COLUMN: The first and last walk of my college years

From Amanda Bergson-Shilcock's, "A Few Good Words," Fall '99 From Amanda Bergson-Shilcock's, "A Few Good Words," Fall '99It's strange, but what I'll miss most when I graduate from Penn is a six-block stretch of asphalt. For 5 1/2 years, the trek between 30th Street Station and campus has bookended my Penn experience. When classes began in mid-January, my walk was a blur of ice and snow. Passing cars spat dirty slush at me from whirling tires. I felt shadowed -- literally and figuratively -- by the city's sheer, intimidating power. I kept my hand on my bag, my coat buttoned up to my chin and my eyes on the lookout for whatever shapeless spectre I feared. I haven't grown any taller in the past five-plus years. Neither have I become a wholesale convert to city life. But the walk and I are now affectionate companions, an elderly couple who know each other's foibles and quirks. I have a route. The man outside the station hawking single roses has given up on me as a buyer, but he still nods. The transit police who park on the sidewalk to take their coffee breaks are an everyday sight. I monitor the size of the crowd around the truck loaded with fresh fruits and vegetables -- lots of business today? The bank on the corner has changed hands twice, each time with bright, perky signs promising Free Checking and Efficient, No-Hassle Service. Somehow this last vow rings false, in light of the Help Wanted signs prominently placed nearby. Next door, the auto garage looks solid and reassuring. Some things I haven't adjusted to. I still wince at (and mentally edit) the sign that reads Truck Drivers Must Turn Off Your Engines. I still forget about the oily, ankle-deep pond that appears at one crosswalk with every heavy rain and must jump awkwardly over it instead of sensibly going around. Yet even these unpleasant things are comforting in their familiarity. In the beginning, the walk seemed almost like a penance, or at least a duty to be borne. I had no idea for how long it might be a part of my life. Now I can see that end, moving steadily closer with each passing week, increasing in speed as the calendar loses pages. Instead of feeling relief, I am mourning. I am mourning the things I haven't done on my walk. I have never purchased anything from the audaciously pink truck which offers "Haitian Delights" including "Fish, Conch and Goat." I have never sat on the grass and watched the clumsy enthusiasm of the softball players on Hill Field. And several times I have been suddenly enveloped by a sea of families in their Sunday best accompanying their black-and-purple robed children, cameras flashing and smiles fighting tears, diplomas in hand as they sweep, en masse, out of the Commencement ceremony. They overflow the sidewalks and fill the sticky spring air with celebration, farewells and promises. Always I have walked against the tide, quietly bypassing the tumult on the way to a classroom, beginning the first day of summer classes as another group of students erupts with the excitement and joy of Commencement. This time, though, I will be walking with the crowd. I will be wearing the symbolic clothes and when the ceremony is over, I will again walk the pavement of the street I know so well. This time I will not be alone. I too will have a family dressed for celebration, and a rolled-up piece of paper in hand. And when I walk, the six blocks will be my punctuation. They -- not the congratulations, not even the diploma -- will tell me that the journey I began one ice-coated winter day is over.