A long-time friend’s 19 year old cat, Tazzy
Dear friends and readers,
The Fall term for the Oscher Lifelong Learning Institute at American University has more or less come to an end, most classes are over, and the Holiday party happened at River Road Unitarian Church this afternoon. The spring term does not start until March 2nd and I thought I’d make my course last 10 weeks; I have committed to teach at the OLLI at Mason too where the spring term starts at a similar point in the winter/spring calendar, here it’ll last 8 weeks. I’m going to do a lot less than I did this term (less than half) so if I could get myself to use time efficiently I could probably do what projects I want, and if I could order them sensibly, get each done in due time and plan for returning to my book on Jane Austen films or write a proposal on The Anomaly.
Sounds all right? I’ve promised Charlie, my counselor (her new function, no longer “grief support person”) and friend, I’ll talk more positively about what I do, give myself credit where I should, not say “I can’t” but “I don’t want to.” So I shouldn’t say this is a mode of desperation, but rather that I don’t know what I want to do with my life so do these things as what could give me some satisfaction. Not that they do altogether or at times very much. I had some very good times towards the end with the people at OLLI at AU reading Trollope together; there was one woman at OLLI at Mason who wanted to read Gothic books & stories and watch the films and was interested in their significance.
I’ve discovered teaching retired older people subjects because they say they want to learn about them, enjoy them, quite different from teaching young people seeking accreditation and skills beyond a given subject matter. Jim once told me he never ever read a student evaluation (the anonymity was an invite he said) and that I should not even if I often got touching and positive ones; at the university itself I saw evaluations used only against people who wanted promotions or tenure. This situation is not the same here at all (there is no career at stake) but I’ve decided not to read any more anonymous evaluations because only a small percentage of the adult learners (the phrase for students used at Future Learn) respond and the way they function in this environment is for me counterproductive (one petty, one jealous, resentful of my learning; one wanted no context or background; a book in a vacuum, a library book club); I don’t want my memories of successful satisfying teaching for over 30 years to be hurt; it’s better for me to listen to what the staff or long time members have to say was said generally about my courses. One long time person said you have to make many people understand first what literary study is.
Jim was also against all volunteering — he said the person would not be valued; and that to work for no pay was to ultimately to deprive those who need paid jobs of work. It’s too sweeping a condemnation: by finding Yvette a volunteer job at a library (a student offered me the one she had had for my daughter) she learned for the first time that she loved library work; she got a splendid letter of recommendation which helped her get to her present real paid job as a librarian. Everyone at the Haven where I have had such support (e.g., my counselor) is a volunteer (staff, counselors, people in need of help). Yes the gov’t should have a decent tax system, provide humane social services and pay people. Of course the job market in the US is engineered to be desperate for many people and young adults take internships (euphemisms) to try to make contacts, get experience, come near a real job. The Haven (I understand) has minimal funding (local gov’t, some start-up big donators including the donated house); where no one is paid there are no chiefs, all Indians. Well I’ve found there is something problematic about volunteering at these OLLIs: partly it’s that some people are paid (the administrative staff) and some are paying (the learners), so volunteers can be vulnerable. I now understand better the grounds and terms of these places and people’s level and kind of engagement and tell myself I have to be what I am as long as I’m well-meaning and act with good will (which I have). I’ve met some intelligent and pleasant people at the AU OLLI. They represent (dare I say this) a segment of the best of the older generally educated population in DC.
I find I need to get out and be among people, feel useful and active, occasionally appreciated and that is the main reason I’ll carry on, not regardless but for a little while yet if I fit. Still seeing if. Charlie says cut down to one.
This summer and fall I found I again enjoy reading and talking by writing with others on listservs. Letter writing and receiving on the Net. Blogs became a form of release from last fall on, as well as a place to think out topics, work out the meaning of texts and films or plays, write reverie-style essays I enjoy writing. I like the sense of being read — and response. It may sound astounding to some but when the discussions on listservs about books go well, this cheers me more than anything else.
The problems with my projects is they are (as all writing must be) long-term, mostly solitary whose end result is uncertain, especially now that he’s not here to help me negotiate when the need comes up (and it sometimes does!). Now nothing I do has the meaning it did for me when Jim was alive. What I did was somehow with him, he validated whatever it was, I shared what I was doing with him. I find I miss him most intensely when I am driving home and know he’s not here any more. The house is during the day most of the time empty but for my loving cats — they are glad to see me, and Clarycat, very like a dog, comes to greet me. So I have presences, physical affection and comfort, play too, but no deep companionship, no sense of purpose or respect beyond what I can get up for myself within.
I find that whatever it is I’ve done that day, I tell myself, I did what I could. I make schedules still (routs I call them, from Daphne DuMaurier’s term for how she got through her work and play, her days) so as to try to do these projects in due time or finish and send to people things I’ve promised to do, but the schedules do not imply that I know what to do with my life now that he’s gone.
For me now it’s day after day. We all have just our little bit of time. An interlude of life between two long darknesses. I met a woman friend at the OLLI today at this party who told me for the first time she’s a widow of 2 years: her husband died after they were married for 57 years, of a terrible cancer (2 dreadful years); she showed me a bracelet she was wearing, something he bought her after years of marriage, to commemorate their first conversation. She was startled to discover that he had remembered it. She was smiling at me as she told this story.
It’s a holding on action for us all. The hard task not to belie or misrepresent, for that makes it harder for the vulnerable and for cooperation for what good people want; also to maintain courtesy, self- and mutual respect, kindness, act with compassion or shared empathy in mind, at a minimum self-control. Think of poor Sisyphus and his huge stone.
Constable, Barges on the Stour (1811)
Miss Drake
Under the Sign of Sylvia II 
From John R: “1. Formal evaluations: I always thought these to be worthless in both the classroom and the workplace. Evaluations should only be done if you want to fire someone.
2. Volunteer work: The first thing one learns in the military is to never volunteer. Volunteering in the civilian world means that you are not only not going to have respect but are also taking away a job from someone who might need it. If there is a job needing to be done, then someone will be paid to do that job if there are no volunteers.”
My reply: At a luncheon a man who used to be well-paid diplomat was to give a 20 minute dinner-type talk. He showed his brilliance by speaking a satire: he began with how much money (huge) Hilary Clinton makes for each speaking job she does; he then presented the realities of what much of the day of such politicians and their aides do, and in the irony was a demand for a mere 10% of what she gets for one appt as a year’s salary for teaching at that OLLI. He himself a volunteer
On adult ed classes (which is paid, though the pay is derisory) from a friend: “They think about … popularity. An administrator forbade me to teach Latin grammar, based on one student’s drop ing the class because she didn’t like grammar. The others informed me they WANTED to learn vocabulary and grammar, so I went ahead, and then spent half an hour teaching derivatives, etc., because that’s what my administrator thought was “fun.” I also taught some Virgil, which they didn’t think was so much fun. She also wanted me to teach a Greek and Latin class, in one session. Has she no idea how difficult such classes are?”
Sometimes I think I would rather be alone, stay at home, reading, writing, watching movies. I know some peace at such times. I am not trying to do anything hopeless — I often think of the image in one of Anne Finch’s poems not yet published in full form where a bird is beating its body against a window or wall.
It hurts me to think at times before he died he did not attribute faithfulness to me. He could not understand what we were to one another for he did not have the experience of being left alone.
I must at least not take with me things I cherish as I may lose them; leave such objects home.
I have my hair dyed once every three months, and the roots have begun to show. I noticed something new: much is now white instead of grey. I say this as I reluctantly leave for a 2 hour bout at the hair-dresser (that’s how long dying, washing, conditioning, cutting takes). Home again: Sheila confirms my hair has gone far more white than it was.
Clare: Abuse of the work situation for the young is common here in the UK too. Not only are internships common, but even when given a job, many are only paid minimum wage, lower than a living wage, or on short term contracts or zero hour contracts, where you have a job but no agreed hours, you work as and when required by the employer.
I think you are wise in not reading these comments
Me: One real problem for the young is this recruiting can turn into exploitation. Call a job an “internship” and hire someone to “teach” them for 2 years and you have two years of work from them without paying for it. This began to spread in the early 2000s because the paid jobs at the entry level to better jobs dried up. As with US employers, these places use language which erase or de-emphasize that the person is doing work or using a special skill.
Donna: “I’ve enjoyed the OLLI college courses at my local university. They are so fortunate to have you, wow!”