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| Hannah Wilson Class of 2017 |
All the young people laugh. All the old people scowl.
In the laughter there is a swirl of nervousness, a breath of curiosity. The young people hold their faces with the care of cars on the highways, swerving in and out of dangerous spaces, unencumbered, unbothered by near accidents of language. They reach out like the roadways, far beyond where they might have intended to go when their plans were drawn, stretching their hands and minds and wonderment at the world out across continents and cleavages of oceans and cultural notions to find us.
And they find us.
In WeChat, an app for iPhone. In a mutual dissatisfaction with barriers of human communication. In a mutual love of rice noodles and sweet watermelon. In taking too many pictures. In a bar around the corner where beer is 50 cents a bottle. In a need to spread out and see. In ambition, in a striving for perfection, in a love of learning. In name brands and shoe styles and hair styles and Harry Styles and Coca Cola. In smiling and laughter.
This is where they find us.
All the old people scowl. They were young people once. Maybe they reached and did not find, never shed their dissatisfaction with barriers of human communication, never got to take pictures or drink Coca Cola or see Harry Styles sing. Maybe history told them reaching was useless because they would never find. Maybe they were told they would reach and reach and only make it to the ends of their fingertips.
There is a city
on the river
called Shanghai
nights and mornings they
make you
shiver they make
you shake
your way down the street
look at the young people
looking at us,
young people,
isn't it all
the most beautiful thing
you've ever seen?
Hannah Wilson is a senior McConnell Scholar studying philosophy, political science and women and gender studies at the University of Louisville.