Well, I graduated two Fridays ago, on the 10th. It was a very sad affair and many tears were shed. I've been with some of my friends for 10 years and a good portion of them are moving to different states and one to a different continent. I could write about how much I'll miss everyone, but I think I'll just include my graduation speech instead.
A little over two years ago, Dave Susman gave our sixth-grade class a writing prompt entitled “Plantings.” It began like this: “Take some seeds. Look at them. Describe them. Smell them. Then take them somewhere. Describe where this is. And then plant them. Let time pass. Describe that, if you like. Then show what grows. It’s not at all what you expected to grow. Not at all. Describe this."
We were Plantings ourselves. Ten years ago, the members of the eighth grade were still seeds. We might have been slightly different shapes or sizes, but in the end we were all the same: the beginnings of an idea. We came to Nueva, and Nueva nurtured us, let us spring from the earth and begin to figure out what kind of plant we would grow into. Through the times when we made friends or lost them, through the times when we complained about homework or laughed at the sun, through those golden moments when time seemed to slow down in front of me and I saw the wonderful faces of my friends, we have grown up together.
And whom I have grown into is not what I expected. I never could have predicted the kind of person I would be and the things that would make me laugh. I have grown, we all have. We are saplings now, realizing what we will become. We will all be transplanted to different places to finish our growth, but whatever way the wind takes us – be it different states or different continents – our roots will always stretch back to Nueva and to the time we shared here. We came here as seeds, but Nueva nurtured our growth, and encouraged us to discover who we are. Before Nueva, I was only a single sprout in a vast landscape, alone and unformed. But now we have all grown taller together.
I will remember these words for the rest of my life. They are the beginnings of a story, but they tell one in their own right: Take some seeds. Then take them somewhere. And then plant them. Then show what grows. It’s not at all what you expected to grow. But it is beautiful, and gleaming in the sunlight.
Someday when I have grown into a tree, settled into my place in the world, I will think back to Nueva. Nueva is where I found my current self, the beginnings of my personality; where I found my passions and my place and the 50 friends that made up, for these 10 years, my forest, my family, and my home.
