I’ve always been taught to leave a place better than you found it, passing on the “Leave No Trace” Principles to the campers of Wildlands Conservancy. This concept is in contention with we must “leave our mark”. And I as someone who holds contradictions like a playground, am thinking on the contradiction when revisiting a past home.
Last week I was invited back to my alma-matter as I serve on the Alumni Board of Color of the Theatre & Dance Department. I arrived to Homecoming and was met by familiar faces who aged, completely new structures that reminded me of other buildings’ neglect, and as feeling of “I am one drop of this institution’s legacy”. In that I find a sense of nostalgia, anger, nihilism — and yet overall optimism. I founded clubs, made my first adult friendships, and loved this earth. I’m unsure who remembers me or if TSOC still exists, but I am comforted that the campus knows me. The hill remembers me hiking with heavy books, the grove remembers me inhaling autumn, and the quad shines down on more homework picnic parties.
What about legacy in art? Is it to be remembered forever? Is it to exist forever? I thought that was the beauty of “live”, it is fleeting, and only that audience can capture that moment. Does it matter who remembers it when the lights go down or the reviews stop coming? Why else make the work, unless we want to remind ourselves we matter, that we’ve left a mark?
I’m comforted that any small mark I make, is mine.
October 21