Jonathan Landsman
Finding Myself in the Leonids
Does anyone else remember the meteor shower?
On Nov. 18 of our freshman year: the Leonid Meteor Shower, the greatest celestial show during our lifetime at Williams, was to peak at 5 a.m. It was a Saturday night, so there would be no classes the next morning — not that they would have stopped us. In those wee hours of the morning, entries trooped down to Cole Field in pajama-clad phalanxes, to lie together under the shooting stars.
Maybe you saw me out there: I was all in navy blue flannel and glow-in-the-dark stars covering head to toe, lugging the same sleeping bag and pad I’d used during WOOLF. The most excited member of my East 3 family, I was planning to sleep out under the first real night sky of my life (I am from New York City).
It did not begin this well for me at Williams. I still remember my terror to start college — how I sedated myself for the ride up, and chose to arrive at the latest hour I could. Now, I want to use these words to help me remember how things finally started going right. I have built my Williams home, and others have helped me build it, out of bits and pieces that came to me as if by chance, or by nature. They are, of necessity, very personal and idiosyncratic experiences, but if you can recall a time when you felt you were drifting alone, they may remind you of a moment when something caught hold of you.
On Oct. 12 of our freshman year, I slept through the bells sounding the cancellation of classes for Mountain Day. I awoke to find myself alone in my entry, and it slowly dawned on me that I had slept through the morning’s events, and did not have a clue where I was supposed to go. The campus was quiet and empty, and I felt that I had been left out of everything. Since it was reading period, we were going to have a four-day weekend, and I packed a suitcase to get on the Greyhound bus back home to New York.
But on my way from East to the bus stop at the Williams Inn, I ran into my faculty advisor, Professor Ari Solomon. He asked where I was going, and I told him that I would have liked to hike, but I had no idea where to go, and there was no one around. He said he had an idea for me, and took me in his car to the foot of Stone Hill.
I think I stashed my suitcase at the foot of the hill, in a place where it would not be noticed until I could recover it later. The shady climb, feeling that I was discovering new nooks of the forest on the winding walk up, was just what I needed: I was alone, but comfortably alone. When I rounded the bend at the top to find myself staring back down into the Purple Valley, the town embedded in the tapestry of fall colors spread before me, something broke through to me. I felt overwhelmingly happy just to be standing there. On my hike that day, I took some of the best photographs I have ever taken in my life, and gave copies to Professor Solomon, to show my gratitude. To this day, three and a half years later, you may see my view from Stone Hill, which he hung in the center of his office door.
On Nov. 18, the morning after the Leonids, I slept in again. I was the last freshman to wake up on Cole Field, and found myself alone on the grass now warmed by the midday sun. It was okay this time. Still in my starry blues, I hiked across campus: a lone nut sporting sleepwear at noon, wearing a fully-loaded hiking pack, and grinning at everyone I passed as I walked home to East.
Senior Essay
by Jonathan Landsman ’05
OnCampus Commencement/Reunion Newsletter, June 2005
Landsman is an English and psychology double major of the Class of 2005. At Williams, he was dedicated to Dancing Folk (contradance club), the Forest Garden, Bridge Club, and the College Council. He will follow his love for plants to the Jenkins Arboretum in Devon, Penn., next year, where he will be working and studying as an Educational Fellow. You should visit him at the arboretum, or catch him somewhere in the Philadelphia area at his other passion: calling contradances.