Used to tell Ma sometimes
When I see them riding blinds
Gonna make me a home out in the wind
In the wind, Lord in the wind
Make me a home out in the wind

I don’t like it in the wind
Wanna go back home again
But I can’t go home thisaway
Thisaway, Lord Lord Lord
And I can’t go home thisaway

I was young when I left home
And I been out rambling ‘round
And I never wrote a letter to my home
To my home, Lord Lord Lord
And I never wrote a letter to my home
—-Bob Dylan, I Was Young When I Left Home

My little bike ride through the Tulane campus was bittersweet. It was fun but I was filled with a melancholy nostalgia. Lee has graduated – this might be my last visit… or at least it will be the last visit with any connection or significance. I remembered visiting five years ago for parent’s weekend, walking the sidewalks on the guided tour, imagining what it would be like to study at such a beautiful place in such an amazing city.

This last visit – I almost felt more connection than with my own campus… that was long ago and I was just a kid, anyway. Nobody knows the terrible lucidity of nostalgia at a young age – it only comes with the onslaught of incipient dotage.

Baritone
Mia Westerlund Roosen
Tulane Campus
New Orleans, Louisiana

Baritone
Mia Westerlund Roosen
Tulane Campus, New Orleans
(click to enlarge)

“The Greek word for “return” is nostos. Algos means “suffering.” So nostalgia is the suffering caused by an unappeased yearning to return.”
― Milan Kundera, Ignorance