It’s graduation season in Saint Paul. There was a large family celebration at the apartment building across the street. We watched from our porch as we were eating dinner.
The main character of the occasion was not difficult to spot. She was the girl in a radiant maroon gown with braided, golden cords draped over her shoulders. On her head was a clunky mortarboard hat that'd been designed by sadist clowns.
Even from our porch, far away, she looked exhausted and embarrassed to have so many family members swarming around her, fluffing her tassel and straightening her hijab so it was draped just right. Either her dad or an uncle was instructing her to pose this way and that as they took her picture over and over. A clutch of wild children darted around the parking lot like guppies.
Eventually, the father or uncle got his fill of snaps, and the family began to load into cars.
Two tiny kids—they looked like they’d only just learned how to walk—waddled out to the family car in matching pink lace dresses with fluffy petticoats, shiny black Mary-Janes and white socks with lace tops. They clambered into a tall SUV, one on each side, like they were scrambling up a telephone pole.
Her large family, uncles, aunties, cousins and siblings, they were all seeing this young woman through a significant and likely traumatic transition in her life.
What was next for her?
Where is she headed?
New York City, maybe? Or, Los Angeles to star in the movies? Maybe, from time to time, her family back here in St. Paul would receive letters or an email of heartbreaks, rising rents, or new and exciting jobs.
Maybe next Autumn we might see her again, maybe with a new partner on her arm, or pulling up in a rumbling, sleek new car.
Finally, the graduate in shimmery maroon-and-gold, and her large family filed into their respective cars and, slowly, soberly pulled out of their parking spaces and, single file, wound their way out the parking lot, down Pacific street towards the sunset.