Ephemerality

(on cicadas and graduation speeches)

Greetings from the inside of a seashell. We’re listening to the 13-year cicadas, their steady hum over equally steady rain. Near the river their song is intense and wave-like, and the bare sandy banks are dotted with holes, but here on the hilltop we hear a high, constant thrumming. By my calculation the cicadas have three or four more weeks above ground before the nymphs burrow back underground.

I like the sound of the periodical cicadas, appreciate that this event is short and predictable but not as short or even as predictable as an eclipse. Not a thing you have to set your watch for, or wear special gear for, or fear for your safety about—you can in fact find a quite nice brooch on the bark of your nearest tree, or the underside of a leaf.

These are the same brood I wrote about in “The Art of Waiting.” I think of them as the Beatrice brood, but I suppose that would also make them the Harriet brood.

The sound is always there, but sometime soon it won’t be. This is why they’re so loud—they have a lot to do, and limited time to do it.

Ephemerality is what both of our wonderful speakers spoke about at Friday’s English department graduation—not just the idea that life is transitory, but that within that structure, you may not know what’s next or have all of the answers. My colleague Anna Gibson, a Victorianist, spoke eloquently about how Charles Dickens was often writing (or procuring paper for) the next installment of his novels as his readers were reading the most recent, serialized chapters. She encouraged the graduates to think of their lives this way, as installments they will write as they live them. The student speaker ended a roving, moving speech with a plea to us to appreciate the ephemeral, the fleeting. He told a funny and self-aware story from his childhood, read part of the very strong college application essay he’d written as a non-traditional student, transferring in from community college after leaving the military—not to say how he had predicted this path, but how he’d grown to understand that so much of life was not as black and white as that previous self believed. “I didn’t know where that speech was going,” one of my students told me after the ceremony. “But it was great.”

The crush of people in the hallways, in their red and black gowns, was intense. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a big turnout for an English graduation. Jason Swarts, the head of my department, reminded us that this was the class that, in 2020, saw their high school graduation ceremenies canceled. So all their family and friends came out to whoop and cheer. I heard “that’s my baby!” and “that’s my sister!” I saw a service dog walk the stage in a cap and gown, then gently take the diploma, handed to him by his cheered, graduating human.

Before the ceremony, Jason told the faculty there could be protests about the war in Gaza, but there was a plan. What’s the plan? asked one of my colleagues. Well, Jason said, the plan was to let them express what they had to express. If they had signs, that was okay. We only had the ballroom for a limited time and so if it went on too long, they would be asked to step into the hallway. And then? If they refused and it was an interruption of the ceremony that threatened the graduation experience, he said that we would call security.

He didn’t say there was no time for protest, no world in which protest and graduation could coexist. He didn’t set an unreasonable limit, or draw a firm line he couldn’t step back from. We didn’t know what would happen, but I think we all felt reassured—not because we are afraid of students or anything they have to say but because we are afraid of authoritarianism, the use of police violence to quell speech. Or of speech that isn’t attempted because of that fear.

I have a student who fears going home to his country because he won’t be able to write anything critical of the government; while he was in our program, his father was imprisoned for more than a month for publishing an essay. I have other students who have remained here, far from family, because they fear violence targeting them for their sexual orientation or gender expression. I hate that these fine writers and good people have to move far from homes they love and people who love them, but I also feel lucky that there are places here that welcome them and the things they have to say. Whether or not they know what to say—next, or now, or long in the future. I hope those rights stay protected.

I hope for peace, for a stable ceasefire in Gaza. For food and shelter and safety for Palestinian families.

I hope those brave students who are protesting will not be kicked out of their schools. I hope they’ll all be able to graduate, and that the people who are considering their fates will also remember that they were some of the same students who had years of their young lives disrupted by the pandemic.

I wish we could all sit for a while to listen together to some of the best of the graduation speeches that have been able to go on this spring—for after all a graduation speech is an ephemeral, seasonal thing. Something you hear in community and goodwill, and you don’t know where it will go next.

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Chatham County readers, can you raise your voice for better teacher and bus driver pay, or stand in solidarity with teachers, students, and school staff at the County Commissioners meeting tomorrow night? The meeting is at 6 PM at the historic courthouse in Pittsboro.

Our excellent school superintendent, Dr. Anthony Jackson, has presented the commissioners with a budget that will give every teacher a raise of $2700, and each classified staff member a raise of $500. This well-reasoned budget addresses our county's high teacher vacancies and the need to compete for the most qualified teachers with better-paying districts like Wake and Chapel Hill.

Last year, our county commissioners voted to support the school board's budget, and my friends and I feel it’s important to encourage their continued support this year. The situation in our beloved public schools--with vacancies, overcrowding, and so many teachers leaving--is getting tougher for families to navigate. Can you join me, my friends, and some of our kids at the commissioner meeting on May 6 at 6PM? You can hold a sign, clap, or sign up here to give public comment.

Hope to see some of you there! For everyone else, until next time!