Well, grades have been posted. Commencement has commenced. The university library is now mine to command. There are huge signs everywhere in the library warning against taking still or motion pictures in the library, but I'm a rebel with no regard for those rules. While I was poking around the stacks trying to find books for my class for next fall, there was no one there but me and some poor beleaguered janitor dusting books that haven't been checked out since the Reagan administration.
The town has grown quiet, too. Turning left out of the Walgreen's parking lot is not impossible. I'm no longer waiting behind half a dozen chattering coeds to get my mocha. I can hear cows mooing instead of the clink of beer bottles when our windows are open at night.
I used to say that I liked living somewhere where there are four seasons. But, I think it's more than that. I like living places with the ebb and flow of the school calendar. This stillness at the end of May. The frantic anxiety of September. The absolute silence that overcomes the town between Thanksgiving and finals of fall semester. The parkas and boots giving way to shorts and flip flops in the spring semester. Yes, I think I would be moderately sad if I went an entire year without seeing snow, but I would be even sadder if I went an entire year without wandering the stacks at a university library, knowing just how very much I don't know.
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