Yale Family Weekend
Fall colors, exploding in New England, brilliant, rich, as sun filters through the trees. The solid stone campus, clusters of families in and out of buildings, chatting, showing. Yale Gospel Choir, enthusiastic harmonies, swaying, clapping, beautiful praise. Walking and walking, in the breeze, absorbing time together. The Yale Sustainable Farm, organic vegetables arranged on fresh pizza from the brick oven, inspiring creativity with rutabaga and ricotta, delicious. Popping into the rink to see an ice-hockey scrimmage, violent, fast, sweaty odors on icy air. An elegant dinner of Spanish tapas with Luke's buddy from RVA up visiting his sister at Yale, three kids from Africa all finding their way through the Ivy League. A men's varsity soccer game, Luke's room mate playing with speed and precision, but a loss to harsh refereeing decisions, under the lights in the chill of night. Church on campus, rousing praise, and a powerful sermon on the Prodigal Son. Afternoon club soccer games, Yale wins twice, Luke in uniform, happy to be outside, playing the game he loves, team camaraderie, meeting a few other parent pairs on the sidelines. And the weekend ends with an orchestral performance in the Battell Chapel, students filling the building with Rimsy-Korsakoff, building, spiraling, crescendos. Then the goodbye, another tearing of the heart, another inevitable sadness, a young man finding out who he is amidst late-night all-suite discussions of politics and Jesus and the environment and love, finding out what he can do in classes with the most brilliant of the world's youth, finding out what his priorities are and who he will become, while we cheer from the sidelines.
Fall colors, exploding in New England, brilliant, rich, as sun filters through the trees. The solid stone campus, clusters of families in and out of buildings, chatting, showing. Yale Gospel Choir, enthusiastic harmonies, swaying, clapping, beautiful praise. Walking and walking, in the breeze, absorbing time together. The Yale Sustainable Farm, organic vegetables arranged on fresh pizza from the brick oven, inspiring creativity with rutabaga and ricotta, delicious. Popping into the rink to see an ice-hockey scrimmage, violent, fast, sweaty odors on icy air. An elegant dinner of Spanish tapas with Luke's buddy from RVA up visiting his sister at Yale, three kids from Africa all finding their way through the Ivy League. A men's varsity soccer game, Luke's room mate playing with speed and precision, but a loss to harsh refereeing decisions, under the lights in the chill of night. Church on campus, rousing praise, and a powerful sermon on the Prodigal Son. Afternoon club soccer games, Yale wins twice, Luke in uniform, happy to be outside, playing the game he loves, team camaraderie, meeting a few other parent pairs on the sidelines. And the weekend ends with an orchestral performance in the Battell Chapel, students filling the building with Rimsy-Korsakoff, building, spiraling, crescendos. Then the goodbye, another tearing of the heart, another inevitable sadness, a young man finding out who he is amidst late-night all-suite discussions of politics and Jesus and the environment and love, finding out what he can do in classes with the most brilliant of the world's youth, finding out what his priorities are and who he will become, while we cheer from the sidelines.
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