Love is in the air, everywhere I look around / Love is in the air, every sight and every sound / And I don’t know if I’m being foolish / Don’t know if I’m being wise… But I can be as foolish and as wise as I want, ‘cause it’s Reunion time!
First I was afraid, I was petrified… This is how one of our favorite songs, from the 1980’s, begins – and it was how our 20th Reunion had begun, for most of us anyway. How fast, how deep, how wonderfully could things have turned around in a mere 10 years?! What magic wand had touched us all – the wand of time?.. When did we get to be so cool and so warm at the same time? Why the heck were there all those small cliques during school; we didn’t need them anymore? What kept us from getting together all this time? Who could honestly say they wouldn’t enjoy this fresh breath of teenage air?..
I can tell you how, on Saturday the 8th of July, we started gathering at the foot of the steps of Marble Hall one by one, after drinking in the unbeatable view walking up from the Bridge… And I can tell you there were about 70 of us from all around the world and that we were all excited to actually physically get together after 6 months of intensive deliberations on WhatsApp… I can swear each and every one of us looked marvellous, and I can recount whose watch was more admirable or whose botox more inconspicuous, who was surely working out and whose hairdresser was a magician. I can positively prove to you that one was the exact same gentleman 30 years ago but another a shy little girl, contrary to today; that one had the exact same warm smile on the very first day of school, whereas another a totally different -much more modest!- style with his large glasses and sans goatie…
But it doesn’t really matter.
I can go on recounting the coctail hours in front of Marble Hall and the lovely photo shoot, the smart setup in front of Suna Kıraç Hall that allowed for maximum mingling and inevitable dancing, the delicious finger food service and the incredible speed of drinks being refilled, how many seconds it takes for the Class of ’87 to go from 0 to 100 when Big in Japan begins to play – and how many in that class know by heart the lyrics to La Isla Bonita or Self Control… I can question, at the end of the night, who didn’t talk to whom and why, or ask those with sharper eyes “who was sittin’ under a tree and k-i-s-s-i-n-g”… I can joke about the absurdity of one dancing away with her walking stick and Robocop boot, and another inheriting the ominous gear at the end of the night after she broke the same foot in the Plateau…
But it doesn’t really recap our 30th Reunion.
What we had that night, and in the small hours of the morning, and waking up the next day, was, purely, definitely, absolutely love: Real and unconditional love, for each other, for our Alma Mater, for life! For during those magical hours, no one ever “tried to be” anything. No one felt the need to, because we were family. We were sisters and brothers, separated as teenagers, reunited… Filling each other with love, touching each others’ hearts, reminiscing each tiny word and each subtle move that turned us, more than 30 years ago, from a bunch of kids into individuals, under those old trees, in those long corridors, on those same stone steps… Bridging all those years that went by unassumingly with that familial love, feeling once more as invincible as we did back then, ready to take on the world…
We had figured during those years that we may not have been perfect the whole time, our lives may not have turned out perfect, and that life, as it is, is not -and is not supposed to be!- perfect – but nonetheless, it is enjoyable. And we figured, maybe that night on our campus or maybe in its wake, that we had been enjoying it: enjoying the good times and the tough rides, enjoying life with all the glamour and the pain. We figured we were very lucky and very happy and very, very thankful.
So you can look at our lovely photos and marvel at our youth and our light, question if it’s good genetics or advanced medical cosmetics or masterful photography techniques… But the answer is none of those. It’s love. Love for our own beings -and I can see this in everyone’s eyes-, love for each other, love for our school and most of all, love for life.
This, our 30th reunion as well as this text, is a testimony and a toast – to our home, Robert College, to our sisterhood and brotherhood, to love and to life… Because at the end of the day, success is nothing but love and happiness, and we are so very lucky that our foundation for success is as solid and dependable as the old and wise stone steps of our beloved Marble Hall.