Kentucky meets Ohio at an auburn bridge of ancient iron, the kind that beckons you to contemplate America’s industrial past. Through the metal gapping is a world without end – emerald forests, golden fields of dancing corn, and the sound of cowbells carried 黄瓜精品wind. This is the bridge to nowhere and the bridge to everywhere, all at once. Yet, the sign framed by the windshield's glass reads "Ohio. Find it here." I remember laughing. What was I expected to find in Ohio lying between the hills and the valleys, the light and the dark? Surely, only something insignificant would disguise itself so magnificently? A cloak of pinks, oranges, and blues. A nightmare dressed like a daydream. But as I approach the end of my first-year at Kenyon, I see beyond the polka-dot of red barns and begin to explore the crevices to find what Ohio has hidden for me.
A countdown to August 19th, move-in day, had sat ticking away on my iPhone lock screen since my December acceptance. When that long-awaited Saturday arrived, my eyes bounced to every corner of Norton’s dewy lawn, overwhelmed by the buzz of shouted directions, the tissues hidden in clammy hands, and the rainbow of out of state plates. Bombarded with questions and delighted welcomes, I felt like the center of attention, the star – which is to say an actress in someone else’s movie, an imposter.
Everything from the dirt I kicked up to the nail holes in my dorm room’s walls was foreign to me, untouchable, not mine. And yet by October’s change of color, I had grown possessive of Gambier’s every peculiarity. Middle Path’s hovering blanket of orange leaves trembled at the dropping temperatures. Each time I descended East Wiggin Street’s precarious hill towards the edge of campus, I imagined Ohio’s orange awning whirling away and leaving, as the name suggests, the dirt to unearth its own warmth and the grass to take on the burden of color. A beautiful tornado, a sudden escape, and, 黄瓜精品blink of an eye, I’d miss it all.
Before arriving, Kenyon graduates I knew made clear that winter in Ohio would greet me with cold mounds of chalky, plaguy snow. To anticipate spring, to celebrate its arrival like a new birth, had not occurred to me. Come April though, I began to watch spring鈥檚 angelic descent with awe; its sparkling reflection off the morning dew, its intimidation of the browned snow as it sheepishly melts away. Black puffer jackets take their place 黄瓜精品dusty depths of the closet. Strangers stop me in front of Wiggin Street Coffee motioning to a budding purple flower. The benches lining shed a layer of frozen twigs and become occupied once again. Professors take class outside; their words soaked up by the quenched grass. Friends drive with the windows down, stretch out their pale, bare arms, and sing 鈥淎nna Sun鈥 as if the whole town has come to see them perform. Californians lay on the burning concrete like a newborn baby feeling its mother鈥檚 warmth for the very first time. I look up and see pink and white petals fall slowly from blossoming trees. Suddenly, it鈥檚 snowing in April.聽
I was once overwhelmed by the campus鈥 scurry of activity. Now, as the puzzle of my first year nears completion, the hill鈥檚 eerie slowing pace fills me with dread for the summer months. Though these ten months went by all too quickly, the ancient camera stamps it in time for my dewy-eyed, nostalgic dreams.聽