Commencement The Salutatory Address

Ava Lattimore ’23

Salutatorian Ava Lattimore ’23 addresses the Class of 2023 during Commencement on June 10, 2023 in a speech called “Breaking it Down,” inspired by author Lydia Davis.

Welcome! It is an honor to speak at Commencement as the Salutatorian of Hackley’s Class of 2023 I would like to thank my parents, Mr King, Mr Wirtz, Ms Coy, my outstanding dean, Ms Leffler, my infinitely supportive advisor, Ms Casper, and all of my incredible teachers Thank you to Buildings and Grounds for making this all possible Thank you to FLIK and the Board of Trustees And, of course, thank you to the Class of 2023 . It was a pleasure to embark on this journey alongside you all .

When asked to speak at Commencement, I reflected on my time at Hackley, breaking down four years of my life into little moments of passing conversations in the hall, entrances and exits of theatrical performances or bus rides home with my teammates. This kind of reflective “breaking down” of my high school experience reminded me of a short story by Lydia Davis called “Break it Down.”

I always seem to find myself rereading “Break it Down” during moments of change, which is why I feel it is a particularly apt inclusion in a welcome speech at Commencement, which is, of course, the start of something new. I realized through some iMessage archaeology that the first time I crossed paths with this story was in the winter of 2021 during a bout of online school. A Hackley theater alum sent it to me, but I have to admit that, at the time, I just skimmed it. The first time I really read this story was a year later, during the winter of 2022 , after my English teacher recommended it to a friend of mine who recommended it to me.

“Break it Down” is told from the perspective of a man reflecting on his eight-day love affair by attempting to “break down” how much it cost him. The story begins, “He’s sitting there staring at a piece of paper in front of him. He’s trying to break it down. He says:”—and the rest of the story is what he says. The narrative has a bit of a rambling feel to it, with entire paragraphs consisting of single sentences and frequent tangents about love and memory and dreams and questions. So, I understand why my tenth grade self merely skimmed this story and responded in the group chat to which it was sent with a single word: “sad.”

However, I’ve probably read “Break it Down” about 10 times in the past year and a half, and I now am hesitant to use the word “sad” to describe it. With my magically elevated senior vocabulary, I might use the words, “relatable,” “true,” “relevant” and perhaps even “a really good story.” I think one of the wonderful things about “Break it Down” is that you don’t have to be a master at English to take something meaningful away from it. Over the course of the next hour and a half, we will all likely find ourselves in the position of the narrator. Hopefully not in the sense of recovering from an eight-day love affair (though I won’t make any assumptions), but we will all soon be “staring at a piece of paper,” our diploma, and “trying to break it down.”

But how does one go about that, really? Like in “Break it Down,” we could start with how much it cost, in dollars, but that method will quickly fail. Did every day cost the same? What about the hours we weren’t physically in school? Sports games on Randall’s Island and upstate Model UN conferences have to count for something, right? Do we factor in how much we spent at the Tuck or on gas driving our friends home or on our varsity biology T-shirts? Reducing any of these things to a dollar amount just doesn’t cut it.

So perhaps we could try thinking about the tangible items we got out of high school as a way of breaking the years down. Like one of our classmates, we could eat cereal out of our book prize bowl. Or one of our friends might make us a bracelet to celebrate our accomplishments with the beads spelling out “second best.” Despite its humorous quality, I think this bracelet exemplifies how the tangible remnants of high school also fail to adequately break it down. A salutation connotes a welcome, a toast, a speech or even a sense of belonging, none of which can be fully expressed in a bracelet or any tangible item.

Even memories will fade at some point, but I don’t believe that’s necessarily a bad thing. One of my favorite quotes from “Break it Down” reads as follows: “The pictures come to you and you have to hope they won’t lose their life too fast and dry up, though you know they will and that you’ll also forget some of what happened, because already you’re turning up little things that you nearly forgot.” My hope is not that you all remember everything I said, but that you remember anything this speech made you wonder about. Memories dry up; that’s just the nature of them. But maybe this speech can inspire you to read some Lydia Davis or ask around to find out who ate cereal out of their book prize bowl.

Since we can’t fully break down our high school experience by cost, tangible remnants or even memories, I propose a different way of breaking down the years. Break it down into questions, the nagging little ideas still hovering in your mind. Break it down into book recommendations and mathematical notation you don’t yet understand. I encourage you all not just to reflect on your most vibrant memories of Hackley, but also to think about how your time here might inspire your future inquiries. Questions spawn more questions and are thus infinitely more permanent than a memory or a prize or a dollar.

And since I’m sure you’re all dying to know, “Break it Down” ends like this: “So I’m just thinking about it, how you can go in with $600, more like $1 ,000, and how you can come out with an old shirt.” So, now, I’m just thinking about it—how you can go into high school knowing nothing and how you can come out with a silly bracelet, indispensable friendships and questions to decorate your mind for years to come.

Salutations, congratulations and enjoy Commencement.