#63: Take an acquaintance out to coffee

Okay, so calling this person an acquaintance might be a stretch. Last week I basically treated a stranger to coffee. She’s a freshman from Tucson, and I was given her name by my P.E.O. chapter president with a vague instruction to reach out to her because her grandmother was a member of our organization. A good P.E.O. doesn't need a reason to invite a woman to coffee, but the fact that this young woman and I were on the same campus made it easy to arrange.

Sidebar: P.E.O. is a philanthropic organization that supports women’s  education. It goes way back and chances are that you, your mother or your grandmother has some connection to it. There are chapters and members all over the world. 

When I emailed her my introduction and invitation, I tried envisioning myself on the other side of the note. Perhaps she'd feel intrigued or feel special in being sought out. Maybe she'd look me up on Whitworth’s network to find my picture. If she did, she would see that I'm younger than the average P.E.O., and that I look friendly (hopefully). Whatever she did, she replied with an enthusiastic yes.

The morning of our meeting, I sent her a quick email to confirm the time and location at our campus coffee shop. Fortunately, I was wearing yellow tights and told her to look for those walking toward her. She wrote back to tell me she was wearing a purple shirt and black jacket. It was kind of like a blind date.

The yellow tights found the purple shirt and within minutes we were extolling the wonders of college life over lattes. One of the first things she said was how scholarships and donors made it possible for her to get here. Way to warm a fund-raiser’s heart. Well, that and, “You were a comm major? That’s what I’m studying!”  At times I felt like a mentor, encouraging her to take a class from so-and-so, telling her about my internship during my senior year, and hinting a little about life after college and the value of a liberal arts degree. But I didn’t want to tell too much. I was very aware of how fresh and new everything is to her right now - how lovely it is to relish a free Thursday afternoon and to have a dance aerobics class as your only evening obligation, and how marvelous it is to walk across the grass under brilliant red and yellow trees on a brisk, autumn day. And also how exciting it must be for a girl from Tucson to hear about snow in the forecast.

It was a lovely little coffee date. She was grateful for the connection, and I had fun viewing the world through starry-eyed freshman lenses again. We promised to be in touch.

Walking back to the office, I thought about how I used to walk the very same path every Thursday afternoon during the fall of my freshman year. My Core discussion group was held in what is now my office building. It is on the very edge of campus and makes for one of the longer walks to class (a whopping 10 minutes from either campus end). It is so removed from everything that everyone would groan in sympathy for you when you told them you had to head to class there.

My college campus. Not in November.

On that afternoon, though, I felt my distance from the heart of campus in a completely different way. I am older, wiser, and my college friends are, too. We're scattered across the globe. The students around me are practically the age of my nieces. I remember things about this campus that current students don't (landlines in dorm rooms, the world before Facebook, the old Village buildings). And though I loved my years as a student, like many people I know exactly what I would do if I had the whole experience to do over again. Every thought I had on that walk was bittersweet.

Just before I reached my building, I crossed paths with Ron Pyle, one of my (and my classmates') most influential professors. As though the universe and Ron knew exactly what I needed at that moment, after smiling and greeting each other, he said, simply, "You look happy."

When I landed back at my desk, I was ever more grateful for taking the opportunity to get out of my everyday world and simply walk across the street to remember the reasons I am doing what I am doing, to reflect on the path that got me here, and to keep moving with a renewed optimism about my ability to figure things out.