Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Perspective

As an art historian, I talk about perspective a lot.  The perspective of the viewer, the perspective of the artist, atmospheric perspective, linear perspective...the list goes on.  Yesterday, however, I had a moment that opened my eyes to just how vital a change in perspective can be.

It all started with a W-2 form (don't all the best stories?).  You see, I never got mine.  I spent last week tearing up my apartment, sure that it must be somewhere in one of these piles of paper since I'm basically a packrat and never throw anything away.  Long story short, I actually never did get one.  Somehow my apartment number was entered as B06, not 1306, and I eventually managed to track someone down who figured that out for me.  Success!  So, now I knew where my W-2 form was...which was not in my hand, but rather in some random building on a side of KU's campus I'd never even ventured to.  Still, it was a lovely day, so I left the museum and set out on my trek to strange new lands.

You may think that I'm exaggerating here, but really, I was taken aback by this whole area of campus I never knew existed.  Sure, I knew the campanile was up on the hill - I hear it about a zillion times a day - and I knew there was a large park area right behind the museum, but imagine my surprise when I'm stumbling down what feels like the hundredth flight of stairs of my walk (yesterday was a rather clumsy day for me) and suddenly, spread across my vision in a slight valley is a beautiful little lake, surrounded by emerald green grass and topped with lily pads.  I literally stopped in my tracks.  I thought that I was hallucinating images from my lesson about Impressionism for the week.  It was like walking into a Monet in the middle of Kansas, and not just that, but in the middle of the campus of the University of Kansas.  It put a smile on my face.



Eventually, I continued on my way.  I thought people were probably wondering about this random red-headed girl in the multicolored scarf who stood stock-still in the middle of the sidewalk for a good five minutes.  I eventually found the building I was looking for, flashed my ID, and got my W-2, no problem.  Time to wander back over the hills to my familiar territory of Mississippi Street.

I was walking back, enjoying the day and the sense of newness, when I reached the top of a hill and suddenly saw before me the campus of the University of Kansas.  Now, the campus is large enough that you can't really see all of it at once, but at this moment I saw more at one time than I ever had.  And it was beautiful.  For this homesick Horned Frog, it was a revelation.  I will (and have) talk anyone's ear off about how beautiful TCU's campus is.  I can bore you to death with minutia of the things I love about the campus and memories I have of specific locations.  TCU was my home in a way I never expected it to be, and I have been so resistant to becoming a Jayhawk, to being at KU, because I didn't want to lose that part of myself, that special part of my past.  Yesterday, standing there, looking the campus that opened up before me in a way so different from TCU, my perspective changed.

Yes, I will always be a Horned Frog.  Yes, I will always bleed purple.  You had better believe that come September 16th I will be decked out in my purple cheering on my Frogs in the stadium in Lawrence.  But that's not all of who I am anymore.  I'm growing up. I am a graduate student now.  I'm learning new things, about the world, about art history, and about myself.  I'm studying at the University of Kansas and there's nowhere I'd rather be pursuing my future.  And that is a pretty amazing perspective to have.


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