The Commencement

words by Heather Land

After attending a high school graduation, and finding herself underwhelmed, Heather Land offers everyday advice for the new graduate – or anyone who wants to live.

This past May I attended a high school graduation, oddly enough – the first one since my own 25 years ago. 

I was underwhelmed. No surprise, it was much like my own – highly anticipated, overly hyped and awkward. You spend 12 years of your life working towards this momentous occasion…this milestone in your young life. In this case, to sit 6 feet apart from the people you are experiencing it with in an uninvited solitude – over-rehearsed and, well, underwhelming. 

Not that it cannot be done, but I find it trivial that a young scholar could give a speech that propels you into the next realm, when all she or he has to go off of is possibility. There is but hopeful and scripted dreams well edited and written in A+ format, but unfortunately no depth to pull fellow students down into before thrusting them out into the wide open again, this time with a true sense of wings. This is because she or he has yet to even begin to dig to those depths because only today she is being given the shovel. 

I walked away feeling just as I had all those years ago, underwhelmed. Even more so, I felt bad for those graduates – their long awaited moment had been hijacked by robotic tradition. There was no unleashed hoops and hollering or wild dancing or slinging of gowns because there were rules to be followed, order to be had. After 12 years, they still had not earned their Footloose moment. And when it was over, it was over. 

  My husband recently came home and insisted I watch a graduation speech given by Denzel Washington. How odd that he had randomly come across and listened to it himself? Until I listened myself. I was blown away. 

At 43, I felt gushes of emotion as he spoke – for what I had done and could relate to, to what I still had left to do, to push through obstacles I have created for myself. I was struck at my core by his message – so relevant, so personal, so stabbing, and so inspiring. I might as well have been sitting in my cap and gown raring to stand up in my chair and throw it to the sky. “Fall Forward.” 

Having spent the last 15 years unschooling myself and spending a lot of time digging deep to differentiate between what is necessary and what is fluff, one of the things I often say to myself and to my husband is “What did you need when you were young?” 

It’s a right of passage, aging and learning. We never get to know when we are young what we will “know now” later, but I can attest to the healing and rejuvenation of cleaning out the cabinets and only keeping what is actually used daily versus saving it all for the off chance that one day you might use it.

There is one very special graduate in our lives this year and while it would’ve been easy to give him some cash in a card and send him with pats on the back, it felt empty for me. Instead, our family made him a meal and we all shared a few sweet hours of uninterrupted time together – chatting about his next move into a new kind of freedom. I sent him away with my words, a letter with dots that connect like pathways through the dunes to the ocean. I told him he could do with them what he wanted and that he may not appreciate them for quite some time – they were seeds scattered on the wind – the kind that germinate when and where you least expect. 

I cannot say that my words give the same sense of excitement that Denzel gifted those graduates but I can say that they have yet to lose their luster for me. His are the big moves motivational kind. Mine are the everyday steps that activate your muscles. They are relevant through all time and space – nibbled in bits until they are well digested or gulped down and left whirling within. These are not “Eat your vegetables because they are good for you” words. These are “TRY EVERYTHING you can and figure out what you like” words.

To all graduates – ahem, To ALL … cheers to YOUR new every day. Take off your old shoes and let your feet feel the fresh earth. Take a deep breath and toss your cap so high it doesn’t come back down. Put one foot in front of the other and move forward in any direction you want to go. You have the rest of your life in front of you. Whatever shall you do with it?