Songs for the Sorrows and Sweetness of Senior Spring
This home is disintegrating. I must, at the very least, find a way to sing along to the sound of it crumbling around me. Staring down the slope of senior spring at Wesleyan into a foggy future, I try to fool myself into believing that I can prepare for life beyond these limits, but studying the garden from the window is very different from walking through the grass. Even as my foundations shift, I have to hold my ground, keep building the structure of my college years right up to the day when it will shudder and fall.
These songs speak to the waiting, the indecision, the queasy, uneasy balance of future and present. They give me hope that this home won’t crumble at all; that although I can no longer live here, I can walk away and leave it standing; that each step will carry me farther, offer me a wider, fuller view of where I have been, what I built and then abandoned. I must outgrow my own home just when it finally fits me. These are songs for the threshold, the sill, the final spring.
Watershed - The Indigo Girls
“Up on the watershed
Standing at the fork in the road
You can stand there and agonize
‘Til your agony’s your heaviest load.”
20 Something - SZA
“How could it be 20 something
All alone, still not a phone in my name
Ain’t got nothing
Running from love
Only know fear.”
Corner of the Sky - Pippin (the musical)
“Don’t you see I want my life to be
Something more than long?”
Light On - Maggie Rogers
“Oh, I couldn't stop it
Tried to slow it all down
Crying in the bathroom
Had to figure it out
With everyone around me saying
"You must be so happy now"”
The Scary Part - Hannah and Maggie
“The trouble with moving on is leaving behind
I guess that’s how it goes
And I don’t know myself anymore
This must be what growing up is for”
83 - John Mayer
“And these days
I wish I was 6 again
Oh make me a red cape
I wanna be Superman”
New Highs/New Lows - Charlie Brand
“The doors are closing on the youth you're holding
Holding onto
The hope that something
Something you did meant anything at all
New highs, new lows”
There and Back - Daphne Gampel
“You can live and learn and let the river run
But it’s getting late to be the chosen one
Maybe this one’s leading either to a deeper love or a lack
Have you been there, and have you been back?”
Square One - Moss Keen
“Look how far that I’ve come
To be back at square one
Lord only knows I was looking for direction
Each time I fall at least I learn another lesson
Each stepping stone brings me closer to my blessing
Tell me there’s a way to have it all”
The Fall of Home - Los Campesinos!
“Left your home town for somewhere new
Don't be surprised now it's leaving you
Another weekday night alone
The rise of rent, the fall of home”
Already Won - Kehlani
“Took the road less traveled
And yeah, I'm tired
But I'm so far from the ending”
Lessons in Gravity - Hannah and Maggie
“Forgive me for thinking that this would take
So much longer, so much longer.”
Claudia Schatz
Artwork by Maia Rubin