"Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it."
I read these words by Norman Mclean for the first time this semester, but as soon as I saw them, I knew they would be important to me for a long time after. For Mclean they describe at once both his relationship with a river in Montana, his brother and his father who fished with him on that river and also a powerful statement about how all experience is basically a different iteration of a common theme that, in the end, converges as our life.
It is an odd quirk of my personality that metaphors from nature like this appeal to me. My column title that I've used for two years now comes from the opening lines of Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel. The full quote is "... a stone, a leaf, an unfound door; of a stone, a leaf, a door. And of all the forgotten faces." I wouldn't be presumptuous enough to tell you what it means, or what it should mean, but I know it's beautiful.
Call me a romantic in the 19th century sense, but I've always liked seeing the world by comparing it to something other than purely human experience.
Predictably, this quirk has led to some rather odd conclusions about my Duke experience over the years. Maybe I watched too many Mutual of Omaha wildlife programs as a child, but I always saw sorority rush as a collection of thousands of gazelles and antelopes moving in herds across the green savannah as the quiet leopards and lions sat in the shade on their benches licking their chops. The Friday night exodus of freshmen to West Campus was like salmon swimming up a stream to spawn, or whatever it is they do. And when a mildly attractive guy walks past on campus he's not just cute, but cute in a small mammal sort of way, you know, like a squirrel or a chipmunk or a marmoset...
But alas, again I digress.
Except for the small mammal thing, I wasn't involved in those other activities during my Duke career. I was not a member of the greek system and my freshman year I was less than a social butterfly.
But I still see natural metaphors applying to my time at Duke. Like every other person writing a column this time of year-whose name you usually see in a different area of the paper-there was always The Chronicle. For four years I have walked up the steps of the Flowers Building to not only work on some story or get yelled at by some editor, but also to rejoin my own pack. As much as I might hate to admit it, The Chronicle was a security blanket for me, a place where I could go for lunch or to check my e-mail and not have to worry about anything occurring on the outside. Sure, there was the constant sense of work needing to be done, but you were always convinced that you could write at your own speed and the story would come in when it was ready.
When we came to this buzzing hive of activity known as The Chronicle four years ago, we had no idea where we were going to be when it was all over. We weren't yet used to not sleeping, or spending more time in the office than in our dorm rooms. But soon after we started, all this other stuff did, and few of us would trade it for anything different.
Like most senior editors, I stepped a few feet away from The Chronicle this year, wrote fewer stories and made editboard less of a requirement than an occasion. I spent more time with non-Chronicle friends and started running my own publication.
Even so, I kept coming back to The Chronicle office every day, like a baby to its mother. It was the place I had come of age, where I had learned a great deal about life, love, work and living. It is the grounding spot for me and forever will be. When I look back at the places and times where I grew up in stages-middle school, high school, college-there is one small set of rooms that I will always remember. They say some animals never forget the path to the place of their birth and I will never forget those three flights of stairs up to 301 Flowers.
Jason Wagner is a senior associate features editor of The Chronicle. He's still not sure if he's leaving when they kick him out.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.