Rain, rain and more rain poured down on the more than 9,500 graduates assembled at Folsom Field Thursday at the University of Colorado Boulder, and it seemed yet one last curse on the heads of a class of students that has had to endure more adversity and change than perhaps any college class in history.

“I don’t think there has been a cohort of students that has seen the vast changes that you have seen in just four years,” remarked commencement speaker Jared Polis, governor of Colorado. “From going completely online to wearing masks to practically free universally accessible artificial intelligence, you’ve seen a lot of change in four years … or five years or six years for some of you.” Not to mention the wildfire that displaced many students from their houses and the mass shooting in Boulder that locked down the school and coated their final years with paranoia.

Funny thing is though, under those dark skies and dripping umbrellas, every last one of those young faces was filled with sunshine. At one point as the grads filed into the stadium with “Pomp and Circumstance” turned up to Guns ‘n’ Roses decibel levels as if to beat back the rain, one of the graduating seniors ran to the back of the stadium, black gown contrasting poetically with the rows and rows of yet-to-be-filled white chairs, and raised her arms to heaven so that her just-arrived family in the back bleachers could find her. Her unalloyed pride and joy reminded me of a child showing off her first macaroni-and-glue art project to mom and dad, smile on high beam like the world was her oyster. When her family spotted her, she then proceeded to shout and scream and dance happily in defiance of the storm.

If you’re ever feeling a bit down in the mouth about the state of our society, I’d recommend you get yourself to a college graduation ceremony to buck your spirits right back up. Tis the season of new beginnings right now.

When the announcement was made that CU was going to truncate the ceremony due to the inclement weather, thousands of cheers roared into the stadium under the dark clouds. The rain may have in fact brightened spirits rather than dampened them, gathering these grads ever more tightly together in us-against-the-world formation. The student speaker, Ethan Meyer, stressed the class’s resilience and togetherness after four hard years. 

What was even more uplifting was afterward, gathering in a hotel lobby with various other families as we waited out the storm. There you could see the solar systems of support orbiting all the young stars, and witness firsthand the love and attention from moms, dads, brothers, sister, grandparents, aunts, uncles and friends it takes to create one shining graduate.

The ritual of college graduation anchors and embodies the ethos of opportunity our country lives and breathes, and I’m not sure there’s a better expression of our ability to take huddled masses from the world over and teach them to breathe free. A young man graduate who sat in front of us had a sash imprinted with “First Generation.” We saw another graduate who was 76 years old who we found out later had gone back to school when her daughter started at CU.

The title of Gov. Polis’s speech at the CU commencement might as well have been “Weathering the Storm.”

“When it comes down to it, after all the classes you took, and the papers you wrote — hopefully you wrote, not AI — and the tests you took, the greatest asset you’re taking with you is your ability to embrace and learn from change,” Polis told the damp multitude.

“Throughout our lives we’re asked to embrace change, to reinvent ourselves, to continue moving forward. One of life’s great lessons is that change is inevitable. We don’t always know what form it will take, only that it will come.”

“Colorado’s story is one of reinvention and change,” he continued from there, “from the Native Americans who first inhabited these lands to the Spanish settlers, the state we know and love today, a state that proudly leads our country in tech, in aerospace, in agriculture and outdoor recreation and clean energy and so much more, a state that embraces you no matter who you are, or where you’re from, and each one of you is now part of that ongoing story of Colorado.”

And it’s not just Colorado. I might argue that the thing that sets our entire country apart is our ability to reinvent ourselves, our ability to adapt. We are not so imprisoned by the past in the New World. Our constitution itself is a living, malleable document that has institutionalized and made safe a never-ending argument rather than encasing all of us in one ideological way of doing things forever.

I happen to think we do opportunity better here in the West than anyone. It is my contention that the West is where tomorrow dwells, the native home of new beginnings. As Polis suggested, the West is the place where all that matters is who you are and what you do, not where you come from. The West is a place, like a perpetual graduation ceremony, where we are made anew.

Polis’s speech on weathering the storm had particular resonance for our family as we witnessed our first college graduation. Not only had our graduate, Zola, endured COVID and long class shutdowns, and the particularly difficult task of trying to conduct lab experiments remotely in our kitchen without blowing it up, but she’d also weathered a life-threatening illness during her college years. After two surgeries, six months in bed recovering, six more months of IVs, and a parade of medicines, tutors and tears in a full-on battle to keep up with her very difficult physics classes, her graduation felt like something more than a graduation for us. It was a ceremony of survival — and triumph — and the closing chapter of the forging of what I expect is now a forever intrepid, resilient soul.

“Sometimes in life we set out on a quest, and we fail,” Polis reminded. “Sometimes we set out, and we change direction midway. And all too often we aren’t quite sure what the quest even is. And when we do experience our own hero arcs, the story doesn’t end, but rather it gets more complicated. Because after you graduate today, the credits don’t roll, the music doesn’t play, it ain’t over, it’s just another beginning.”

Polis’ ending remarks were especially apt for our rainy day grads.

“According to the National Bison Association, bison or buffalo turn towards the storm rather than running from it, because they instinctively know that it helps get through the weather faster,” the governor said in conclusion.

“So as you face challenges and changes in the next chapter of your stories and lives, remember, you are buffalo, and that you have it within you to face any storm that comes your way.”