Reunion
Hellos and re-hellos. Mini-donuts of four to eight, talking about anything. Hundreds of simultaneous deja vus on a campus that still looks more mirage than school.
95% quickly realize they don’t give a shit about what other people do; 50% of that 95% realize they hardly care what they do themselves. Conversation’s punctuated every 5 minutes by an “Oh my gawd hiiii!” as eyes lock and longtime friends of different cities bear-hug in a temporarily independent dimension.
Late-twenties and early thirty-somethings periodically glance at bubble-chasing toddlers, then at the mothers and fathers they will in all likelihood become. Beautiful, maybe unsettling, not entirely accessible. Too existential.
The swirling algorithm of coffee chats that began three years ago returns anew. 24 hours in, this unseen gravity inevitably brings us to those few people we just like being around. Some we still speak to every day, some we haven’t talked to in months — it doesn’t matter. They can tell us the real stuff; they make us laugh.
Sun-kissed, fatigued from the hyper-social, the eye of perpetual drinking brings two whole hours of reprieve. Yawns and naps.
The day’s third cocktail hour arrives, bringing such transition it seems to usher in a new calendar day. The sun steals away under the cover of outdoor champagne lighting. Looking around is a trip. What could be more GSB than a few hundred nearly-passed-out-in-chairs ~businesspeople~ metamorphosing into a well-moisturized, suit-clad, heel-sporting aristocracy? Gatsby shrugs.
And finally the night’s most important step: avoiding the trap of whiskey-sweetened malaise — of spending too much time in Schwab’s backyard. Our butterflies show their worth, their wings make wind, the rumor mill spins. Where to next? Who can guess? Palo Alto, with all its options.
The Patio awaits (I’m sorry, a line? — never again). Dancing and singing, more deja, no thinking. Another night in Stanford’s anti-milieu to remind us it all matters less than these simple little joys. We fade into collective silhouette.
