Anniversary

 

February 11, 2021

Arvo Part on Pandora, which I have not used since moving to this house. Somehow I remembered the password. 

Yesterday after the hike dominated by ZOOM meetings. The first was with UNCA faculty and retired faculty to see if we can get a Phi Beta Kappa chapter. I remember distinctly being part of a committee that tried that unsuccessfully twenty years ago. Lisa recalled that we have had at least three unsuccessful tries. As the discussion went on, it became clearer why, and this attempt might not go further than the initial meeting. Phi Beta Kappa, unavoidably and constitutionally, recognizes the elite. UNCA has never been, and so far as I can tell has never striven to be, elite, or particularly encouraging to the elite. It has been and recognized itself to be basically a superior Community College, attracting mostly locals and striving to serve a recognizable, largely practical-minded community. The proportion of our students who spend all four years here is low; they transfer in when they believe themselves academically ready, transfer out when they recognize the need for a place with more reputation for rigor. Certain departments– English among them– have striven for rigor, but the lack of encouragement received along those lines– and the often clear efforts at discouragement– from the administration has been exhausting, and the self-preserving department will eventually turn away from its own best practices. The upshot is that for several years we have been a supermarket at which students purchase a diploma, and as little interference from the faculty along the way the better. Without cynicism (I hope) one observes that we are not a university but a degree-granting institution, and no one in power really wants that to change. I think the Phi Beta Kappa committee will recognize this, as other committees have in the past. It’s interesting how tiny Hiram got through. Everything strove and strained upward. The Ideal was always the goal. I pretended that was the case here, and maybe for a time it was. All things fall and are built again. 

The second ZOOM meeting was to wish MH a happy 70th from a distance.  The screen was crowded with his friends, largely, I took it, from the world of wine-making.

D joins the group who liked OBN but was put off by the supernatural element. 

During my massage, Z confides that he and K have separated. Face down and masked, I could afford to wait for some clue as to how to respond. Glad I didn’t croon comfort, for he was overjoyed, boyish, confessing that for the first time in years he feels free, happy, joyful about life prospects. I’d gathered that he came reluctantly to a marriage in which Karen was by far the more enthusiastic partner, but the level of glee was a little off-putting. We discussed the kind of partner he was looking for now. Of course he wants to play the field, having, he said, dated two girls before marrying. I won’t be much help, knowing very few women in his preferred age group. Even his haircut was more daring. 

On this day, during a considerable snow storm, prying Maud out of terrified hiding in the old house, I moved into this house.