When I was in high school I was a member
of my school’s color guard. For anyone who
doesn’t know what that is, it’s the people in
the marching band who dance and twirl
flags, sabres, wooden rifles, etc. My school
in particular had one of the best music
programs and we were able to get a lot of
cool opportunities about what competitions
we were in and how well we did. In my first
year in color guard, my instructor was in
another guard that competed at a much
higher world class level. That year’s theme
for her guard was called: The Dash.
Their music choice was Ludovico Einaudi’s
Experience, which to this day is my all-time favorite
classical piece. If you frequent Tiktok, you might have
heard of it.
If you’re reading this and thinking: “Liz, what does running at a quicker
than normal pace have to do with Black History Month, Bay Path’s
125th Anniversary, and other things mentioned in the rest of this issue?”
Well, I am a firm believer that you could interpret anything to anything
and give it meaning, but I’m not actually talking about that kind of dash.
I’m talking about this one “-”
The dash line. The small little line that seems so simple, it doesn’t
even have its own button on the keyboard, but this underrated
punctuation mark actually holds way more meaning than you would
have originally thought. Because the dash is what we use to connect
your date of birth to your date of death. It represents your entire life;
everything you saw, felt, shared, and accomplished all narrowed down
to a line.
Intense. I know. But it’s true. When the timer runs out we become a
line connecting two dates, and we leave behind everything we did in
that space. There have been so many incredible people who lived their
dashes to the fullest. Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Virginia Woolf,
Maya Angelou, and so many others.
How will you live your Dash?
Liz spinning flag (above) and sabre (below)
