Letter from Boston

Graduation Week

By MASAKO YAMADA

About a month ago, I was walking toward my apartment in Boston when I passed by a familiar face. It was Sun, my first-year roommate from college. We were both surprised to see each other since our paths had diverged since then and we'd never really talked to each other after sophomore year. I knew she was graduating and I asked her about her future plans, but we were able to chat for only a short time since she was heading toward the Korean restaurant on my block. I suppose we could've left it at that, but something moved me to call her. She called me back after commencement, and we ended up talking for over an hour.

My chance meeting with Sun also inspired me to write to my second-year roommate, Molly, and she wrote back a very nice message to me. Sun and Molly are about as different as night and day, and I suppose I'm not very similar to either of them. However, I'm glad that I roomed with these two women. Things have changed for all of us over the years, but there is still the familiarity of our having shared the same room for a year, and I savor it with more appreciation than I have before. Even though this graduation period is not my own, I still feel the sad air of parting, the warmth of old friendships and the excitement of new beginnings.

Several of my friends from Harvard have also been graduated. Mike and Yuri are computer science concentrators (that's how they say major at Harvard) I met only a few months ago. But we've become good friends surprisingly quickly. Mike is going to Japan in the fall. Yuri is going to China. Perhaps because of this knowledge, within the last week of school, we spent two all-nighters just sitting on sofas and talking. I've met Mike's family. I've met Yuri's two roommates. We've all met various friends from each other's various activities. Throughout, I've sensed a mellow generosity in these people, even though their normal college lives were undoubtedly hectic. When there isn't much time, I suppose people forget about playing witty games. What I sensed in them was a sincere intention ― almost a desperation ― to communicate honestly.

Today, I went to my longtime friend Jason's graduation party. I've known him since he was a first-year graduate student at Harvard, and now he's received his Ph.D. He's only 26 and he already has a teaching position lined up at Dartmouth. His parents hosted a semiformal graduation party at a country club in suburban Boston to celebrate this. Semiformal means ties for the men and dresses for the women, but it doesn't mean black tie or evening dress. The seating for the sit-down lunch was assigned, but before the meal began, there was a cocktail hour during which the guests milled about and chatted to each other. The overall feeling was casual and joyful.

Most of the tables were filled with Jason's relatives (the guest of honor was his 92-year-old grandfather, Morris), but there was a friends table at which the young guests were seated. Jason sat with his immediate family, but the rest of us had a wonderful time talking to each other. Not only did I get to catch up on the gossip with some of my old friends, I was also able to meet a couple of new people. One of the guys I met is, in fact, going to enter the BU physics department in the fall. He was one of Jason's roommates as an undergraduate at Harvard, but after a few years of experimenting with different jobs and fields of study, he decided that he wanted to pursue academia. It's a bit ironic to think that he's going to be my junior in graduate school while his ex-roommate is already going to be a professor, but one of the nice things about living in the States is that this isn't a very big deal. Leaving friends, changing paths, starting over ― these are the things one thinks about during graduation season, but my hope is that the passing of time will always lead to some kind of progress.

Shukan ST: June 20, 1997

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