SUMMER
PLEASURES

SUDDENLY
IT'S SPRING

A high
school senior
contemplates
her last days at
home before
going away
to college.

SUSAN STRICKLAND
SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

Susan Strickland
takes in the first
day of sping at
Quarton Lake in
Birmingham.

T

here is something dif-
ferent about this
spring. Not that it
has been especially
warm; the snow lin-
gered on shadowy
bits of lawn through mid-April,
and not all of the robins and jays
have returned to their northern
homes. Still, as I watch the world

ease into a new season, I sense a
need of something to hold on to.
This coming fall, I will leave
for college. I have never even
been to camp, and now, it seems,
the days I have at home are num-
bered. Part of me longs to stay.
Perhaps a ldrger part to leave. I
know that, should I fail to take
the chance now, I will never have

the courage to go.
It was long ago that the prepa-
ration began. I met with my col-
lege counselor for the first time
in the middle of my junior year,
in an attempt to formulate a list
of schools.
"What exactly are you looking
for?," she asked. Despite the sin-
cerity of her question, I found
myself laughing. College was so
far away. I was not, at that point,
prepared to make a decision
which was to affect the rest of my
life. I didn't think I needed to.
As the months flew by, I was
no closer to an answer than I had
been when first asked to find one.
And my time to stall was running
short.
I know I was not the first to
have to make this decision, nor
was I, by any means, the last. Yet
somehow the college search
seemed to be an entirely indi-
vidual experience. My parents
tried, I think, to understand my
anxiety. They picked up
brochures for me whenever they
had the opportunity and helped
me with pro and con lists for the
schools I was looking at. What
they could not see, though, was
that I needed college to be more
than words on a page or pictures
ina pamphlet. I wasn't moved by
statistics or promises. I wanted
someone to tell me where I be-
long, to look at me and say,
"Yeah. You'll fit in here." Of
course, what I needed was too

Susan Strickland is a high school
senior at Cranbrook and editor
of the yearbook. As part of her
senior project, she is an intern
at Style magazine. Susan will
attend College of the Holy Cross
in Worchester, Massachusetts
this fall.

much to ask for.
My friends didn't seem to be
struggling as I was. I listened to
them ramble on about the schools
of their dreams and watched
them leave on college visits. I re-
member asking my oldest friend
how she had made her decision
in hopes that her method might
be valuable. Instead, it left me
even more frustrated. She said,
"I just knew. I saw it and met the
kids, and I was sure I was sup-
posed to be there." I had seen
schools I liked, but never did I feel
that certainty, that ray of light
from the heavens that had ap-
parently made the decision so
easy for many of my peers. Even
after my applications had been
sent, I remained insecure about
my choices; and by the middle of
my senior year, I was weary with
anxiety. Funny how everyone al-
ways said that this would be the
most exciting year of my life.
Now I stand just weeks away
from a final decision and find my-
self more preoccupied with the
present than the future ahead. It
being my last spring at home, I
feel obligated to honor it in some
way, to take note of all the things
which will be so far away come
next spring. Now I realize that I
have never really paid attention
to the change in seasons. I
watched 18 mild, Michigan sum-
mers come and go with as many
winters, and, though the passage
in time was noted, I somehow
failed to mark the significance. I
ignored those gentle transitions
which tie the years together,
move us into the new seasons
while holding on to bits of the old.
Perhaps my fascination is just
my way of freezing time, but
something tells me it is more.
This, I think, is my spring. 111