In the past year, I have been lucky enough to see many places distant and beautiful, and often I find myself reminiscing about them when I have any moment of downtime, almost exclusively upon movement. Walking tends to grease the gears of the cerebral cortex, offering glimpses into old and half-forgotten memories as if they were an off-centered Polaroid magnetized to your kitchen’s refrigerator. However, I find that we do not offer this same ritual of memory to the places we find ourselves in most often, and to a certain extent, I understand why we do not treat these places with the same kind of reverence. Routine breeds blandness (if you let it, that is) and choosing to think about a place you visit daily for the simple reason of noticing is not something most people will bother to expel effort toward.
As someone who has grown up in Lubbock , seeing Texas Tech’s campus empty is not an uncommon sight, but it strikes me, as semesters come to a close and countless people pack their bags, how many individuals have never gotten the chance to see an inhabited place, uninhabited. They have never stood on vacant sidewalks, typically so flooded with people, and been bombarded with a distinct lack of the humdrum of hurried footsteps. They have not strolled through the streets and followed the winding and unpredictable paths of falling leaves. They have not felt the uncomfortable pushing in of a large wooden door that opens into a cascading, darkened lecture hall. They have not seen the faded scribblings of its absent professor, nor have they stood awash in its emptiness. It is not unlike our surrounding countryside in this way. There is a majesty found within its lack, the same grandeur I find when I drive up Highway 84 among the wind turbines and prairie grasses, between the shadows cast from accompanying cars with Double T stickers plastered on their back windshields, roaring across the flats toward the Hub City’s home of Raiderland. Still in motion. Probably lost in thought.
I remember walking the twilight of campus as a first-year student, marveling at the massive amount of time ahead of me in my college career. Time habitually acts as a buffer, and this was no exception. I had all this time, years, to discover who it was I wanted to be and how I wanted to get there, which was good, as I hadn’t yet the slightest idea about either. I remember walking west in the small stretch between the Dairy Barn and the Bayer Plant and Soil Science buildings. I remember awing at the vermillion sunset intertwining upon the silhouetted branches. I remember the exact tile of the sidewalk, and I remember being so uncertain. Since that day I have traversed the pathway in early mornings and darkened nights, beneath rainclouds and betwixt the Llano Estacado’s signature spell of dust. Years have come and gone, and I have changed. Maybe the place has remained the same. Maybe it is different. There is a reasonable chance that the simple way I view the place is what makes it different, and if that is not in fact the case, then I believe there is something of an objective variation to what it is now and what it once was. The art of seeing is an ever-changing one, yet silence transcends years and epiphanies. See the shifting grasses that surround sunbathed Spanish architecture. See the rays of light permeating across windows and landing haphazardly upon vacant seating. See the place devoid of its audience and understand its lack is, in fact, overflowing.
Silence, whether it be in the traditional audio sense or in a visual one, can bring about a sudden desire to observe. Periods of intentional observation lead to recollection. Recollection leads to care. Upon traversing through these empty passageways, I was able to view routes, classrooms, and nature that I had never bothered to notice fully due to a packed schedule or a busied mind, yet these views sparked a certain instance within my rapidly firing neurons as soon as I laid eyes on them. I noticed the window to the room my friend stayed in three years ago, and I chuckled to myself in remembrance of how many stupid conversations must have been visible from the sprawling hills of Urbanovsky Park. I took great interest in how the sunset slithered between the silver pillars of a statue that was not yet erected upon my first day as a Red Raider. I awoke to see several sunrises hitting Will Rogers that I had never bothered to get out of bed for, and I walked across the same pickleball courts that I would play on until I was drenched in sweat and the lights were cut off. Each tiny area held with it a thaw, crackling upon past emotions and old, funny stories. I have come to understand that my experience has made the place, while simultaneously being made by the place. This paradoxical construction has furthered my attachment as a sort of two-way gratitude, as each person to spend a year or four or eight within the confines of this now quiet campus has impacted the halls and sidewalks at the same time as they have been impacted by them. This place is a harbinger. A gatherer of hundreds of thousands of unique memories from outstanding people. A crock-pot bubbling with a well-made stew that, given time, will marinate a concoction of rich and special flavors, with no single batch being identical to another. My movement through this double-edged catalyst has revealed a loudness within its silence. One so palpable it could express every emotion that a place could ever harbor, but one that can only be revealed through presence. An exercise in intention. Captured in the repetitive blinking of infinitely changing eyes.
© 2026 Texas Tech University
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