Nostalgia
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December 2001 Although we begin this class letter as we usually do — by quoting other writers — any similarity to past class letters ends there. We discovered that in these dark days we couldn’t write an upbeat and newsy fall letter. The letter we couldn’t write just now will go to you in late winter or even spring. This time we include two poems in full. The first is by Mary Oliver:
And
then, Robert Frost’s “Something Like a Star”:
You
may have read this on the back cover of the Summer Quarterly: [ “.
. . [The campus] has come to symbolize a
promise of calm and order
during times of confusion. . . . where I learned that all things were
related, that spring always came, that all shades of campus green
could blend, and we could all live in peace.
I have traveled extensively, but this campus, with its infinite
capacity for surprise, is still one of the wonders of the world.” ] More than ever we appreciate Mount Holyoke and
the other great colleges and universities as “something like a
star.” They ask,
as Frost’s persona asks, that we be humane and enlightened and
steadfast and, as Oliver’s urges, that we live with largeness of
heart and joy. September 11 for the two of us
has brought to the fore what’s most important in our lives and
hearts, and has made us fiercely want and need to tend to those
things, to seize the day, to put one foot firmly in front of the other
and keep going in this forever-altered terrain.
It seems essential — but also very hard to do.
More than ever we feel our interdependence and our need to
count on one another and be counted on.
How about a class web site and chat room where we can talk
about topics important to us (such as health, life-threatening
diseases, aged parents, divorce, the death of loved ones or friends)
— and on another note, travel, books, theater, retirement,
volunteering, hobbies, new careers? Can technology help us keep the spirit of community strong?
Any volunteers to explore building a 1960 web site?
The Alumnae Association will give us strong support. What’s on your mind?
Call or email us. In our next letter maybe we’ll say a little about our views
of the unfortunate dust-up that now seems a little absurd and that has
been settled in an interim agreement.
The Alumnae Association’s wonderful web site (http://www.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu)
carries the text of the agreement.
You may be interested to know that the College has also updated
their website (www.mtholyoke.edu).
Among other things, you can take a tour in real-time video of
the construction at Clapp, filmed ongoing by a mini-cam in the library
tower. In the department of Affirmative
Action and Believing the Future In, now this:
in February Dana will be leaving the field of anesthesiology in
Atlanta and with her four dogs moving to other terrain — in South
Hadley — fenced, with a pleasant house on it, and Prof. Curtis Smith
on premises much of the time. Dana
asks, “Should I continue to tarry/With our Class Honorary/Will that
indeed/Make me one, too?” We encourage you to keep in touch
— or get in touch — with classmates in your area.
Mini-reunions, whatever form they take, are lots more fun and
worthwhile than you might imagine. And we encourage you to fulfill your pledges and keep the
faith with an institution “to stay our minds on and be staid.” With warm regards, Susan
Bradley Cabot Dana
Feldshuh Whyte |
