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We are romantic, adventurous, joyful, hopeful, and, more than anything, brave. We have had great teachers and coaches, we have learned much and, on occasion, survived harder lessons than were originally set. These have tested our fortitude and friendships and, still, I hope we have left our mark on this School in a wonderful way. Groton is a place of simple joys, simple lessons, and simple truths. Plain and simple: It’s a place where we have grown up. And this nostalgia, this “I don’t know what is happening to me” experience, is absolutely necessary. We all live in a state of confusion, which trips us up at every turn. We want to look behind to where we have been before, to center ourselves, to stick our roots in familiar soil. But we have to move forward. Know now that the past behind was in reality just as confusing as the present is now. It is all just a matter of accepting a shifting perspective. When my mother was young, she would spend every summer with her French family in Normandy. There was a great big house on a hill with a farm below. She tells me her days were
Johnathan Terry and Julia alling (background, Francisco Fernandez)
Chinedu Okorafor, Cher Lei, Meghan Harvey, Nimesha Gerlus, alice Stites, Maeve Hoffstot, and Starling irving
spent mostly playing in the river and woods with her cousins. When the summer was ending, all her friends would head back to Paris and she would always be in tears. To make her feel better, her grandmother would quote the verse from an old poem, which feels particularly apt as we leave today. I am going to say this in French so bear with me:
Partir, c’est mourir un peu, C’est mourir à ce qu’on aime: On laisse un peu de soi-même, En toute heure et dans tout lieu. So what this means, and I hope Madame Stanton agrees with me:
To leave is to die a little, we leave a little of ourselves behind in each hour and in each place. 36
Groton School Quarterly
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Fall 2013
As we bike down the road today we will leave a part of us behind. Every time you leave a place you leave a little piece of yourself, but you should not feel regret, but know that it will be there waiting for you. Thank you all, and thank you, Groton.