand, love tangible. Chairs to the right of the ornate organ.

There was the heat of the full chapel, the walk to the microphone. "Tis the gift to be simple, tis the gift to be free. Tis the gift to come down where you ought to be. And when we find ourselves in the place just right, 'twill be in the valley of love and delight." Words of gratitude for the givers of the gift.

The speech, the readings, the hooding, the hugging. The diploma. Ginger Johnson, MFA. "O frabjous day! Calloo! Callay!" She chortled in her joy.

Comments

  1. karenJuly 24, 2009 at 11:13 AM

    Stop! You're making me cry all over again! It was a wonderful ceremony - truly the best graduation I've ever been to. I'm so proud of you! I also can't wait to read more of your stories...the reading was wonderful, but not nearly enough. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Julie BerryJuly 24, 2009 at 11:19 AM

    Congratulations, Ging. It was a lovely speech, and a lovely day.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AmeliaJuly 27, 2009 at 7:34 PM

    I'm sad I wasn't there. I had to chose between the graduation and WTHS, and being the selfish bugger than I am, I chose the latter. But I am ridiculously proud of you. And if I don't get to read something you have written soon, I might burst.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Sky is Everywhere Contest!

I first heard Jandy Nelson read an excerpt from The Sky is Everywhere during her graduate reading at Vermont College of Fine Arts. The words absolutely sizzled from her lips, and I couldn't wait to read the whole thing. Unfortunately, I had to wait until the publishing world caught up. When I read the finished book, I started it over and read it again. Then I bought a copy to give to my sister. (Yes, I GAVE it to my sister.) Now, thanks to a pay-it-forward contest, I am soon to have my very own copy and give away yet another copy. Casey McCormick began a pay-it-forward book contest for The Sky is Everywhere in an effort to spread the love, and to generate new sales for a talented author. Her contest inspired other contests, one of which was sponsored by Melissa Writes Fiction , and I won that contest. Yippee! So, to make good on my promise, here is my own pay-it-forward contest. Please read the rules below, because this contest is a bit different. The most important condi...
5 comments
Read more

The Greening

Sadness spreads like a sower scattering seeds. The seeds find fertile ground in her and land there, burrowing into her skin, into the deep down places where they sprout, nurtured unwittingly by blood and bone. Shoots spread forth growing both inward and outward, and she wonders if she will ever be able to root them all out. It is like pulling at a dandelion only to have stem detach from root and downy fluff fly off, enabling dozens more dandelions to take root. There is no cause for the sadness; it just is, like cold in winter, like leaves in fall, like rain in April. It sits there, within her, growing bigger each day, a pregnancy gone horribly wrong, and she feels the shame of it. But a breeze blows by, bringing different seeds, renegade seeds, hopeful seeds. They sprout in the midst of all the sadness; they choke it out. When she looks out the window today, she realizes that the world around her is greening. She decides that she will too. She will choose joy.
3 comments
Read more

I Think I'm a Grown-Up Now

I'm reposting something I wrote on my personal blog two years ago. I can laugh about it now that I don't feel the need to visit the guidance counselor's office anymore. The answer to my question was so obvious--had been obvious for years if I had taken the time to see--but apparently I had my blinders on. Or my rose-colored glasses. Or my peril-detecting sunglasses. One of them, at any rate. ***** Mid-Life Crisis The question of what I want to be when I grow up is plaguing me again. Sometimes I think I want to be like Mrs. Murray in A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle---a brilliant scientist with a lab in the barn, cooking stew over a bunsen burner. But then I feel too old to go in that direction, not smart enough to be able to pick up and retain that scientific knowledge quickly enough, and not balanced enough to do it all gracefully. Inevitably, I would poison my family with an accidental slip of something into the stew. So I'm back to wondering what I hav...
4 comments
Read more