June 12

Nostalgia is a funny thing. It seems to linger long after one's lost touch with the friend's, places and memories that arouse such feelings. Today Mrs W and I took the kids to play in the water fountain on the Princeton campus. The fountain is huge shallow and rectangular, bordered by trees on one side, and buildings on the other. I sat and watched as students with heavy backpacks (even though it's summer) cargo shorts, and flip flops wandered by, listening to their ipods and remembered the day when I too walked through the quad on my way to Spanish conversation or Vocal Diction. I don't really remember having to pay rent, or the professors that dished out unfair assignments, or weird roommates, but I do remember my freedom. I remember being able to go where I pleased, whether it be the Cafeteria, the practice rooms, or the darkest recesses of the library. Nowadays I'm chained to two tiny little specimens who although adorable, are slowly succeeding in sucking every intellectual and social inclination I have out of me.
About halfway through our outing at the fountain, I decide I had better go check the parking meter which was about a block away. Leaving Mrs. W with the kids (gasp), I grab the diaper bag, don my flip flops and head down an inconspicuous tree lined path that led to the street. On my way I passed a laboratory window where one student agonized, head in his hands, over an enormous textbook. Nearby another scrutinized some fascinating creature in a petri dish. At just that moment I passed by a student and a professor, deep in conversation. For those few moments under the arboretum, my diaper bag became a book bag, my soccer-mom speedwalk became a lazy shuffle, and I became a student again.