The Second Open-Ended Summer

For the second time in twenty-seven years, I am not a student. This second time, however, it's permanent. I'm still coming to grips with this a little bit, and despite the cap/gown/hood/tassel/diploma combo, life refuses to settle down and behave. Ah, well, so it goes.

The theatre department asks one graduating student each year to say a few words at the commencement ceremonies. This year, they asked me, which was a tremendous honor. Here is what I said:

So this is what it’s like to be on stage. Cool.

The theatre is a metaphor for life. If you haven’t figured that out by now, it’s too late, and so I’m not going to talk about it today. Instead, I’ve got two brief things to say that might find some purchase in a small corner of your mind.

First and foremost, and because my parents were wise and wonderful in teaching me to always do so, I want to say, on behalf of everyone here wearing a robe and a funny hat, thank you. To parents and family, who have funded us and fed us and held us up and maybe yelled at us a little bit when we needed it, thank you. To the faculty and staff of the theatre department, who have filled up our brains with a range of knowledge that we’ll probably never fully appreciate, who have graded our papers and refocused our lights and punched up our scenes and listened to us complain about everything, thank you. Without every one of you, we would not have made this journey, and our gratitude is enormous beyond words. Thank you.

Second, I want to remind every graduate here, myself included, to keep a close and watchful eye on the world as it passes us by, because this is an amazing life, and we must pay attention to it. We theatre types are in many ways a look-at-us group of people. We create, present our creations, and ask to be beheld: Watch this play I have directed, relish this role I have crafted, feast your eyes on this set I have designed, consider these program notes I have composed, or, God help you, read this dissertation that I have written. Theatre changes the world by brilliant increments and illuminates it by beautiful degrees, and to be a part of that is an honor and a joy, to be sure. But, the stage can be somewhat insular. It becomes very easy to fall into the trap of self-examination and tunnel vision, and end up suffering from that pale-skinned, glazed-eye condition that results when you haven’t seen the sun or been outside of Krannert or the Armory for seven weeks.

I have been reminded of this fact in a number of ways, most notably along the highways between here and Indianapolis, Indiana. For those of you who don’t know, I have, insanely, lived in Indianapolis for the past several years and commuted here to campus a few days a week. This is only slightly less crazy than it sounds. One of the surprising luxuries of that drive, however, is that while it is sometimes tiring, it is in many ways the perfect antidote for the focused, linear lives that we tend to lead. For one hundred miles, I am trapped, effectively stationary as the countryside passes by, and I have no other choice but to take it in. I am frequently taken aback at the simple and stunning beauty of this often-geographically maligned Midwest through which I travel: The white underside of the wings of a red-tailed hawk as it flares just before landing atop a fencepost. The giant herd of motionless miniature animals outside the concrete lawn ornament factory near Waynetown, IN. A lone bare tree in a windswept, rolling field of grass. The months-long process by which a decrepit factory in Danville is disassembled and carted away, leaving only a bare slab. The unspeakably perfect way the light at six in the evening falls upon a stand of trees. The tiny flash of color from a red-winged blackbird.

These are small, simple moments, brief snapshots of the everyday, but they are no less amazing for their simplicity. That drive has been a blessing to me, a reminder that when I take the time to step outside of my own head, open my eyes and really see, I am constantly thrilled and overjoyed, and I can’t look hard enough.

And that’s what I’ve got for you today. Always say thank you for everything that you have been given, because it is more than you know. And always take a moment, and a second moment, and then a few more moments after that, to pay attention to the beautiful and unexpected world around you, to the light that moves across it, to the people that move within it. Step outside and get a breath of fresh air. Pay attention. Thank you.