Magna Cum Laude

We flew back to Washington DC on Saturday the 12th - we got in around 5 pm local time to Dulles Airport. We decided to get around as much as possible on the Metro - so our hotel was in Dun Leaving (the daily rate was at least below $200/night!) a block away from the local Metro stop but about 30 minutes from downtown DC. I love the metro. I think about Aimee whenever I ride the escalators (ride on the right, walk on the left).

On Sunday we got up, got ourselves organized and rode the orange line to the Metro stop, then switched over to the red line and continued north to the American University campus at Tenlytown. There is a shuttle from the metro stop to the campus and there were lots and lots of somewhat confused but very proud parents heading back from the first round of stage walking.

Meanwhile, another great gaggle of family dressed in their sunday best stood around outside the auditorium with young men and women dressed in blue gowns and hats. Looking around I could recognize the master's gowns and hoods plus the Phd hats. I couldn't help but remember how it was to walk - just a year ago...

We walked over to Dana's dorm where she was puttering around still packing up, talking to friends and generally hanging out. The room is the kind of room I lived in when I was in college. Concrete block walls, built in dressers and closets and two beds, two desks, two bookcases and a rug that has seen perhaps way more then should be contemplated. We talked, then she dressed and we walked out to find her friends, a suitable place to take photos and eventually, to go our all too rapidly approaching diverging ways but in this case - we to the bleachers and her to line up into the blue gowns. They marched in and if I hadn't been holding a video camera I would have broken out into deep deep sobbing the need for which surprised me. I remember dropping her off at the kindergarten door on the first day of school and then turning away and how I started sobbing then.

The graduation itself was classic: speakers, name calling and stage walking. No one went long and mercifully most of the speechifying was interesting. At the end, the class stands and walks back out. Dana passed in front of us, not knowing how close we were, and then away from me - out the doors into the world beyond. "Wait!" I wanted to cry out. "Where are you going? How can this happening so soon?" But without looking back she marched out with her head lifted high and a proud smile of accomplishment.


Dana has her first grown up job: Para-Legal in a Bethesda Estate law firm Now she needs a place to live but in the meantime.... she is spending a couple of weeks here before work starts. If anyone knows of a nice place to live in Bethesda, we're taking suggestions. We're also shopping for the professional clothes and apartment stuff and so on. And I'm stocking up on Kleenex boxes for the drive back from the Oakland Airport on May 30th. How did my Mom ever do this?