“Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.” ~ George Eliot

Autumn is all about change. Nature dies as we live. In the northeast, the heat of summer is subdued before the onslaught of winter. Football and hockey revisit us like old friends with the promise of good times over the coming months. Schools are back in session, new faces in new places. Houses empty. Dorms fill. Youth is put to the test.

We never really know what twists and turns are going to manipulate us as we enter new phases in our lives. Some people think they’ve got a tight grip on their lives, but the tragedy of well-laid plans is well chronicled. Someone said the future ain’t what it used to be. For students, it’s a vast wilderness of the unknown.

Few things on this planet give me more fulfillment than spending time with students of all ages. They hold the formula for optimism and idealism, passion and vitality. You gotta love them all, from the wide-eyed, deer in the headlights freshman to the cynical, perpetually unamused veteran of 14 different majors, and all the identity crises surviving coeds in between.

I love watching them as they join the human race in trying to figure it all out. Seeing new things occur to them is as exciting as a breakthrough in my own mind. As I chatted with some sharp seniors in the chemistry program at Pitt the other night I marveled at how near we often are to the beginning even when we feel so close to the end.

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About 15 years ago to the moment I write this, I moved into college for the first time. I remember that first day well, a new beginning. It was a Sunday in the fall, late August just like now, when my family made the journey to a little town in Southwestern Pennsylvania and deposited me for the forseeable future.

The first person I met was my roommate. He was friends with the coolest guys in town, athletic, going on 21, and adored by women. Everyone called him Rico. I, on the other hand, was bean pole skinny, four months shy of my 18th birthday, and ignored by girls. I had no nicknames other than dork (my sisters) and sunshine (my mom), neither of which offered any help in putting me on the social map.

I wanted to check out the campus, my new home, but was overwhelmed. The only person I knew was an ex-girlfriend. We had broken up a few months earlier but reconnected as friends the day before to at least guarantee ourselves one ally in that foreign country. I wondered what would happen when she met Rico. Continue Reading…