The crystal winking lights threading above took me back to my last year in college when I had made the park my subject for my final photography class. I took several shots of similar bulbs at the Shack. I wondered if any of the ones above were present when I did my shots. I thought of that class, the people I had met, and some of the conversations we had had. How important it all felt then. How exciting it was to walk into that class. I wondered about my photography professor. I never could form a solid notion of him. I liked him all the same, although, I was very confused in his class and learned everything outside of it. He was polite and looked somewhat like Alan Rickman. This thought reminded me that the last time I was in the park with another friend, there had been an interesting looking man sitting across from us reading Harry Potter!
So many times I had been in this park with different people, starting during freshman year. With the first two friends I made through a pre-college maths class, I sat waiting for our classes to begin. Classes that were about 2 -3 hours apart. It felt strange thinking of a past in a place I presently occupied. Knowing now things I once could not fantom, like how our freshman year would end, when I will graduate, and what would become of me in the few years after college. I heard the water splashing in the fountain and that drew up another memory. A meeting with a poetry professor, one chilly morning in January, on one of the benches near the water to discuss my writing and seek advice on applying to an MFA program. I also remembered sitting about two yards from where I currently sat, with pledge sisters for a sorority that I had ended up dropping out of. I recalled an evening not so long ago with an ex-boyfriend and his friends. It was cold, and I felt we were out of our minds to be eating in the open.
I spotted the friend I was waiting for. She was standing next to the beginning of the queue——where I had noticed the girl in the super short dress——looking around. Her hair was shorter than the last time I saw her. She looked a little different too but I couldn’t say how. I stood up and started waving. She didn’t see me so I rang her phone and directed her to where I was standing and waving. When she started walking in my direction, I hanged up wondering about the new memories I was about to add to the old ones.
