We’re getting into that phase of the program when my duties start to pile up. Just like at the opening, my “free time” is spent getting paperwork done and the stars aligned for an easy exit for everyone.
I have noticed something, as I’ve walked around campus. Often I will be struck by a very real sense of unreality, that is, somehow I’ve fallen into an alternate reality. Very PDM.
This is not to be confused with a dream state. It doesn’t feel as if I’m dreaming. It feels as if I’m walking down the street in Newnan, perhaps, or down my hall at home, and yet everything around me is this other place. Perhaps I should say it feels as if I should be walking down the street in Newnan, and yet here I am.
This is curious in so many ways. For one thing, other than my family and my kitchen, what is there in Newnan that have even half the allure of this campus during the summer? What would I be walking down the street in Newnan toward?
As I often do at times of transition, I check my computer calendar for what’s coming up next, mapping out the next few months. Library training, preplanning, school opens… and then nothing. My calendar is absolutely blank after August.
Yes, I know, it will fill up pretty quickly, with Masterworks, social occasions, perhaps even Lacuna getting back to work on William Blake if someone steps up to head the organizing committee, but in general one can appreciate why being yanked out of this alternate reality back into the regular time/space continuum can be a bit of a drag.
Dale,
With interest and delight, I’ve been following your blog since I received your gift and, once again, became aware of sharing this universe with you. There’s a kindred spirit there that’s refreshing, so I thought it not fair that I should continue to lurk.
Your “Nothing, Really” thoughts brought back memories. During my six summers with GHP, not once did I fail to feel that sense of super-reality one gets in such a rare and Utopian environment. I remember asking myself (and perhaps God, too) why can’t we always stay on the mountaintop? And so I think I spent the rest of my working career trying to do just that–many disappointments because social conventions don’t experience that mountaintop and methinks would prefer it didn’t exist.
But I’m convinced that as super-real as it feels, it is nevertheless real. Those brilliant young minds and ebullient spirits are real people. What we fear for them is that social conventions will dull their brightnesses; what we hope for them is that they will only shine brighter. What we know is that it is ultimately their choice. But at this moment their combined spirits and active minds do indeed feed the universe with something very special.
Dianne
One summer, a weepy viola major asked me if we ever could have “this” again.
Thinking of my very own Newnan Community Theatre Company, I told her, that yes, we could, but it was very hard work, and that it was always shortlived. That’s why parting from GHP is so painful: here, it’s not hard work here, it just is.