The semester started this week.
It’s strange how the beginning of something that resembles another thing evokes the other thing, or things. Evoke, meaning to call or summon forth, (from 1600s French évoquer).
The beginning of the semester, for me, always evokes a specific memory from what I consider to be my first college semester. I’d gone to community college previously, taken part-time classes, but at 32 years-old I began my first full-time semester at Syracuse University. I was taking a full credit load of classes, many of them requirements, like astronomy, and working part-time as a tutor at a local elementary school.
At 32, I was a naif then, or considered myself to be one (without knowing what the word meant). The referenced memory is this: I am standing on the sidewalk outside of a restaurant called Alto Cinco, chatting with a friend from my summer job as a composer of smoothies. As I am speaking, I can feel the weight of all my class and work expectations above me, pressing do…
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