In her column “Geography of My Heart,” Dan Kubota explores memories from her favorite campus spots that live rent free in her head.

Dan: 1, Sun: 0. 

Okay, I’m taking the win because it’s the first time in months I’ve beaten the sun to start my day. I’m up at 6 a.m. (after countless alarms and sleeping on the couch so as to not wake my roomies) in my favorite (and only) pair of normal jeans and my Docs, ready to take on the day. 

Walking in through the glass doors of the Arrillaga Alumni Center really feels different at 7 a.m. on a Friday morning. It doesn’t quite look like the fantastical castle I was gushing over as my friends and I walked into Frosh Formal last November, but it’s filled with an electricity of its own. I get a white T-shirt proclaiming that I am indeed a student working at Reunion Homecoming (relevant because a few people ask me if this is my day job), grab a peach Chobani (my favorite) and I’m on my way to get my first golf cart.

I’ve actually only driven a golf cart once before, and the first time I did, there was only one other person in the cart with me! I’m nervous. What if my people skills aren’t enough? What if I don’t know what to talk about? What if I’m completely a hot mess?

To be honest, these frivolous thoughts are the least of my worries. I’m not sure what major I’m going to declare, I’m planning on withdrawing from a class for the second time, I’m struggling to find a sense of belonging in the communities I’ve worked so hard to be a part of… I’m panicked, lost and confused, and I’m not sure how I’m going to continue to keep pretending everything is okay when I’m not. 

I’m looking for a break from the grindset mindset here on campus and my own personal struggles — I want an out. I’m tired of the chaos of my own life here on campus, and I’d like to turn my focus to the joy alumni have when they return for the weekend.

I’m fully prepared to have mindless conversations about how life on campus has changed, how certain roads are different, how there are new buildings where their favorite spots used to be. As I burn my mouth on hot tea my friend made me, I warm up my hands and try to warm myself up to the idea that this morning shift is going to be amazing. I am not sleepy, I am not tired, I am okay, I tell myself over and over again. If I say it enough times, I’ll believe what I’m saying.

Friday morning me, sleepy and ready to fake it ‘til I make it, could not have been more surprised by what happened. Of course we had conversations about how the layout of campus has changed (apparently there weren’t always roundabouts? What is Stanford without mini circles of death?!) and how traditions have since faded out of our memory (eating clubs are sadly a thing of the past), but we bonded over constants (the presence of Toyon and Roble as pretty dorms, the trek from FloMo to the athletics facilities, the use of MemChu and MemAud — apparently Stanford has always been a school to love abbreviations). 

I mean, they also tipped me. Bits of information, I mean. Things arguably more precious than five dollars or whatever it would be if I worked in the food industry (I’ve only done retail before, so I wouldn’t know about tips). To be honest, trying to remember the pieces of information they told me feels like trying to pick up a slice of liquid water, but I’ll try my best. 

*

We were at the back of MemChu because the golf cart couldn’t go onto Main Quad and we stood there in the silence of the morning.

“It’s okay to not have everything figured out.”

Her words cut through the silence of the cold morning, the occasional rustling of branches and twittering of birds, ringing in my ears. Words I hadn’t quite allowed myself to accept, words I couldn’t even fathom. 

*

I apologized profusely to the folks getting on my golf cart. I didn’t quite stop as perfectly as I had been doing and I felt terrible about it. I had been doing such a good job this whole morning, and now I just had to go and blow it.

“You don’t have to apologize.” It was like she offered me a warm cup of tea on a cold winter afternoon. For a second, I felt like we were folks on a bus who struck up a random conversation, not two people making small talk on a golf cart. 

I hadn’t even realized I was tensing up. I forcibly relaxed my shoulders and exhaled softly, letting the tension leave my body.

I wish I’d gotten her name. 

*

How could I forget football season? I asked everyone who was on my golf cart if they knew our football team’s record this past season.

They knew. 

And they were still here, waking up early on a chilly October morning to come to their alma mater to watch a losing team. I guess there’s something magical about the atmosphere of a reunion tailgate, meeting up with your closest friends and classmates from a different era of your life to catch up. Maybe there’s some special flavor in the barbecue sauce, a hidden melody in the excited chatter I hear as I drive by. 

*

Dan: 1, Sun: 1. The Sun’s beaten me the day after my shifts for Reunion Homecoming are done. I woke up at 12:15 p.m. for the first time in months. Something about waking up before the crack of dawn two nights in a row as a sleep-deprived college student just does that to you, I must say.

It would be silly of me to say the cliche thing, that talking to the alumni completely changed my brain chemistry. It hasn’t. Change, the real lasting kind, does not happen in a single weekend. But what I will say is that for the brief blip in time that was Reunion Homecoming, I swapped out my -8 spectacles for the corny Nerd Nation glasses and my “gogogogo” mindset for a “stop and smell the roses every now and then” one. I got a taste of a new perspective, another way of perceiving my world.