Miles Down The Track I Can Hear That Whistle Blowin', Somewhere In The Night, And I Know In My Mind That Someday I'll Be Leavin'

--"Two Winding Rails", Sierra Hull and Highway 111

three eight eight

letting go of the
tug rope in one swift motion
before she falls in.
~dw

----

Tomorrow my sister Nora and my brother-in-law Harry will be taking me up to their alma mater for the first of my three scheduled college visits. I don't as of yet know where I rank Notre Dame on my list of go-to schools, but I am excited for the prospect of visiting this magical land where I might spend the next four years of my life at. When one of my teachers at school asked me if I was excited, I told him it was like time-traveling into the future, gaining a glimpse at the Toby who might yet be. Such is the grandeur of the precipice I now found myself tiptoeing on, scared and thrilled to peek the tiniest bit over the edge. Nora swears she's convinced that I'm going to absolutely have my mind turned and she very well might be right. We'll see.

It's not like I haven't been on a college campus before. My Aunt Ashley has taken me up to Kentucky many a time to see the Wildcats play and I've bunked over with Faye at Indiana many weekends this past year. This, though, will be the first time a voyage will be undertaken solely for my benefit. No longer will I be the passing emissary of the land of adolescence. No, this trip will be made in the unique effort of emigration. This Toby, she isn't looking for a place to visit any more. This Toby, she's looking for a place to call home for the next few years. And while I might not know what direction my sails will pull me once I get there--certainly not Public Policy or Film Scoring like my sisters--I do know that whichever shores I land upon I want to explore the surroundings to the fullest. I want to fully commit to being a part of the college experience as much as possible. I already wasted my formative years locked away in the unbearable cage of being the shadow afeared of man. I want to be that wave on the ocean that flows with conscience or consequence. I just want to move for the sake of moving for once, be going somewhere and be something that isn't dictated beforehand.

And I know visiting the hallowed halls of South Bend is that first step of a journey which stretches out a lifetime.

And while I still have the very fine cities of Lexington and Ann Arbor to visit, it's Notre Dame that has the distinction to be my very real first taste of life away from the Toby that once was. It'll be like discovering what it's like to be new in the world again, something apart from the persona that has been built upon me. More precisely, it'll be like revisiting that part of myself that was lost when I became lost myself for a time in the angst of a life unlived as of yet.

Deep: the scent of the wood itself—
Walnut, lost thirty, forty years,
Returned, a certain desperate stir,
Unquiet thoughts,
Felling, the outraged exodus of birds.

--"The Hutch", Sarah Hannah

dw