This month in Nsoko I’ve been living with 21 other women. We have a great amount of space for us, enough showers and bathrooms. It’s bliss.
But this isn’t the first time I’ve had to be around this many women.
In fact I’ve been around more!.
At the end of August 2003 I started college. It’s been ten years. I can’t really believe it.
My college experience started with music camp. A crazy week of games, singing, and exhaustion. It was how I always started out my college years.
For 4 years every Monday, Wednesday, Friday during the school year I would find myself smack dab in the middle of a group of 55 talented, hilarious women and our amazing choir director Joni. The friendship I made because of the music department at VU are some of the ones that I miss the most. They are the top numbers on my speed dial, the faces that pepper the photos on my facebook, the memories that bring me more joy than I can describe.
So this one? It's not about the race. It's about my life.
this one? It’s for my girls.
To you ladies
I miss you dearly
I remember those first few
Rehearsals in M1
Not knowing quite what as going on
And slowly as time went on
Wondering
Why exactly people
Were so sad to get placed in
The dub-c
It’s was without a doubt
The best thing
To happen to us at VU
I remember Fantasias
[save me a ticket- I should be home]
And knitting
And sarcastic comments
And how that bonded all of our friendships
A little more
I remember choir tour
And how sitting next to each other
On that bus
Is the moment WE became friends
Gaining strength
Confidence
Ownership
Over what was the Dub-C
I remember slowly moving
Up the class rankings
And having those
Upperclassmen
We loved so dearly leave
And then we became the leadership
The officers
And we longed
So much for those newbies
To have the experience
To feel the love, the hilarity
The friendship that we had
I remember that meeting
In the office
We had an agenda
We had a love
AND
We had to get back to work
And then last music camp
6 years ago
Everything was a little different
And a bit more amazingly awesome
We treasured it all
I treasured leading you all.
Standing side by side as that
Season of our lives left us
Now some of you
[most of you]
are married
getting married
having babies
careers
[and you know, I’m somewhere on the other side of the globe]
You are my women
[Dub-C members and honorary]
I don’t know what I’d do
if you weren’t my people
If you weren’t in all my memories
You mean the world to me.
I can’t wait to see you again.
To maybe sit at Fantasia with you
[and text Joni while she’s on stage]
To have a family dinner
And laugh and talk
I miss you all so much this morning
As I sit on a foam mattress
On a cement floor in Swazi
Keep changing the world ladies
You do it so well
I know this:
Because you’ve changed me.
