Rural Banter

Author: ERICA GOODMAN

Let me be one of the first to say this: Congratulations to the Class of 2005. As you move beyond the Middlebury bubble, I wish you happiness and good fortune. Your four years are surely filled with memories and lessons, both good and bad, which will be with you always. Like those moments that have so much meaning, so too will this place live on in your heart. "Place," wrote Eudora Welty, "has a more lasting identity than we have", a statement that holds true whether we are aware of it or not. The small, rural gem of Middlebury, Vt. may only take up a few pages in each of our written histories, yet its impressionistic beauty has forever painted our souls.

What is so remarkable about this place? It is open and empty, the site of frost-heaved roads, bitterly cold winters and less than pleasingly aromatic farms. But it also gives us so much more. Hiking trails offer the occasional refuge from the stresses of academia, a spot where the trees grow thick and the daylight disappears. In no other place in the world will the Green Mountains simmer away in the autumn vibrancy of red and gold and magenta. The winter months have given more than windy speed-walks to Twilight Hall. The cold weather carries with it a world of white, simple and pure and clean, continually refreshed by waves of new snow. As warm weather settles in, flowers are not confined to windowsills and indoor pots but instead make their own place in domestic gardens and along country roads. No matter what place you call home, consider yourself lucky to have experienced these wonders of rural life.

As for my own plans, I am off to the big city, New York that is, for the summer. From the home of skyscrapers and taxicabs, I will certainly take away a piece of its everlasting identity. Who knows? Maybe my rural banter will take on a Brooklyn accent. The overalls will probably stay folded in my closet at home and my hiking boots given a much-needed rest, yet there are a few pieces from home that will join me in the city. My mother has her list of concerns about city "threats" that only a mother could think of. My dad, on the other hand, is sending me off with his favorite words of wisdom. And so I say goodbye for now, signing off with his simple advice:

Watch your thoughts, for they become words. Choose your words, for they become actions. Understand your actions, for they become habits. Study your habits, for they will become your character. Develop your character, for it becomes your destiny.

No matter where we are from, where we are now or where we find ourselves in the future, we must observe and choose, appreciate and grow, understand ourselves and emerge all the better from appreciating the places life takes us.

Best of luck!