It smelled like God’s laundry outside.
A bit like dryer sheets, mostly like clean air. He must have hung it out sometime before noon. By 2 p.m. the sun shone brighter and warmer than it had all winter.
There are parts of campus you will not see unless you try to see them. There are parts of campus that you will never see – building doors and coat closets and the mysterious places the cats go at night. Most are uninteresting, though I would like to see the cats.
The trees are either evergreen or bare. Along the bank of the river, next to the fields, a turtle bobbed and stuck its necks out for a bit of the sun. I have grown so pale that 30 minutes into my walk I’m feeling a burn.
Everything here is beautiful, just sometimes it takes me saying it over and over to realize it.
I do not want to leave, but I would hate to stay. Part of these three and a half years has been accepting the passing of seasons. I now know that seasons are beautiful.
The lamp-posts dedicated to fallen soldiers: beautiful.
The dead cicada skin on the path: beautiful.
The dread of homework: somehow, beautiful.
Our dead friends and our grief: beautiful.
The unknown: beautiful.
Beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful.
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Heather Bayless
Photo: Kaitlyn Morris
