"A Message From Panton"

I stand by the harbor, scanning the horizon.

Nothing.  Nothing.  And nothing again.  

(It is hard not to be hyper-dramatic when there is no one to say, “Stop being hyper-dramatic.”  The blessing and drawback of blog-writing:  No one keeps you sensibly in check.)

Okay.  (After that italicized introduction.)

This time last year, I was packing for Oxford.  A week of magical residence at Christchurch College, housed in a venerable dorm room, going to classes, taking thrice-daily repast in the hallowed “Great Hall,” of Harry Potter acclaim, as if it weren’t sufficiently famous, which it is.

I had gained inclusion to this unique opportunity by the proverbial “hair.”  I was originally rejected, my inability to “scan” my Application Form during the determining first hour of “Sign-Up” leaving its subsequent arrival too late.  Despite help from a younger family member later that same day, I received a formalized “Sorry, no”, in administrative response.

I was crestfallen.  I really wanted to go. 

Finally, months after, ironically, Dr. M’s acceptance (after her original rejection) to “Four Hundred Years of English Gardening”, I received the belated emailed announcement that I was in.  (I later discovered that, denied the appropriate paperwork, an invitee from Myanmar was forced to drop out, my fortunate inclusion arising from a Myanmarian stranger’s bad luck.) 

(During my “purgatorial” vigil on the “Waiting List”, hoping to draw chuckling attention with “Colonial silliness”, I had emailed them regularly, requesting substitute placement, should some accepted candidate “drop out, die, or decide to attend Cambridge instead.”  I like to think that that helped.  Though perhaps I was just “Next on the list.”)

An alternate storyline:  I was “Fated” to attend Oxford.  Another pleasing scenario: “Fates”, displaying personalized behavior.

“Let’s give it to him.”

“Okay.”

Here’s where my fantasies kick in.  (Though the preceding may be fantasy as well.)

Using my rich and fertile imagination, I pretended – not overtly, but spontaneously naturally – that I was really at Oxford. 

Not as a casual vacationer, taking “puff-ball” courses like “The Beatles” or “Great English Murder Mysteries” but as a “serious academic”, taking “Political Thinking in the Twentieth Century.”  (My alternate selection, after the equally meaty “Ideas of Freedom.”)  I yearned to exceed the contrived trappings of The Oxford Experience.  I ached to be actually at school!

And that’s exactly how I behaved.

I read the assigned textbooks months before classes began, “Sharpie-ing” salient points and creasing corners of pages.  When we finally convened, I asked cascades of questions.  I listened.  I learned.  My unearthed bias and ignorance on glorious display.  That was valuable too.  I was a student.  Studying political thinking.  And my unrecognized self.

In retrospect, it is possible my Oxford Experience stemmed more from my eager imaginings than what its providers honestly intended, taking the proceedings more seriously than they ever conceptually had in mind. 

I saw the event as “Fantasy Camp for Thinkers.”  But perhaps it was, in fact, just “Disneyland for Dreamers.”

It now occurs to me that I have, though not deliberately, over-extended my set-up, leaving “To Be Continued” the inevitable interim result. 

On second thought, perhaps I did do it deliberately.  I loved my Oxford experience so much that, maybe unconsciously purposefully, I held back delineating the “letdown”, allowing me to recall that memorable week a little longer the way I want to.

And not, perhaps, the way it actually was.

TO BE CONTINUED…