Alma Mater

A
T
l
m
a
Essay by Nate Liederbach
Photography by Jeff Michalek
m
a
ry picturing Boulder and the University of Colorado campus as a colossal
female fertility figure. Imagine each street — Baseline, Broadway, Pearl — as
warm, plump limbs, each coffee and sandwich shop the tips of her strong,
gentle fingers. Imagine Chautauqua is her smooth forehead, her flowing evergreen hair, the Hill her lively face, mouth open and
But here’s the contradiction I see in
each chattering student, each lecturing professor and American English — alma maters are
likened to the past, a finished chapter.
each note streaming from the Fox her voice.
I equate my alma mater with something that once nourished me then
Now picture each separate campus building as a
turned me loose, cut my financial aid
great, ripe breast, milk overflowing, filling the streets, umbilical, revoked my daily structure,
left me to self-nourish. Sure, my CU
the air, space, time. CU — your alma mater.
studies provided me skills, but skills
aren’t nourishing in the maternally
Sound like a Dali painting? Drug-induced? Reconnotative sense. Say “nourishing”
lax, it’s merely Latin: alma mater. The term literally
and I think omnipresent security,
consolation, persistent revitalization
translates to “nourishing mother.” So nurse away.
from an outside source.
22 Coloradan June 2006
t
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Alumni, the noun, derivates from
the Latin verb alere, “to nourish.”
Alumni then translates to “nourished
one.” So how does CU, five years beyond my graduation, still nourish me?
Well, I’m being paid $3 million to
write this essay.
But money is cold, keeps an arm’s
length.
What about my spirit? Yet again
this morning Chancellor Phil DiStefano failed to leave a pep talk on my
voice mail. No former profs e-mailed
inspirational quotes. Mostly all I
retain from my alma mater are memories — oh, that slippery word.
Listen, joking aside, I had a rough
time during my CU years. I began my
master’s in journalism shedding a
brutal Oxycondone addiction from
a car accident, the narcotic plaguing
me with anxiety attacks and hallu-
cinations for 15 months. Then, two
months into that first semester, my
older sister was violently raped. On
top of all this, my marriage was decaying. Soon after graduation, I moved
from Boulder, divorced and have
returned only a handful of times.
Nourishing? Sour milk. But these
are the memories I’ve long linked to
my alma mater — confusion, fog, loss.
But then I flew to New Jersey last
summer.
What? Exactly. Who says, “I need
nourishment — think I’ll fly to
Newark”?
It was a favor, see. But inconvenient. I was in mid-move from
Colorado to Washington state,
recently laid off from my teaching gig,
broke, breaking up with my girlfriend
— a veritable country song — but
my buddy needed a groomsman. Of
course, Matt’s request came with a
caveat: “Um, Nate, Megan and I are
excited you’re in the wedding. Just try
not to offend everyone.”
Matt, ah. He’s pensive, conservative, subtle and always makes a
dashing first impression; me, I tend to
approach the world like Mick Jagger
devouring a microphone. “Sure,” I
promised, “I’ll keep it mellow.” And
I was happy, not offended. After five
years we still retained our glaring
polarities.
See, Matt and I met two weeks into
our graduate studies and over two
years had four classes together. We’d
razz Frank Kaplan during workshop,
bask in Pat Raybon’s (MJour’77)
elegance and bemoan Bob Trager’s law
curriculum. Four times a week we met
at the gym and on spare afternoons
we’d bike Betasso’s single-track before
winding back down Boulder Canyon
to grab a beer at the Sundowner.
Inevitably our discussions turned
to heated, heady political debates,
digressing with each Fat Tire gulp into
affable insults. Then the headlock,
couple of kidney punches, drooling, “I
love you, man,” and off to bed.
We were mid-20s, I had an intelligent, gorgeous wife, and he had
an absent, out-of-town girlfriend,
so Renee and I often had Matt over
for dinner. Unabashedly he’d gush
his envy of our marriage, loved how
we acted together. He wasn’t much
good at the dating scene and looked
forward to marrying someday, to buying a place, to meeting a girl he knew
was it for sure and, essentially, having
what we had. In those moments Renee
and I could see ourselves in Matt’s
eyes; I think he reminded us to believe
like he believed.
When he and his girlfriend split
and he discovered she’d thrown herself right back into another relationship, Matt showed up emotionally
mystified. He choked up telling us.
Renee cried, hugging him on the
couch while I batted my own tears and
quickly cooked up enough spaghetti
for three solid food comas. I tried so
hard not to cry, not to look at them.
There was so much random anger in
me that if I let loose I wouldn’t know
who I was.
“You’re so lucky to have her,”
Matt told me nearly every day. “You
know that?”
“Yes,” I said, but I didn’t.
After graduation, Matt returned to
Jersey. Renee and I crumbled. During
the next three years the concept of love
filled me with such bitterness I’d spit
the word marriage. Then Matt met
Megan. He called me certain she was
it. I hung up the phone feeling a sick,
black happiness. Good for him. He
deserves it. And I deserve what I got.
They were soon engaged. Damned
weddings. I didn’t want to go. They’re
for everyone but the couple, a disgusting charade, letting the world believe
love exists. What’s a wedding but a lame
excuse to forget life’s difficulties and be-
lieve for a moment in eternity and bliss,
to idealize romance over reality?
But I’d promised Matt I’d go, so
I booked a flight and prayed for tornados and cantaloupe hail. Nothing.
My car started. I drove to the airport.
But my Mom called before I boarded.
Renee had cancer; it was serious, and
she’d recently undergone surgery. I
hung up, speechless. Was she okay?
I knew better than to phone her; she
wouldn’t speak with me. Gathering
myself, I called our mutual friends.
Did you know? Yes, they warily told
me, we’ve known.
“You didn’t tell me?”
“Why?”
Renee and I were married over five
years, that’s why.
And then I was in Jersey, dudedup in my monkey suit, taking my
place with the other groomsmen off
to Matt’s right. I could see his broad
back and Megan’s face. She was
radiant, tearful. I stared. Renee and
I had both cried through our entire
ceremony, but why? Because of the
ritual? Or the audience? Was I crying
for me or for them? Was I crying
because I knew our marriage would
fail? But I didn’t know. I was crying, I
realized while standing by Matt’s side,
because all of our guests were focused
on the positive, bent on hope, hope in
all its mystery if only for that one moment. Even if I attempted to doubt, I
couldn’t escape the sense of hope.
Megan cried. Matt stepped over
to her, his back trembling. The hate
welled in me again and I wanted to
despise the institution, the sentimentality. I know the pain they’ll endure,
so how can I let myself get swept away
in the hope when I know . . . .
My knees buckled. What did I
know? Anything about them? Nothing. But I knew this: Here was Matt
four feet away. Not the same man I
knew at CU, but part of him. And it
wasn’t just Matt standing there; it
was part of me, too. Like it or not, I
was wound in his memories, entwined
with who he was at that moment.
Even though Matt had witnessed my
damaged marriage, had tied me and
Renee to his own hopes and dreams,
and even though I’d crushed those, he
wasn’t defeated.
That evening, when I congratulated the newlyweds, I meant it. We
can allow memories to jade us or
encourage us. Nourish the past, not
by sugarcoating it, but by seeing it as
a mysterious, constructive teacher,
and the past will nourish the present.
Alma mater.
Nate Liederbach (MJour’01) left Gunnison and is currently living and writing
in Olympia, Wash. This is the fourth essay
he’s written for the Coloradan (but we’re
not paying him $3 million for it). In March
of 2005 he published a collection of short
fiction, Doing a Bit of Bleeding (Ghost
Road Press).
June 2006 Coloradan 23