Coming home

Written by Gus Ruchman
Wednesday, 26 August 2009 23:00

“Listen to the cicadas chirping,” my mother remarks at dinner. “It’s like they’re shouting, ‘It’s August!’” These are words that send chills shooting up and down the spine of every teenager because they mean one thing: the last weeks of summer are upon us.

I have been fortunate enough to have had unforgettable summers away from home, and they have become part of who I am. I still remember first leaving on that day in June when I was eight years old. I boarded a bus full of strangers at an I-95 stop to drive six hours up to sleep-away camp in New Hampshire. Since then I have never spent the summer in Greenwich, but rather have taken the opportunity to pursue more obscure interests beyond familiar horizons. A summer well spent can teach as much as a year in the classroom, especially in the courses of life.

From New Orleans, La., to Pushchino, Russia, to Westwood, Calif., I have traveled far and wide since June, for which I would like to express my utmost gratitude. I have seen more than I can possibly communicate in a short newspaper column, including the unique streets of the French Quarter, the brilliance and diligence of researchers in Russian science laboratories, and the paradoxical hybrid condition of Californians defined by both a crazed Los Angeles and a stereotypically laid-back, West Coast attitude. This summer I have laughed and struggled, worked and played, grown outwardly and inwardly, and been tested in new and exciting ways by a variety of environments and challenges.

Still, after weeks of travel, work, study, and living very much on my own, the prospect of returning home was bittersweet. Boarding a plane from LAX to JFK was just one step in acknowledging the unfortunate facts that the season’s adventures are coming to a close and that the commencement of yet another year of tests, essays, and grades is much more imminent than a student would choose to concede.

Nonetheless, there remain in the mind unyielding images of a street, a mailbox, a family, and a dog. Like a persistent song stuck in your head, the thought of sleeping in your own bed calls to you from thousands of miles away. So you stand, perhaps waiting for a ride to the airport or on line at the gate, torn between the instinct for exploration and the throbbing of the pre-programmed compass in your heart with a needle that always points to one place.

Now I am here in town, and life appears to have reverted to the status quo. However, I cannot pretend not to be glad to be back, and yes, even excited for senior year. The journeys and lessons of the summer are contributors to the sum of my experiences, helping define and guide me. The beauty of coming home is that I can reconcile these gifts with day-to-day life, with people I love in the place in which I have grown up. After all, in only a dozen months I will be leaving on a far longer trip to uncertain destinations. But for now, I will enjoy the final days of August with my family and friends before taking the plunge into one last year of high school.

Gus Ruchman of Cos Cob is a rising senior at Brunswick School.