Graduation

by Diane Lundegaard

Graduation day.  Anna’s blue eyes sparkle. As she walks with her proud parents towards the high school auditorium, she’s pleased. She succeeded academically but more importantly, she changed. She has opened up to a different way of knowing, of understanding. 

Before the ceremony Anna thought of her journey which began ten months ago on a foggy September morning. One would guess by the fog’s density that the entire day would continue pervasively off-centered.  However, that was not the case.  By the time Anna ran down the stairs and out of the house the forecast predicted a change for the better.

Anna’s mother, not finished saying what she had to say to her adolescent daughter called after the seventeen-year-old.  She opened the door that Anna had slammed.  “Anna, come back,” she shouted.  “Anna,” she began again, but went silent when she caught sight of a neighbor pulling into his driveway.  Frustrated, she stood biting her lip and watching as the high school senior strode angrily away.

Anna ignored her mother, didn’t notice the neighbor, the fog or the sea scented breeze slowly drifting in from the Atlantic. Nor did she notice that the sun had finally begun to break through the fog.  Even her own sense of direction veered from awareness.  Impulse got her out of the house and away from her mother, and that, as fast as possible.  However, getting out of the house did not remove Anna from the harsh words they had exchanged.  Instead, those words hammered her head and pumped her heart harder and faster.      

A few moments before the adolescent left the house, she sat at her desk anxious with college plans, where to go, what to major in.   

     “You’re wasting time.” said her mother pointing to a stack of forms scattered on Anna’s desk.  

     “I know, I know,” said Anna without looking at her mother. 

     “You said that yesterday,” said her mother. 

It wasn’t as if Anna hadn’t tried to explain how she felt, she just couldn’t say with any confidence that her mother had heard or understood anything she said. Her mother’s constant questions, advice and warnings increased her self-doubt.    “You just want me to hurry up so you can get my problems off your mind,” she said hotly and then left the house. 

The force of Anna’s frustration brought her quickly to the end of the street where she lived.  It’s difficult to say what motivated Anna to cross the road since she went without seeming to focus on anything except the exchange with her mother.  Perhaps the unexpected trill of a warbler distracted her from its obsessive grip. 

Once past the berm’s marginal growth, Anna made her way through a patch of inkberry bushes. Her sudden appearance startled the robins vying for drupes. The fury of their take off in turn startled Anna and like the stick yielded by a Buddhist monk, brought her to a sudden awareness of herself and her surroundings.  

Moving deeper into the forest Anna entered a small clearing littered with the burnt remains of a recent fire.  Scattered here and there, she saw the charred wood of burnt pitch pines.  Anna kicked a fallen trunk and finding it sturdy, sat on it.  She picked at its burnt bark with her thumb nail, and then lowering her head she sat with her elbows on her knees and her head resting in her hands. She felt the weight of her head. She removed her sandals and stretched her toes watching them move through the pine needles and dried oak leaves cluttering the sandy soil.  Gradually the internal monologue that dominated her mind yielded to what she would later try to describe as a felt sense of the Divine. She felt herself blend into a world of sky blue and forest green and melodious bird song, squirrel chatter, and the rustling of branches and crunch of dried leaves as rabbit, fox and opossum passed through the dogwood and sassafras understory.  Her mind shifted from anger and anxiety, she felt safe.  Anna had begun experience nature’s power of restoration.  This power would enable her to look beyond the limitations of a failed conversation and learn to trust her ability to make decisions.  It would also help her start understanding her mother’s sense of urgency from a different perspective, one that would not tear them apart but draw them closer.  

Anna remembered that she had learned in a science class that pitch pines regenerate by heat.  A fire’s heat opened cones and released seeds.  She saw proof of that when she looked at the ground. 

 A few days later Anna applied to colleges offering programs in environmental studies.  At college she would continue to grow in self-knowledge and live more mindfully. The restorative world of nature had slipped into Anna’s soul, into her being and brought with it a sense of the universal, of connection, a world where one could confidently face the challenges we all face.  Nature had ignited her soul with the power of discovery, courage, empathy and love. 

Diane Lundegaard is a Freelance Writer, Environmental Educator.