By Harry “Enrique” Hayman, Colby College
Congratulations, Águilas, you have made it to this moment. After dragging yourselves back from a week in a glacial wilderness, then completing all the end of term assignments for our classes, along with final projects and exams; after sticking a feather in your hair, eating room-temperature oatmeal and pretending that today’s INSTA-MASH-POTATOES are delicious and significantly different from last week’s; after spending mindless hours packing away all of your processions for home; and after abandoning scientific import just to place each foot in front of the next, fording mountain and river in open-mouthed-awe of Cerro Castillo’s glaciers, you are here. You are safe. As we were three months ago on this night, we are all together, now for the final time, the calm night of Aysén and Patagonia guarding us and guiding us. Let’s be thankful for this moment.
Team Águila and Glaciar Calluqueo. Photo by Aaron Richards.
In a heart-wrenching but essential scene in Steven Spielberg’s film version of Peter Pan, as Peter is about to go save Wendy from Captain Hook’s perilous clutches, the Lost Boys, who have never been without each other nor their leader, share a few lines in which Thud Butt says, “Don’t leave us, Peter, and don’t say goodbye.”
Then one of the younger boys, aptly named Too Small, asks, “What’s goodbye?”
And a third boy, Ace, replies, “It’s going away, that’s what it is. Forgetting about us all over again.”
The sad truth is that Ace is kind of right. As we age, as we leave one way of life and enter another, as we meet people and love people whose lives have been far cries from our own, as the future becomes shorter and the past longer, we do forget. The motions we’ve gone through, the rhythm of daily life, the real-time stresses of excelling academically and being conservation-oriented and determined during the most challenging time of our lives will mostly fade from our memories of this place. I think what’s more important, however, and more of a mark of the Round River experience, are all the things this “school” has taught us that we won’t think about as memories. The keys to appreciating the natural world for all of its function and wonderment, the way to conduct an enlightening conversation in Spanish (a conversation of smiles), how to live in close proximity with others and truly be yourself, how to belong to something that is whole and sometimes perfect.
I could go on; in the most demanding of circumstances that life can throw at you, you will innately know how to be the best version of yourself, and when you step back from the moment you will think, “I learned that in Chile, during Round River. How could I take it for granted?”
Team Águila exploring the fjords near the Glacier Pio XI. Photo by Aaron Richards.
I sometimes feel like I’ve taken all of you for granted, but that’s somewhat of a testament to how loving and kind you have been to me. It has been the greatest honor of my life to know you as teachers and friends, and that far-too-short phrase “thank you” can’t even begin to communicate what I feel for each of you and for this place.
I personally am not a fan of goodbyes, because I know that our paths will cross again; but I want to say a “farewell” to start you on the next part of your journey.
Team Águila hikes by Cerro Castillo. Photo by Aaron Richards.
Julie, Aidan, Anne Marie, Alice, Aaron, Ally, Shelby, Annie: we made it to the end, you guys. We’re going to be separated very soon, scattered across long distances, all of us doing what we want to do because we want to do it, eventually a part of something completely different from Round River that is also whole and perfect. From here, it gets harder to remember each other, but then it gets easier. And it might be so hard to keep being your true self, the one that Round River set the stage for you to be. And then it will be easier. I know we will see each other when that day comes.
To all of you, my two pieces of advice are: laugh every day, find the love in every moment. I have my host mother Tato to thank for the next: “Really, Enrique? You can move on with your life, even when the hardest questions don’t have answers.”
In the darkest moments, when you don’t have answers, when you don’t know what there is to say, say thank you.
Thank you. For everything.
Best,
Enrique
Team Águila hikes through the clouds by hanging glaciers. Photo by Aaron Richards.