I didn’t picture this.
But, to be fair, I don’t think I really envisioned anything close to what I’ve experienced thus far at Penn State. You see, I’m an out-of-stater and the furthest echelon possible from a Nittany Lion Legacy. When I first heard the phrase “Happy Valley”, I imagined too green grass and too perky smiles and that kind of suspended utopian ambience that makes you the slightest bit sick to your stomach. That’s what I pictured.
And then I encountered my first few days at Penn State.
And then I encountered the Bunton-Waller Program.
So, I ask you to imagine my surprise when the word ‘retreat’, something one might associate with a gorgeous honeymoon in the Caribbean or an afternoon on a tranquil spa table, was paired with the miry reality of a swamp. I’ve nothing against swamps… It’s just… not what I pictured.
None of it was what I pictured…and still I fell in love with it. I suppose that’s the thing with picturing things…with pictures, moreover. They’re just snapshots – tiny, glorified peeks into the past.
For instance, from just the picture provided, I’m positive you wouldn’t have known how much the retreat meant to me. You wouldn’t have known that I grew up in a place with a significant lack in diversity, that being promised this new family of diverse and academically driven people under Bunton-Waller is something I’m profoundly grateful for.
From that picture alone, you wouldn’t have known that I’d later make a friend there by bonding over the struggle of black hair, social stereotyping, and the utter blasphemy of even saying Meek Mill and Drake’s name in the same sentence…
From that picture alone, you wouldn’t have known that I’d spent half of that day crying because I’d been forced to realize my own guilt in leaving my brother, and you certainly wouldn’t have known that I’d finally found closure in it.
So, I reiterate, pictures only capture moments, not the dwindling seconds before and after. They capture the smiles, the laughter. They’re bookmarks – simultaneously flimsy and decadent, paradoxically telling and recluse. They live just short of the actual moment in time, but far from telling the whole story.
At the retreat, I learned something incredible, something hard to make out, something black and white, something like a picture still in development. It’s because one of the core values stipulated by AAAS 003 is establishing future goals, and to do this, you need to picture yourself rectifying the present.
When I first pictured the retreat, I pictured something deafeningly simple. I expected something deafeningly simple. I didn’t count for all the hard work involved, for the meaningful experiences and incredible people. I just pictured the imagery I was already predisposed to. Perhaps the lesson in this exists in something as simple as “the simple”. My approach to the retreat was reminiscent of many freshmen approaches to their future. In our heads we can see the picture – a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, a teacher, a humanitarian…. We’ve turned oversimplification to a science.
The road to our future contains turns and obstacles that we can’t even fathom right now. It contains pain and pleasure, hurting and loving, and, somewhere in that, the temptation to give up; but no one could tell that by the confidence with which we grin, “Oh, I’m working to get my PhD.”
I guess what I’m trying to say is…
I guess my ultimate take-away from the retreat is this:
though a picture may offer a thousand words, nothing compares to actually being there and enjoying that moment.
