A few years ago I came to the University of Notre Dame to do my M.B.A. The first week there we were invited to view the July 4th fireworks. I had just gotten to know my roommates and together we walked up the green lawns to find a spot to view the fireworks. I didn’t know what to expect. New experiences were so multifold that it took me several years to process them all. In fact, there are still vacant moments when a little incident might pop up demanding to be examined, internalized, and processed. Incidents, indeed, may happen in an instant, but the experience can span several years. 

That day, I remember the awe I felt walking past “Touchdown Jesus” adorned library building on our way from the student housing to the lawns. Like my roommates and other international students, I had arrived from thousands of miles away into a new country; armed with nothing more than a green suitcase filled with some basic necessities. Whatever I had earned while I had worked in India I had spent on the ticket and badly tailored winter clothes. Phones and laptops were not so common in 2001. I, like many other students, didn’t have either.  Nor did I have a car or a bike. In the months to follow, I would trudge on crunchy fall leaves, walk-in soft snow, and skip along on glorious sunny days to the same library to study. So much would happen in the years I would spend there and in other cities in the U.S. But on that day, in the clear lake in front of the Hesburgh library I saw just one thing – a clean slate.

We walked past several groups gathered on the lawns. We waved to the few people we had gotten to know. The excitement in the air was infectious. I had never been to a campus that big, and though I was used to crowds, I had never been in such a large congregation of eager, enthusiastic students. The buildings, the green grass, the blue skies, the myriad of students from different parts of the world merged together into one feeling of wonder. Weren’t we all gathered together to change the world?

When the fireworks started, I was speechless. Never had I ever seen a spectacle that grand. Colors and light filled the sky. As one fizzled out, another firework shot up filling the night with its glory. It went on and on and on. Each sparkle in the sky promising me and everyone gathered – choices, hopes, dreams, achievements – America.