The moon was with me this morning as I drove to the airport, so early and so long ago now that it seems like another week.
And the moon was with me later, a pale disc as I zoomed down I-66 on my way to school.
The moon is with me still, in this photo (not a very good one, I’m sorry to say), growing ever brighter as I walked through a darkening campus on my way to class.
The moon will be full tomorrow … but it’s hard to see how it could be any fuller.
Tomorrow, my humanities class moves from online to in-person, so I’ll drive to Georgetown again, as I was doing last fall. I’m looking forward to meeting classmates in person, though of course there will be the nervousness of any new venture.
I took a trial run of sorts on Friday when I visited campus for a required Covid test. That was accomplished in minutes, which left plenty of time for a stroll around campus and through the neighborhood.
Flurries were flying as I walked the brick sidewalks and dreamed myself into the Federal townhouses. There was the buff pink with dark green shutters, a stately corner manse, a teal-shuttered beauty with the view of Georgetown Visitation.
It’s a tough choice … but I’ll take one of those mansions on Prospect, one with a river view, please.
I’ve always been a student at heart, and now I’m one in practice again—reading, writing, researching. Wait, that sounds like what I’ve been doing my entire career. But it was different, of course, When I was a freelance journalist, I read, researched and wrote about the topics I needed to sell an article. When I was an alumni magazine editor, I wrote about what I thought would appeal to my readers. And when I worked at Winrock, I wrote about topics that would explain and showcase the organization.
Now I’m studying and learning about topics purely because they’re interesting to me. These last few weeks, plunging into and through the final paper, I’ve been absorbed in a big topic that I can only scratch the surface of.
But how good it’s felt to scratch that surface. Stacking books around the desk, dipping into one and then another. And then there’s all the online research: I realized weeks into the semester that I didn’t just have to rely on Google Scholar. I had an entire research library with all its subscriptions and databases at my disposal. Which means that, in addition to the books and papers you see above, there are many more bookmarked pages or open tabs on the laptop that is almost buried amidst the clutter.
Our final papers are due today. I sent mine off Tuesday mid-afternoon, then took a long walk on a Reston trail to celebrate. It’s just a start. But it feels good to be a student again.
Only one other time did I attend class on Zoom. Every other Tuesday evening I’ve been driving down to Georgetown, parking in the visitors’ garage, walking along Prospect to the Car Barn Building, feeling a part of the campus, if only fleetingly. But last night, the professor called it. The last class on November 30 would be held only on Zoom.
It was a strange way to end the semester, though in truth it doesn’t completely end until I turn in the final paper in a couple weeks. But it was the last time the class would be together, this particular assemblage of individuals, only one of whom I got to know at all, since she also traveled to campus every Tuesday evening.
But the class itself was far more lively when it was held on Zoom only. The fact that we were all little squares, rather than some of us being squares and some of us actually being there, put us on a similar digital footing. And this prompted more chatter.
Still, I liked the in-person version of class. It’s more of a hassle, true. It takes more time. But I like to see people in three dimensions if possible. I prefer the real and original face time.
(A scene from my walk to class.)
Finding the balance point for this new phase of life is not going to be an exact science, I can already tell. I crave big blocks of time but am also terrified by them. I tremble at not having enough to do, then compensate by piling on too much.
For instance, I continue to try and do all the reading for class, even though it can be an insane amount. Last night, for instance, I realized that there’s an entire book we’re supposed to read for today.
In my mind are the words of my children. “Mom, you don’t have to do all the reading.” Wise words from people who, as I recall, were taught that they should do all the reading.
But as with so much of life, relationships shift, patterns change, wisdom develops.
And tonight, I will go to class at least slightly … unprepared.
With a new French-speaking grandson, I find myself dredging up phrases from ancient history — a high school class in French I. Today’s is “il fait du vent” … it’s windy.
But how much more trippingly does “Il fait du vent” fall off the tongue? Pretty trippingly, I’d say.
Apparently, I could also phrase it as “Il y a du vent,” but I’ll stick with what I learned years ago. Which is way too little to converse with a bright 11-year-old.
Once again, I’m struck by the paucity of foreign language study in the U.S. — or at least my language study!
(I met these children on a trip to Benin in 2015.)
A spur-of-the-moment trip to Seattle (I can do these things now!) means that I’ll attend class tonight on Zoom rather than in person. While I’ve had plenty of experience with Zoom meetings the past year and a half (haven’t we all?!), I’ve been driving down to Georgetown for the real thing every Tuesday evening.
While this seemed slightly terrifying at the start — where will I park? will rush-hour traffic make the trip twice as long as it would be otherwise? — those concerns have largely faded. And the joy of being in a classroom again (even if only one other classmate is there with me, which has been the case the last few weeks) has more than compensated for them.
But tonight, we’ll all be on Zoom. We’ll be a class, a community, of the ether — as so many communities are these days.
(Sunset from the Car Barn Terrace, where I am not whiling away time before class tonight.)
As I plunge further into class readings, further into class itself, I notice a difference in the way I’m thinking. Is it possible … could it be … is a new logical cast creeping into my thought process?
The class topics are some of the big ones facing society: medical research and ethics, life extension and new methods of reproduction, artificial intelligence and information technologies.
The philosophers and historians and scientists I’m reading are dealing with these changes in language that is sometimes clear, sometimes obscure but always logical. There is little in the writing that appeals to the emotions; it’s all about appealing to the intellect.
There is a certain tidiness in this approach. But I haven’t written this way in a long, long time. Fingers crossed that I can. My first paper is due today.
Here is the lesson hummingbirds bring to humans, at least this human. Not just their impossible splendor, their swift jabbing attacks at the feeder like knights at sword fights flashing silver, a miracle of motion that makes me appreciate my own movements, no matter how sluggish.
And not just their seemingly impossible, near-perpetual flight, though seeing it makes me think, no matter how much I’ve done in a day, it’s never enough.
It’s not even their way of pirouetting in front of me, as if to say thank-you, which speaks to me of gratitude whether they intend it to or not.
The lesson hummingbirds bring to me every year, from late April through late September, is, to use the movie’s hackneyed phrase … “if you build it, they will come.” Because, at least in this part of the world—and in many others from what I understand—all you have to do to see these glorious creatures is to fill a feeder with nectar and hang it it up outside. So simple, so obvious, like so many truths right there in front of me if only I would pay attention.
As my old gray matter stirs slowly to life, I look up and find that it’s almost 2 p.m. and I’ve yet to write a post. Instead, I’ve been answering a discussion question for my class and figuring out the topic of my first paper.
Yes, I write all the time, but not academic papers. I’ve spent most of my adult life penning articles for commercial establishments — magazines, newspapers, nonprofits. Writing for the academy is different, I tell myself.
But maybe not all that much. Maybe I’m making it too big a deal (I’ve been known to do that). Maybe all I need to do is what I’ve always done: research, analyze and write. Just share what I learn, and in this case, what I believe.
(Gray stone, gray matter, Georgetown’s Healey Hall)