It was Homecoming weekend for my alma mater, Cornell College, in Mt. Vernon, Iowa.
I’ve been to more homecomings than I haven’t since graduating—only missing this and last year, due to COVID. I loved Cornell while I was there, and love it still. Though, as does everything, it had it’s faults and shortcomings, it was the place I needed, as much for classes and maybe even more for the people it brought me. I still wear my Cornell clothes. I don’t follow the sports teams, but I didn’t do that while I was there either. I read the newsletters. I’ve donated money. I follow them on social media. I continue to sing its praises. I have a Cornell Alumni sticker on my car. I’m, what you may call, a die-hard alumna. Since I couldn’t be there, I celebrated in my own way.
High school was not my space. For a high school, my high school was amazing, but still, I couldn’t wait to leave and find my people in college. And find them, I did. But I also found myself.
I grew up in Iowa. I wanted nothing more than to leave. Be away from Iowa. Live in cities in new places with lots and lots of different people. I wanted to touch the world outside my bubble. I applied to big schools in big places. And Cornell College. College. Not to be confused with University. Twelve years older, located in Iowa, with 23,000 less students, and named for William Wesley Cornell, a cousin of Ezra’s, it’s easy to confuse the two. I applied to Cornell College because a) it was a good school b) I could create my own major c) if it had to be in Iowa, at least it looked like the East Coast. Long story short, I ended up at a small school, in a tiny town, in Iowa. Exactly what I didn’t want, yet everything I needed. Maybe not the Iowa part, but the other two were definitely what I needed.
Cornell is a strange place. A tiny liberal arts college in Iowa with a one-course at a time curriculum. It attracts the weirdies from all over. By weirdies, I really mean weirdies. From tech nerds to book nerds to gamers to LARPers. All inclusive weird. You name it, Cornell has it. For only 1,200 students, you can and will find your niche of nerd. We even had some token Republicans on campus.
I quickly learned that even smart people don’t talk about smart people things all the time or even half the time. I found out it was not only fine but good to not take myself seriously all the time… or ever. Being smart doesn’t mean being boring and intellectual every moment of every day. PEOPLE ACTUALLY DO DRUGS! Y’all, I truly thought a skunk lived outside my dorm my entire first semester. Not even a tiny bit ashamed over this level of naïveté. I also learned it’s good to think outside the box, to question authority, to push back when I knew something was wrong, to speak up with questions and answers, to fail, to ask for help, to be vulnerable, and so many more things. I also learned Russian and German and how to diagram a sentence and furthered my French and English and a lot of applicable knowledge that I use every day in my career, life, and relationships. Yes, it was worth the money Karen. Yes, I do use that expensive piece of paper in my career, Stewart. But college is more than classrooms and textbooks. It should be a safe space to explore, fail, learn, grow, and become the people we were then, are today, and will be someday.
Home is what I think of when I think of Cornell. It was the first place I felt whole. A space that gave me acceptance, love, family, friends, pain, recovery, poverty, plenty, adventure, respect, happiness, anger, truth, and peer review journals. That last one I put in there just because it was unexpected and funny.
I met my people.
I met my person, who has stayed my person despite moving cross country and living apart for seven out of our eight year personship. She’s doing amazing things, and I could not do life without her. She’s a special kind of human, and I’m so glad she’s mine. Homecoming my senior/her freshman year is really where we started bonding. It’s when I met her family, who would become my family. Cornell gave me a home for four years and led me to the family I chose for forever.
I found the love of my life at Cornell. My first semester freshman year, I fell for him. Actually, I fell on him. The happiest and saddest moments of my life were shared in our home by Cornell. It was and has always been the earth shifting, head soaring, heart fluttering, belly laughing, eyes shining kind of love that turns into soul shattering, heart wrenching, inside hallowing, eyes filling, life altering heart aches. Cornell is where I lost him. Whether it’s our liberal arts education teaching us to think outside the box, our love, history, respect, or a combination, I still call him my best friend, my partner, my most favorite human .
So many people came in and out of my life at Cornell. I made friends in the dorms, in classes, through walking across the Ped Mall. I spent time with my partner’s fraternity brothers. I became an honorary member of a sorority. I was president of the French club. I had friends all over. I learned stillness and solitude are equally as important for me. I felt a part of something even when I took time for myself.
I came into my own life at Cornell.
Life was lived because it had to be suffered through. Then I went to college, where I met people who let me be whatever I was. Happy, sad, angry, passionate. Feelings were welcomed. I found a man who challenged me to love and be loved, demanded I allow myself to break in every way I needed to so I could recover. Cornell gave me permission to enter my own life authentically and with complexity.
The hardest years of my life played out on campus and in Mt. Vernon. When I think of Cornell, a shimmering sadness plays across my heart. A foundational four years filled me with as much sorrow as happiness. I think I’m still catching up on the sleep I never got back then. I also really wish I hadn’t recycled all the paper handouts and copies from my classes… I’d give a lot of things—not the dogs— for all of those now. I would not be who I am without Cornell. I would probably not be at all if it weren’t for my Cornell family. I miss it as much as I am happy to have moved on.
No matter the hardship, I am and always will be a die-hard alumna. I really didn’t like purple until I realized I had to embrace it at college. Purple and white are the school colors, and I’ve definitely acquired a collection of Cornell pride clothes over the years.
2021 is the 168th anniversary of Cornell’s existence. It’s old as shit, considering the state of Iowa is only seven years older than my beloved alma mater. Missing out on this year’s celebrations, although most were cancelled due to COVID, was sad. So I decided to fill my house with flowers in Cornell colors all week. I even did a photoshoot with a bouquet, hair comb, and corsage to celebrate. Flowers just make everything more fun, especially Homecoming. After the shoot, we went for coffee and sweets; I definitely felt like I was off to a school dance with my corsage.
I made the corsage in markedly not Cornell colors but still in honor of Cornell. Red and white. My partner belonged to a fraternity, Mu Lambda Sigma, better known on campus as the Milts. This year marks their 150th anniversary. As any and all Milts will tell you without provocation, they are indeed the oldest organization on campus. Starting out as the Miltonian Literary Society and founded by Dean H.H. Freer in 1871, it evolved into the fraternity I know and love. I had really hoped to spend the Milt’s 150th anniversary on campus, but alas, I did not.
Not only was my partner a Milt, he introduced me to actives and alum, many became close friends. The fraternity is and was important to me because these were men who created a space for me to exist with the knowledge that I was safe. They protected me and nurtured me. They taught me men could be good, kind, and gentle. I didn’t have to fear these men. I was able to reset my gut and learn to trust it for the first time in my life because of these men. Truly, I have been able to go out into the world and trust men directly because of my partner and the Milts. I am forever grateful to the goofiest group of dudes. So the corsage is as much in honor of my partner as it is in honor of each Milt who loved me at Cornell. Goodness, do I miss them. So much.
Happy Homecoming, Cornell. I miss the good times and am thankful for the bad.
bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna
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