Homecoming. Ah, yes, the swarming Hajj of school spirit, culminating in a fiery inferno that orbits around a flaming Kaabaa of hexagonal wooden palettes. But truly there is something eerily religious, eerily spiritual, ritualistic, mystical, about tonight's festivity. (And, forgiving my original metaphor, the ceremony is less Islamic and more of a Wiccan or pagan rite.)
But after you've touched the fire, will you feel touched? Just kidding. I want to say that this kind of Hallmark-card fodder is the bromide calling card of the Homecoming Opinion column. But I have been guilty of this peccadillo in the past and will transgress again with this article. Somehow -- and you may share this as you grow older and more philosophical -- these maudlin sentiments seem to always return during Homecoming. This year's, like the last, has encouraged me to become decidedly introspective.
We should see Homecoming as the essential benchmark for our developing character. This day is a holiday -- one unrecognized by any other world except our own -- one of celebration, revelry, but also reflection. Unfortunately, the reflective importance of Homecoming is often lost on those too drunk to remember the experience. So let me try to remember it in advance for you.
The freshmen will remember this as the defining Homecoming, the one in which they were initiated into our Dartmouth cult, branded by the searing heat of a towering conflagration. (They will also remember it as the day when a certainOpinion columnist unabashedly and egotistically tried to show off fire-related vocabulary within tight, cogent prose.)
You are now members of Dartmouth College, home of the intensely loyal and fiscally generous. But as the wild boys and girls running around a fire, it doesn't make sense to expect you to reflect on Homecoming's significance tonight. There is no immediate impulse or need to analyze this wholly sensate experience during your frenetic laps. You are free to revel in your collegiate hedonism. And Safety and Security reports will acknowledge that you, like all Dartmouth freshmen, are overachievers.
But for us -- the upperclassmen -- Homecoming is somewhat of a spectator event. We are watching our elders become replaced by the '12s (perhaps the worst class in Dartmouth history), as a new class becomes part of our larger community in institutionalized evolution. And if all of us are not blinded by an ethyl inundation, we can understand how Homecoming is an annual gauge of our character and development.
We were there; we were once fire-mongers, mindless, happy, free and unrefined. But college is a journey of self-discovery, and each year as we watch the freshmen enjoy this new world, we slowly see it grow older. We approach our academic denouement; our end of the rainbow, our countdown to liftoff is upon us. Who are you now, and what will you be a year hence? Never again a reveling freshman, never again a wistful senior.
We are different people than one year ago, and Dartmouth has undergone a significant metamorphosis. Think of Homecoming as an essential life process, affirming the joy of birth and confirming our reluctant acceptance of mortality. This is why freshmen and seniors will most likely be the most excited; for the younger, it is time to step out of the Platonic cave and see the true shape of things. For the older, it is time to live out your bucket list.
Homecoming, although hundreds of years old and as consistent as Old Faithful, is mainly about transition. But consider it your Rock, your Kaabaa, something that will always be here, although you will not. The immutability of Homecoming is a bittersweet foil for our lives. Embrace it.
