Memory, that winged host that flew above me

Have you heard about the book club Hayley at Carrots for Michaelmas is hosting about Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited? I'm thrilled because Brideshead  is my favorite book. Ever since it was on my summer reading list senior year of high school, I've re-read it about once a year. On every return visit I've changed a little, and so I notice or enjoy new things. The notes my 17 year old self feverishly made in multi-colored pencil seem a little silly today.

Brideshead Revisted is a great novel becaue its decades-long story has something for everyone. Carefree college antics, coming-of-age angst, love affairs, guilt, religious identity, family drama, the place of Catholics in English society, and some great papist insider jokes. There a so many different facets to ponder, and I've added a page to this blog tracking some of my favorite recent commentary on it.

For me, BR continues to be an obsession because it's all about decorative arts, yo. Architecture and home furnishings are practically the star of the show. Like the Flyte family in Charles' life, BR passages kept popping into my head when I started my master's program at a "museum and country estate."

"Is the dome by Inigo Jones too? It looks later."
"Oh Charles, don't be such a tourist. What does it matter when it was built, if it's pretty?"
"It's the sort of thing I like to know."

All the descriptions of the Flyte family house make so much more sense now. On my first visit to Winterthur, I scoffed at its seemingly redundant acres of antique furniture. Gradually, as I learned to guide tourists through the corridors, I discovered the joy of paying close visual attention to the things around me. After all, historical context is the sort of thing I like to know too.

It was an aesthetic education to live within those walls, to wander from room to room, from the Soanesque library to the Chinese drawing-room, adazzle with gilt pagodas and nodding mandarins, painted paper and Chippendale fret-work, from the Pompeian parlor ... to sit, hour after hour, in the pillared shade looking out over the terrace.

The Chinese Parlor at Winterthur, full of painted paper and Chippendale fret-work.

Even though Charles Ryder is a total jerk sometimes, I do identify with his artistic journey. Eventually shedding his lazy undergrad ways, he soaks up all the art around him, tries his first big painting project, and eventually makes a career out of documenting historic architecture. As the existential trauma that is grad school fades, I tend to remember fondly my two years "in arcadia": with unlimited access to an eight-story mansion.

Most of the time I use my "looking at furniture" master's degree to make obnoxious comments about the background in Downton Abbey scenes (oh man, that William and Mary high chest in Mrs. Crawley's parlor), but I'm still obsessed with photographing architecture. Like Charles, I feel closer to the big truths in life when I'm pondering beautiful things. 

Material Culture Alert: Interior Decorating

So my Monday didn't start so well. I left my laptop's power cable at home and on my way in from the museum parking lot I slipped, fell, and skinned my knee. What am I, five years old?

Things got better, though, when I got to hear a guest speaker talk about  the late 1800's phenomenon of interior photography. It was all the rage to have a professional come in and document your house, and then have him make a nifty gift book with a photo tour of your abode. Pictures of college dorm rooms were also very popular. 

Swarthmore College

One man kept the shot of his senior year sitting room all his life - you could see it proudly displayed in photos of his adult bedroom, along with the name tag that hung over the dorm room door.

This was all very interesting and of course reminded how people still document how the live at college and elsewhere. In the interest of the historical record, here are shots I took of my room in the VSC house during my first week...

...and halfway through the year. Observe how personal objects have transformed a former convent "cell" into a twenty-something's crash pad.

 

 Yeah, that was a pretty messy day, but you can learn some interesting things about me. First, my sensitivity to light when sleeping, hence the ghetto blanket/curtain. The pictures on the wall are from Williamsburg and the National Gallery of Art. The tote bag on the bed was a thrift store find. The purple cup on the desk is evidence of my "cup hog" hoarding habit as I tried to stay hydrated. There's a book on the floor because would read in bed but have nowhere to set the book when I fell asleep (I still do this.)

You're welcome, historians of the 2100s. I photographed the whole house if you're looking for a master's thesis topic.

You don't even know

So yesterday a professor had us over to her house for an end-of-semester shindig. Not only did she not make us talk about syllabus additions, she also provided tons of food - ham salad, cookies, tea in adorable tea pots, even GF biscuits and chocolate cake. A+, Professor H. I'm always touched when professors act like they want to spend time with their students and are interested in their lives. Prof. H especially wanted to hear all about us girls' love lives, which was fun. 

Everyone hung around for hours, long enough to quit talking about next year's courses and start telling interesting stories. Since my volunteer year was the last time I did anything uniquely exciting, I kept referring to that. When I started out "So my house in St. Louis was a former convent next to a school..." I saw Prof. H's religious-historian eyes get wide. Oh, Prof. H, you don't even know. 

You don't even know what hard, fun work it is for 8 strangers to live in a former convent and try to create a modern spiritual community together. You have no idea how it was the most adventurous, challenging, weird, random year of my life, and how I am still figuring out what it all meant. In fact, yesterday was the first time I've been able to talk about one my negative experiences that year and not relive its emotional impact. I miss the service focus my life had then, and I'm still not sure how to stay connected to that as a grad student.

What's really crazy about living in a former convent with 7 strangers-turned-friends is that you are just one year of the house's life. Other groups will keep making new histories after you're gone, and you'll never really know how their community functioned. The groups that came before you have left all sorts of random stuff lying around and you have no idea what it means. At your moment in the house, you just make the best of what you can find. 

Like making an Advent wreath out of plastic greens and candles stuck in sand-filled shot glasses. I don't think God minded.