Twenty years ago I finished my undergraduate degree. I had some top notch, excellent friends in college. A posse came together as new arrivals in a wonderful land – the University of Georgia Redcoat marching band. Our first year we may have collectively practiced more than any other set of mallet players ever because none of us knew what caliber of musician anyone else was, being that we were all strangers, so no one wanted to suck lemons.
Years of unfettered fun ensued. We went to class. We studied. We became friends. We stopped obsessively practicing. We threw parties. We rode buses to away games. We scrounged our collective cash to buy peanut butter and beer. We learned limits. We ate love-pat cookies for breakfast. We grew up. We got married. We got more degrees. We moved around the country but ultimately ended up in various states all over the southeast. We never stopped feeling connected even though we got busy and forty-something and such. This year we decided that we have been away too long and we simply must, against odds of kids and work and travel details, get together for homecoming.
Merriam-Webster online defines homecoming.
1. a return home
2. the return of a group of people usually on a special occasion to a place formerly frequented or regarded as home especially an annual celebration for alumni at a college or university.
1. a return home
2. the return of a group of people usually on a special occasion to a place formerly frequented or regarded as home especially an annual celebration for alumni at a college or university.
Companions arrive the only way we know – linear time
a line drawn upon which we inscribe tests and dates
mates and misses, late arrivals and dark spots scribbled
show sorrow, little hearts dot days with snuggle kisses
kept secret except from those whose lips were there
and girls who giggle when they later share tales of love
yes, love, or losses sparkle in blue brown green eyes.
Age proffers a dish of divine reflection on all the love,
yes, love, shared over years and still alive in stories
silly and serene, notes we can no longer see to read
a melody intended but we make our own if we can
folks in the stands may not but we hear each other
pretending the sounds arise from old places touched
mimicking movements of the past.
If you heard what was said, get down on your knees
bow your head in thanksgiving for rhythms, percussive
hearts opened freely, danced spunked up chorography
together in the narrow pit defined by sidelines, music
marched between evergreen hedges protecting each other
laughing, guffawing tears at the antics of us as college love,
yes, love, passed classes, books, days into nights.
Beer goggles or not there was less vision looking forward
but now gazing back clearly young we women loomed
future fabric, being each one part of friendship, today’s
memories never let go of smart girls in homemade shirts
holding hands, making sure to look both ways and never
cross the street or leave a party on your own because love,
yes, love, lives in the gathering of Georgia girls.
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