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Friday, April 01, 2005
Finishing
Dismal weather has delayed the annual outbreak of spring fever. Of course, dismal weather is excuse enough for students to miss their classes, so the effect is the same. The end of the spring semester is always the hardest time of the year.
I have my doubts as to whether spring is really the main distraction. I suspect it is the end of the academic year itself, with the long summer ahead and the end of schooling for many of those about to graduate. The sloth that emerges in full force during spring emerges before every break we have, even the three-day weekends. Our spring break is a full week, but students mentally start leaving the Wednesday or Thursday before, and bear some resentment to those, like myself, who have the temerity to give exams the Friday before.
When I am driving long distances, I notice that the last hour feels much longer than the ones before it. The last hour is so exhausting that I always have the impression of just barely having endured the trip. Since this exhaustion happens on three-hour drives as often as seven-hour ones, however, it stands to reason that the problem is me. There are a number of psychological tricks people play to overcome this problem that I would do well to learn.
Perhaps one such trick is to think of advice that was given to us when I was on the track team in middle school: "don't run to the finish line, run through it." Similar advice is given to kids about running to first base, and the notion of "follow through" that accompanies every sport which swings something fits as well. The end is not the end of all activity, just the end of activity at its fullest.
These thoughts also accord with the idea of grace that I've mentioned before, namely, that being graceful means having more strength than something calls for. To fall down at the finish line might suggest that you've given it your all, but it also suggests that you took on more than you could successfully handle.
To finish without grace, to slow down before the finish line, demeans our accomplishment. Hopefully, we end matters with pride in what we've done, but it is hard to feel that pride when the end seems like such a burden. It is the wrong form of punctuation, or perhaps a lack of punctuation altogether.
A distinction should be made, however, between stumbling toward the end and taking a pause before the end for the sake of reflection. After I graduated from college, for example, I stayed in Claremont for the summer, working at an institute on campus and finishing up a fellowship I had been awarded. There was something very satisfying about being on campus for a few more months until graduate school began for me back in Atlanta. I had a sense that I might not make it back to southern California many more times. It was a leisurely good-bye, a proper punctuation to a time and place very important to me.
Living well isn't easy. It is its own art, and the culmination of others too.
Eddie 7:32 PM
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