College

     I want to go back to college. Odd as it may sound, every few months, I dream that I am going back to college and moving into the dorm. As exciting as this prospect is, I’m always a little embarrassed because, of course, I’m considerably older than the other students. I’ve had many dreams about this, in many really weird permutations. Sometimes the dorm looks like a shopping mall, sometimes it’s more like a camp, sometimes it looks like a real dorm. The one thing these dreams have in common is that I am going back to school. I am going back to school.

     My daughter is going to be a freshman at Northern Arizona University in the fall. This weekend was a two-day orientation for both students and parents. I spent two days walking around the NAU campus, eating in the dining hall and hearing about all of the wonderful programs that are available to the students. I talked with other parents and watched the kids, full of excitement, anticipating having the time of their lives enjoying their newly-won independence. I stayed at a hostel just north of campus in old downtown Flagstaff.

     This experience has made me very excited for my daughter and the adventure she is about to have at NAU. I’m proud, and I’m excited. This is a wonderful time in the life of a parent, to watch your child begin to grow up, make their own decisions, and have grand adventures. I couldn’t be happier for her.

     And now that I’ve successfully launched my girl to this next stage in her life, maybe it’s time that I go back and do something different. Something for me. Something big.
What if I went back to school? I did go to college. I have a degree in Spanish. But there are many other things out there that I want to know about, and others that I regret not giving my full attention when I had the opportunity. I want to study medieval music, renaissance music, ethnomusicology. Art, drawing, baking, cooking. Math, poetry. Writing. Languages. And when I’ve done that, I want to do something fabulous for work. Like, be a caterer. Own a bar. Bake bread. Sing on top of grand pianos, a la Michelle Pfeiffer.

     But it seems a shame to me that people of my age don’t really have the opportunity for the same type of on-campus college experience that younger people do. Yes, many of us own homes, have families, work full-time. Many of us wouldn’t want to give everything up and live on campus for a few years...but what if there is a sizable group of forty-plus empty nesters that would like to do that? What then? Where do they go?

     It seems to me that there should be some school somewhere - and maybe there is - that caters to older students. Someplace with an on-campus, communal living setup where we wouldn’t feel like fish out of water. How fabulous would it be to live with a bunch of like-minded individuals...form study groups, spend evenings debating Pachelbel vs. Beethoven vs. Tchaikovsky, solve algebraic equations just for the pure joy of it? Share the housekeeping responsibilities, cook together, share a bottle of merlot on a Friday evening?

     And what if you could apply for scholarships to cover the cost of such an endeavor? What if you didn’t have to work during this time? What if you could concentrate on learning what you wanted to learn, and live a simple life, devoid of worries about insurance and transportation and running out of vacation time? I think this would be fabulous.

     Many typical college students don’t know yet what they should study, just that they have to pick something. Many of them do know what they really want to do, but they don’t have the wherewithal to follow through with it. Twenty or thirty or forty years later, having presumably spent some time at one career or another, many of us now know what we want to do. And perhaps more importantly, what we don’t want to do.  

     How many of us, at this stage of the game, will make a new start?    Who's with me?  And where should we set up the commune?