Sophomore year of high school, I played in an honors orchestra that called Oklahoma City University home. We spent a weekend on campus in rehearsals and played a single concert. I ended the weekend with a huge abrasion under my chin from my fiddle, sore arms, vague memories of a smallish campus somewhere in the middle of Oklahoma City, and specific memories of the director, a tall somewhat spastic character with curly hair and enthusiasm that was catching.
My mom's memories were a bit harsher as she watched a lady of the evening sell her, um, "wares" on the easement between the freshmen girls dorm and 23rd Street. "Well, it's a beautiful little campus, but you could never send your daughter to school here."
Two years later, I moved into Walker Hall.
"You should study over at the law school," my mom told me. "You might meet some nice young man who's going to be a lawyer."
I studied in my room and didn't meet a nice young lawyer. I did meet some professors who I credit with my ultimate survival of the college experience and beyond. (Is there such a thing as a life advisor? Because there are two in particular that I still call on every now and again.) OCU is where I learned to grocery shop for myself. It's where I learned that leaving unwashed pots and pans under your roommate's pillow is a quick and efficient way to send a message. I spent hours in the rehearsal hall and fewer hours in the practice rooms. I played for seven violin juries and panicked six times. (The seventh, my accompanist failed to show, and I was too angry to panic; turns out I'm a crazy good angry violinist--best ever performance by far). I learned that a campus with a 4 to 1 female to male ratio wasn't likely to lead me to my knight in shining armor, but such a campus was a tremendous motivator when it came to dressing for class (there were a few cute guys--the competition was just a little heavy).
I polished my listening skills as I tutored a hundred (or so) international students in English composition classes. I listened to poetry written by Sandra in the registrar's office, who was working on her English degree, and I read parts of screen plays that are sure to be famous someday.
The walk from my on-campus apartment to the Arts & Sciences building became as familiar as the drive down 7th Street in my hometown. Somewhere along the way, that beautiful little campus became home.
And then I graduated. I moved away. Did some time in Stillwater (and loved every minute of it and the people I met--gosh, sometimes I'd give anything to spend one more evening at Stonewall's talking about nothing and everything with those folks). I graduated and worked as a technical writer, hating every minute of it.
And suddenly, I was back home at OCU. This time, I was a first year law student who, quite honestly, didn't know the difference between civil and criminal litigation or (if we're being totally honest here) what litigation really was. I read a thousand pages and made two thousand flash cards. I filled spiral notebooks with handwritten outlines that I later typed.
I made some good friends and some really great friends. I loved law school--except the parts where I was sick in the bathroom downstairs mid-exam (every single semester). Then I graduated. I went to work, and yada, yada, yada....I found myself on the mommy track writing a mommy docket.
OCU was very good to me. Extraordinarily good to me. So good to me that when I really stop to think about it, I can't exactly process it all. I'm not terribly spiritual about most things. I have my beliefs, and I try to stay true to them. I do believe that there's a master plan, even though I don't always agree with it--particularly when I want to go left, and the master plan tells me to go right.
The past few months have made me question every specification on my master plan from my English degree to leaving private practice.
Today, I learned that I am the new pro bono and public interest law coordinator for the OCU School of Law. As it turns out, you can go home again, and I'm excited to be there.
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