Tuesday Morning

Thinking about things:

Yesterday's College Writing orientation was held at the Woman's Faculty Club on campus. It is a beautiful old building with all the vestiges and proper charm of a cared for historical site. It was "built by John Galen Howard in 1923 as a haven for women excluded from the Men's Faculty Club (now the Faculty Club)".

We were inside all day. We met in a living room-like meeting hall with stuffed couches and many large large windows lining the walls. But all of these handsomely tall windows were draped with dark brown wooden venetian blinds pulled all the way down. Tiny fragments of light struggled to push through their shadowy slits.

The room was lit with small sconces mounted high up on walls and in the ceiling beams. And just so the true facts are known, the sconces held those wicked candlelabra-shaped bulbs with swirls. Only tiny amounts of light could be counted on for seeing what was before us. This grand room was shaded twice over it seemed to me.

Throughout the discussions and presentations and group work that we did do amid this day's semidarkness--all of it pretty darn important and mostly interesting--I wanted to leap up and raise the shades. Just walk over, interrupt everything, and pull hard on the reins that would raise the shades. I found myself thinking about what the room would be like with sunshine finding its way through the windows. Even though there were tall pine trees bordering the building, I thought whatever light could sneak through their branches would be greatly appreciated by me and perhaps others as well. Thinking and talking and figuring things out requires light you know.

I was forlorn. Pretty much all day. I do not like to sit still indoors for hours and hours. And even more, I do not like to sit in a room with so little light.

When lunchtime was announced, I marched myself over to the window in the corner and raised the blinds. One window with shades up was the best I could do. I knew I could not remake the entire room. That would be too much pushing on my part.

Then I went outside for a short walk in the sunshine. It was a lovely day at Faculty Glade. Then I returned for lunch with my College Writing friends and our afternoon talk.