Portrait Project 2005

C l a s s of 2 0 0 5

Each year we ask our classmates a straightforward, simple question taken from the last lines of a poem by Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Mary Oliver. It seems such an easy question on the surface, but sometimes the easy questions are the hardest to answer. Indeed, although we ask for only 200 words or less, most people grapple with the question a long time. We share with you intimate and candid responses from the Class of 2005 to this question,"What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

click on thumbnails for larger images
sign guestbook & provide comments

The Summer Day by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean -
the one who has flung herself
     out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out
     of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and
     forth instead of up and down -
who is gazing around with her
     enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and
     thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open,
     and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention,
     how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down
     in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how
     to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Read essays from former classes:
2 0 0 2
2 0 0 3
2 0 0 4
2 0 0 5
2 0 0 6
2 0 0 7
2 0 0 8
2 0 0 9
Read people's comments about the Portrait Project.


Emily Anadu When I was eleven, my mother, two sisters and I left my father and a very...	Matt Beecher Send me to a grocery store-I'm happy there. I want to rescue...	Valerie Bockstette I plan to build trampolines. Remember jumping on one as a kid...	Brian Kreiter I will not race to climb the nearest and steepest hill only to find myself...


Ian McLean I want to make people laugh. Not a mean spirited laughing-at-someone laugh, but...	Robyn Bolton I want to be an Ambassador of Ridiculousness...	Kate Terry Sometimes I think my skills are prosaic among the flashier feathers around me. ...	Tamara Lynn Nall "Faster than a speeding bullet...able to jump buildings in a single bound


Irene So First of all, I want to buy my dad a big, fancy new car....	Chris Chang I want to forge my own path. When I was young, I blindly accepted...	Nvalaye Kourouma I was seven and I was dreaming of a toy car. I made my own out of wood...	Dana Hamerschlag I remember pulling the covers over my head at night in the dark-completely...


Brett Odom Live every day knowing that someone will write my eulogy tomorrow. ...	Kimberly Spears I want to dispel the belief that "every man is an island" ...	Andrew Meade I plan to have you read this sentence. Score! Hmm, what else do I plan	Matthew Mahoney When the Dalai Lama suggests we approach love and cooking with reckless...


Suzanne Floy Gauron I cannot answer the 'what,' but I do know the 'how,' and maybe that's enough. ...	Jean Jinsun Kim My mother worried I would never get married because my knees were too ugly...	Joshua Wyatt One day, I will welcome people as they check-in to my hotels. OK, my hotel empire...	Nelya Nikonova "I want to live... I want to live A chance to live my life, I want to search far..."


Robert M. Tichio To prove. That faith is more important than fact...	Yael Melamed When people find out that I had cancer, their first words are usually, "I'm sorry."...	Navroz D. Udwadia "God," it is often said of India, "must have loved the poor." ...	Paul Gomopoulos A martial arts instructor told me once that at first a punch is just a punch...


Christy Gibb My parents were newlyweds on this campus. They'd been married six months...	Leea Kevan Nash I plan to live my life returning the extra 5 the cashier gives me...	Athena Ko I am a gemologist by training. I know a piece of rough looks like any other pebble...	Zhongjue (Drew) Chen I remember feeling completely out of place standing in front...


Sarah Lind Wimmer I will dance. My eldest brother inherited all of the athletic genes and ...	Rebecca Garrison Greenawalt Who am I? A freckle-faced girl from small-town New Hampshire...