A senior in college is reclining
on his front porch in the gray
spring light of Ann Arbor. He’s
trying to make sense of it all. He
says:
The tuition was $50,000 a year,
frontloading on classes to wrap it
up in three years, that’s $150,000.
Plus food and housing, which
totaled about $900 a month, that’s
$180,000, but I’d have needed
to eat regardless, so maybe only
$170,000.
Eighteen hours a week of
classes, assuming I’d attended
them all, for 90 weeks, costs $105
an hour, which is expensive, but
not too expensive, because my
whole college life hadn’t been
squeezed into just those 18 hours
a week.
Bursley Residence Hall had
those long, tunnel-like hallways
— hallways with no windows that
made me lose track of time — and
the little convenience store with
sushi that was always picked clean,
minus the Philadelphia rolls. I
remember I had this tree, growing
outside my window, in the dorm,
that changed color day by day
that first fall. I’d never watched
anything the way I watched that
tree turn colors, which maybe
speaks to my dependency on the
room, but people visited me there,
visited and laughed and slept on
the floor and threw up on the
carpet and listened patiently while
I played them songs that, frankly,
didn’t possess the sort of liveliness
found in music that ought to be
played around new friends, but
they listened anyway, nodded and
faked smiles and decided, after
only a month or so, that they’d like
to live with me once our class was
kicked out of the dorms.
You sign a contract to become
this little odd family, promise to
nag each other about the dishes
in the sink, the stains on the tile
and oh, my god, why are there
squirrels in the walls and mice
in the basement, but it’s all okay
because your housemate has a
fighting spirit, just running in
circles with a broom and a plastic
tub, going to teach those squirrels
a lesson. Your schedule picks up.
Everything moves faster. Walk
to class; no, run to catch the bus;
no, skip class and write your
thesis and hole up in your room
while the dishes pile higher and
higher. See the housemates less,
yes, but when you do, it’s a real
outpouring, because just today, I
heard Truth House is throwing,
and just today, I have a coupon at
Domino’s, and for just one more
song, we can dance, please, let’s
just keep dancing. And everything
kind of crescendos, faster than
you know it, and all of a sudden,
there’s less can you believe our
house has a front porch? and more
by the time the next season of this
show comes out, we’ll be living in
different cities.
So 18 hours a week would really
be selling it short. More like 120
hours a week, spent just absorbing
the strangeness of it all. Say it’s
only $16 per hour then, which isn’t
too unreasonable.
Though it’s not just 120 hours
because it doesn’t stop when
you’re sleeping. I keep having this
dream about a bowl of cereal, and
I don’t know, maybe everyone
has this dream, or some version
of it, but the bowl feels warm to
the touch, as if I’d just taken it
from the dishwasher and the milk
inside is cool. I’m eating heaping
spoonfuls
of
Lucky
Charms,
all those alluring bright colors,
eating, wondering what’s at the
bottom, like I can’t wait to find
out, but I’m terrified to find out,
and at the bottom, it’s just an
emptiness, lonely, like I’d never
had any cereal at all. It’s easy to
decide, then, to stay in the dream
— to keep splashing around in
the cool milk, stained with all the
bright colors — but you move on
because you have no choice, and
I’m starting to realize, just now,
as I’m coming to the end of it, that
there is no end, no hard, fast line
drawn in the sand to say, okay, it’s
over, you’re an adult already, just
pack it up and move on.
No, instead it all bleeds over,
smearing like a child’s watercolor
after you told them to let it dry,
and the memories well up, just as
everything else starts to go, and
they leave you exhausted, gasping
for air, washed up on a rocky
shore, confronted by the images
that keep appearing in your mind:
You’re soaked to the bone in the
pouring rain, grinning from ear to
ear, walking quickly down South
University Avenue, back when it
was under construction; or you’re
kneeling on Palmer Field, kneeling
in the grass with a blank stare, like
an idiot, because oh god, her ankle
isn’t supposed to bend that way,
but maybe it’s alright because your
pre-med friend looks confident; or
you’re trudging through the snow,
then drumming your fingers on
7-Eleven’s
plastic
countertop,
making a joke to the man ringing
you up, but he doesn’t laugh. The
images flash past, too quick,
really, to catch them all, so you’re
stuck with just the brightest ones,
chastising yourself for forgetting
the details and replacing them
with
questions,
unanswerable
questions like, why did my English
professor wear a mask some days
and not others? or why had a
photo editor worn bike shoes to a
meeting?
The little images start to haunt
you: not constantly, but in uneven
increments, so one day you’ll be
working away, laser-focused on
some peculiar comma placement,
and the next day you hear someone
accidentally use a specific word,
like barn or implication, that
takes you back to a place where
the images well up, and for hours
afterward the memories feel fresh
again. So it only cost maybe $8
an hour, taking all that time into
account.
I have to factor in the bad
memories, though, and it’s hard
to conjure them up now, in the
warmth of spring, but I know times
weren’t perfect. The everyday sort
of bad occurrences have largely
faded to the background, but one
memory stuck around: when I
had to say goodbye. The pressure
started during a weekly meeting
with some columnists — our last
meeting — when a thought popped
into my head, and I suddenly
wondered which of them I’d ever
see again. The question didn’t
spark a panic so much as an odd
fascination — an urge to hold onto
all of life’s little guest stars, people
I loved, but not enough to keep
in touch with — and so I learned
to say a permanent goodbye, not
out loud, but quietly in my head
whenever someone left a room.
JOHN JACKSON
Statement Associate Editor
The art of farewell
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ARTS
over the
YEARS
Bis etum il ius eliquam usaerum eium
velicti comnit dunt, tota que consequo is
essunture dolor molesti beriore, il ea ne
plab ipsae excero te volorep tation re
videndunt omnihil ipienda veliqui nobites
et laboriame lantiossunt hil ius arumqui
dentibus, qui aliat pa qui simolessit, nes
escilit harum que volorit eicia con plis
everum fugitatur si quiae esto blaturem labo.
Itatas mos venis arumnihilla ntentotatem
aut etum hil il mod quam es est as endaesc
ipiendis escium lation cupta doluptam ab
2013
2014
MARCH 25 – U-M seniors detail their
disappointment and uncertainty moving
forward with graduation and job recruitment
in the early days of the pandemic.
SEPTEMBER 25 – Former Statement editors
Marisa Wright and Andie Horowitz reflect
on the influence and legacy of Ruth Bader
Ginsburg after her passing on September
18, 2020.
MARCH 8 – For the 2023 Immersion Edition,
Statement columnist Sammy Fonte put his
cartwheels to the test when he “participates
in” a Michigan women’s gymnastics team
practice.
MARCH 20 – The Statement’s editorial
team journeys to Port Huron, Mich. — the
birthplace of our namesake, The Port Huron
Statement. We investigate the origins of
our section while reflecting on the role of
creative nonfiction in journalism.
2021
AUGUST 11 – Former Statement columnist
Mackenzie Hubbard shares screenshots of their
text messages as an unconventional way to
memorialize and value the relationships in
their life.
OCTOBER 5 – Former Statement
correspondent Mary Rolfes comments on
church burning protests that occurred after
a mass grave containing the remains of 215
Indigenous children was found on the grounds
of Kamloops Indian Residential School in
Canada.
STATEMENT
over the
YEARS
2022
2023
2020
MAY 24 – With the anticipated overturning
of Roe v. Wade, Statement correspondent
Emily Blumberg investigates the harmful
ways in which the U-M community could be
impacted.
JULY 15 – Statement associate editor Lilly
Dickman shares her heartbreak following a
shooting in her hometown. She reflects on the
political issues surrounding gun control while
mourning for other American communities
forever changed by gun violence.
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