Pressed between the pages of my mind

The last time I was at Yale was the day after graduation, as I emerged onto Old Campus in a daze, feeling as though I had just had the rug pulled from under me. Trying to process the flurry of activity and events and goodbyes and obligations and hoping I hadn't left anything unfinished, I dragged my luggage across the uneven flagstones and saw Ben (the Big) standing forlornly in the quiet quad, overlooking the remains of our college years as workers began to stack and store the neat rows of chairs, pick up the bits of paper, plastic cups and other detritus, and gradually restore a dignified peace beneath the towering elms. A final hug and I was hurrying out the High Street gate, into a cab with my sister and dad, and off to the airport in a panicky dash to avoid missing the flight thanks to the notoriously fickle New Haven taxis.

Over the ensuing 10 years, the well-worn pages of my memory book have faded with age and disuse, and I strained to recall place names, faces, instructors, courses, specific events, old haunts. There were people and things I had forgotten without even knowing I had ever known. And so, last weekend I returned to campus for my 10-year reunion and what turned out to be one giant mind-fuck. But in a good way.

It began as soon as I got off the train from Boston, emerging from Union Station and clambering aboard the alumni shuttle bus to be surrounded by oddly familiar faces, people clapping each other on the shoulders, shaking hands, hugging. And by sheer coincidence, Bryan showed up fresh off his train from DC so we could join in the preunion. Once on Old Campus, Big Ben was there to meet us and somehow, quite unexpectedly, as I rolled my luggage across the uneven flagstones, 10 years melted away as if they'd been a strangely vivid daydream.