We are dust in the wind. And so are the three accidents my family and I witnessed on our one day trip to Purdue University to move in my little sister to her dorm room. Driving to West Lafayette a semi was smashed up in the front and being pulled out of the ditch as we drove past. Then, on our way back we were fully stopped for a little over an hour on I65. My dad and I got our of the car to not only photo-document the stopped cars and people mingling on the road but also in attempts to figure out what was happening. The whole event was rather exciting which sounds odd considering after an already long day we were stuck on the highway; however, I managed to convince my parents to play my ipod. So for the first forty minutes I sat in the car, windows rolled down, sun setting, listening to Bob Dylan...basically paradise for me.
As we got closer my dad and I started taking more pictures, until we saw enough to know this was not the appropriate kind of skidded-semi-accident to photo document. Instead, a semi trailer was on fire (though it looked really cool) but the driver area looked in tact. The real shock was seeing the shambles of an old sedan in the grass, knowing there was too much damage to the car to not cause significant harm.
My mom and I being very similar creatures couldn't help but suppress swelling tear ducts and hope for a miracle. The worst part was that, windows down, I had the camera, in full view of the firemen sitting on our side of the road. Thankfully, for my own sake and theirs, I understood what had happened just in time to shake my head in utter disbelief and hold my breathe to ease the potential tears.
There was some other accident on the way home, but it didn't look serious at all. But regardless, nothing is guaranteed. My moving out to Eugene for two years, getting into any sort of grad school (getting money to actually go), coming back to Chicago to stay permanently, opening up the Black Sheep Bakery--nothing is guaranteed.
Because we're fleeting vapors, dust in the wind, candle flames in the wind--whatever cliche you fancy. But where does that leave us. Barren and broken.
I have every intention of, when the time comes, referencing Kierkegaard in my personal statement for grad programs. In an early letter of his he discusses his upcoming decision to either go to seminary or study philosophy. And now he' s, in short, understood as a Christian existentialist.
I know that with the mixture of suburbia, non-denominational church influence and my path I've chosen in life I have some solid material to chew on. I want to spend the next two years being devoured by thinkers thoughts and spitting out my own. I'm anxious to learn (above and beyond what DePaul thought was challenging enough), for the first time in my higher educational career--all because I finally have the confidence that I, too can (Langston Hughes) I, too am fully capable of running with the bombastic DePaul University Philosophy majors and frankly, I'm better off educationally than them because I have an open mind to listen to a thinker instead of apply some other philosopher to prove my Philosophical proficiency.
And even in my rant I strayed from remembering how fleeting life is, so much so that I have no reason to be so bothered by my peer's. I want to get my masters. And dammit, I'm going to do everything I can to.
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