Yearbook prompts us to consider our legacies

I’m not one to miss a deadline.
My recent contraction of the contagious senioritis isn’t even that severe. Still, something has been keeping me from filling out the text for my senior page in the yearbook. The questions to answer are simple enough: “What is your first memory?” “Your proudest moment?” “Your funniest memory?”
I can clearly remember my first day at Lawrence Woodmere Academy seven years ago, and I can recount almost 1,000 funny things that happened last period alone. Why then does filling out a small text box seem like such an impossible task?
I’m editor-in-chief of this year’s yearbook, responsible for the ideas for layouts and themes. I have had these concepts stored away in my mind since I was just a sophomore, when I was inspired by Banksy, an anonymous artist who features his artwork of social and political commentary on streets, walls and bridges throughout the world. In every city he leaves behind a message of fearlessness and new ideas. In a moment of serendipitous coincidence, Banksy came to New York City this fall, leaving the city abuzz in his controversial wake. This led me to wonder, “How do we make our marks?” How do we leave an impression for others to follow that says, “We were here. This is our legacy?”
Every year, the senior class takes a photo shoot trip for the yearbook. In an extension of the yearbook’s theme, my classmates and I ventured to 5 Pointz, an outdoor graffiti art exhibit space in Long Island City. We spent the day in awe of the artwork around us, because that’s exactly what it was; art in its truest form. You could almost feel the heart and soul of artists who came to leave their mark on the space, a mark all their own.

Just a month later, I watched the news in utter shock as images of the once vibrant 5 Pointz, now completely whitewashed, flooded my television screen. The graffiti mecca had been sold with the intention of demolishing it to become an apartment complex. Overnight, the artwork that brought the walls of the warehouse to life had completely vanished, almost as if it had never existed.
I not only realized how fortunate my class was to have visited such a special place, but also what it truly means to “make a mark.” Making a mark does not simply mean a physical one, gone in a fleeting moment, but making an impression that lasts forever. The images of 5 Pointz faded away, but its impact will not: the idea that people can come together to create something so beautiful, mixing images such as robots and Usain Bolt and somehow having it all just make sense.
Now take this idea and shrink it just a little. At this time next year, my classmates and I won’t be walking the halls of LWA. Our faces will not be visible, but that doesn’t mean our marks won’t. We are the legacies we leave behind, the impressions in the ground that other footsteps walk in.
So, yes, it is difficult for me to sum up a legacy in a short paragraph. It’s even impossible to sum up a year in the yearbook, no matter how many pages we fill. So, for now, the legacy is something I’ll make, and the textbox is something I’ll fill, because it’s two weeks overdue.