Almost exactly two months later I was wending my way along the passageway between Terminal A and the passenger pickup area at Washington D.C. National Airport. I had no idea what kind of car Susan drove - fortunately, she texted me while I was at the curb to say that she was seconds away and what kind of car to look for. Before we'd even left the airport, we'd embarked on a series of reminiscences that would keep us occupied for almost the entire two hour drive to Charlottesville. Susan and I met during our first year at The University. One doesn't know how much one has forgotten until one tries to remember. I met Susan because we took piano lessons from the same teacher, then artist-in-residence Jungeun Kim. (I loved and feared Jungeun - I remember how she'd point out note errors: "STOP! Are your eyes painted on?!?!) I'm always tempted to say we met in Pep Band, but I didn't join the band until my second year. Our friendship can be divided into chapters: piano lessons, Pep Band, community theatre shows, Hexagon - so many shared activities and endeavors. While listening to the "Camelot" score in the car that day, we reminisced about the pit band we were in for the Bishop Ireton High School production back in the late 1980s. And so it went.

About thirty minutes north of Charlottesville, Route 29 takes on a kind of sameness - hill after hill after hill. I always expect to see a familiar sight over the next one, but it's always several more than expected. There's a highway interchange that's become far more fussy since our time in school - Susan and I very nearly got off into the wrong lane. Finally, we entered the northern part of the Grounds and approached Alumni Hall. We had to circle the block a couple of times before a spot became available in the tiny parking area in front of the building. As we walked up to the entrance, we passed an elderly couple, the male half of which was toiling along in a walker. I thought to myself that it wasn't a particularly accessible entryway. Susan and I picked up our weekend packets which included nametags on lanyards and various printed bits of information. We were encouraged to download and install the Reunion App (sign of the times) which would apprise us of our scheduled events and alternate rain locations (more on that later). While we were transacting our business with the fresh-faced students enlisted to help out for Reunion Weekend, the same elderly couple approached. The gentleman was in high dudgeon about the parking/accessibility and was unmollified with explanations about signs pointing to the accessible parking lot in the rear of the building. I caught the words "shame" and "disgrace" and gratefully withdrew to an adjacent room where I was told I could pick up the key to my on-grounds accommodations.

So, with respect to my accommodations, five years previously, I was thrilled to find out that the University had set aside dorm rooms for returning alumni who wanted to actually stay on-grounds. I stayed in one of what we used to call "the old dorms" near the student union and across the street from Clarke Hall. This year, I was gobsmacked to see that Lawn rooms were available on request and that former Lawn residents would be given a priority. I requested and was given the room I stayed in my fourth year, 40 East Lawn. It was with great excitement that I took the key to my old room from the hand of a student employee who politely feigned interest when I explained that I was returning to my Lawn room for the first time in thirty-five years.

Organizationally, there was something very different about this reunion weekend from the one I'd attended five years previously: the returning alumni were divided between two weekends, and the dividing year was ours - we were the youngest class in attendance. In a way it was nice - there weren't much younger alumni to help remind us how old we were, but it had been fun talking with more recent graduates at the last one.

From Alumni Hall, Susan drove us through and past the Grounds along Main Street to downtown Charlottesville. If the area seemed unfamiliar, it wasn't because it had changed (although I'm sure it's changed considerably) but because I can count on the fingers of one hand how many times I'd been downtown during my four years at UVa. Susan found her AirBnB and we retrieved the key and scoped out the premises. It was a very spacious upstairs flat, pleasantly decorated. We relaxed for a few minutes and then got back into the car for our first adventure of the weekend.

“...but just as the chimes had begun, a maintenance worker fired up a weed whacker...”

After having such a wonderful time at my 30th reunion, I'd resolved to attend them every five years moving forward. Now having been to two in a row, I've initiated some reunion traditions not necessarily related to my four years as a student. As in 2014, I spent a little time in the lower garden of Pavilion II. It's a lovely, elegantly simple garden - crossed paths, bench, the serpentine dividing wall and back face of Pavilion II providing a backdrop. A fat, pollen-bedecked bumblebee was hovering among the lilies, dipping into the blooms and going about its bumblebusiness. I chased it around for a while trying to get at least one decent picture. Buzz of bee, crunch of gravel underfoot, the hissing of a cicada, the aroma of boxwood - so this garden ticked away the decades before I arrived, during my stay, since my departure. Comforting.

Brooks Hall, as I'm sure I wrote in my previous reunion account, was where I had life drawing and, I think, at least one other class. It's a marvelous building, completely out of place among the neoclassicism of its neighbors. Gothic, I suppose, with one of those truncated, peaked haunted house towers and wonderful grotesques of animals spaced around the upper walls. I didn't go inside this time around, but I hope they haven't done anything to change the scary main staircase which clung to inner walls of the tower.

I'm mortified to say that the only service I attended at the University Chapel was the induction ceremony for an academic honor society. I remember snorting with suppressed laughter as endless, bizarre variations on our school song (to the tune of "Auld Lang Syne") were played on the pipe organ. That weekend, I made two visits to the exterior of the chapel with a very specific aim in mind: to record the Westminster Quarters (or Cambridge Quarters, if you prefer) on the hour. I say two visits, because I had to do a retake an hour after my first visit. I'd started a video recording on my phone within a minute or two of the hour but just as the chimes had begun, a maintenance worker fired up a weed whacker not twenty yards from where I was sitting.

Something I didn't do nearly often enough while a student was to walk the perimeter of the pavilion gardens and look over the walls into those Arcadian Vales. The ground is more level on the West side of the lawn and the walls are lower and of a more uniform height. I strolled along the path with the walls at my left occasionally looking over into intimate, tree-shaded spaces, open areas of grass baking in the sun, white benches with varying ornamental woodwork on their backrests, magnificent trees. At the time I was writing my account of my previous reunion, the University was embroiled in controversy over allegations of campus sexual assaults and alleged failure by the administration to properly address same. I observed that it was ironic that the UVa logo could be said to consist of a symbolic vagina being threatened by two symbolic penises. The logo's back in the news because of recent controversy related to the institution's history related to enslaved persons. The recently unveiled new logo features wavy handgrips on the sabers which is meant to evoke the curves of the serpentine walls which were, as I recently learned, put in place to conceal the enslaved persons forced to work at the University. I cheered the recent toppling of statues and the removal of the confederate abomination from the Mississippi flag, Nascar, and other spaces, but I'm ill-equipped to even comment on this issue, having been woefully ignorant in the particular history among other things. The University probably spent sackfuls of tuition money with marketing consultants to make the logo more fussy. People dick around with logos far too much, in my opinion.

I had classes in buildings all over Grounds while I was there, but the single building where the majority of them took place was New Cabell Hall, which surrounds the back of Old Cabell and forms a courtyard with same. I was glad that the decision was made to renovate and upgrade New Cabell rather than tearing it down. It's an unremarkable building but I have a fondness for it, particularly for the expansive sills of the windows facing the courtyard. I spent many hours sitting on those window seats, doing last-minute studying, writing in my journal, or just looking at the rain or snow falling in the courtyard. Talking of the courtyard, it's vastly improved since my time when it was really just a forgotten in-between space. Now it's adorned with winding paths, ornamental plantings, benches, and cafe tables and chairs.

My wanderings took me to a place I'd never been: the cemetery. I'd seen it from the outside many times as it was near the new dorms where I lived during my first year and was visible on my main walking route to the center of grounds. It's a pleasant place - well groomed and landscaped, huge trees, may of them pines, stand among the graves. I'd been pleasantly surprised a few years ago while on a tour with Mom of Arlington House, the former mansion of Robert E. Lee at the focus put by our tourguide on the history of the enslaved persons who worked lived on that estate. Information about members of the Syphax family was prominently displayed adjacent to that about the Custis and Lee families. UVa appears to be making a similar effort to honor the lives of the enslaved persons at the University. A memorial was being constructed on the lawn between Brooks Hall and the Medical School and, here at the cemetery, an African-American burying ground was being examined and documented. Signage describing the history of the location and what is known of the identities of those buried there was posted in various places around the site, including near the wall that separated the anonymous burying ground from the rest of the cemetery with its expensive, ornate monuments. I hope that the institution's efforts to examine its past behavior extend into providing opportunities and assistance to those in need of it here in the present.

Near the cemetery is a path that parallels McCormick road and provides an alternate way to Central Grounds between the backs of the Old Dorms and a series of natural areas, one of which contains (or used to contain - I didn't notice this time around) a couple of volleyball courts. It may have been just once that I joined members of the Pep Band for "Pep Band Volleyball" - played one-handed owing to the fact that the other hand is employed in holding a beer. Is it called "The Dell"? I can't remember. As Lady Catherine would have said, it's a "prettyish sort of wilderness", shady and hidden away. As I walked, motion caught my eye, and I saw a large and magnificent tiger swallowtail fluttering among the tall weeds along the path.

“...at which point what seemed like a fusillade of lightning bolts was unleashed.”

If memory serves, Susan and I really had only one specific order of business for the weekend and that was to have a meal or two at The Virginian, a restaurant in the row of businesses adjacent to Grounds known as "The Corner". Of the eateries that were open when we were students, LittleJohn's Deli and The Virginian are (I think) the only two that remain. The Virginian has a wonderful nostalgic atmos with its wood paneling, metal ceiling, and long row of booths. Susan and I ate there a couple of times in the course of the weekend.

My first cousin once removed, Christina (I FINALLY resolved that question by consulting The Wikipedia), her husband Mark and their daughter Ruth live in Charlottesville and we'd made plans several weeks in advance of the reunion to get together for a meal. At lunchtime on one of the days, we met at a second-floor gastropub on The Corner. I'd been to the same restaurant more than once during my reunion five years previously and I was eager to return as the food was excellent. It also may have been in the same space occupied by a restaurant I frequented as a student - MacAdos - but I can't be sure. The Lawsons were already at a table when I arrived - we greeted each other as if no time had passed since our last meeting, which was probably the day after Thanksgiving a year or two previously. Christina is one half of "The Twins of Evil", my cousin Pam's two daughters. I don't know when I started calling them that. It's the title of a Hammer vampire film that I've never actually seen. It's silly because they're neither twins nor particularly evil. (They're not evil at all, they're precious.) Christina and I bonded while watching the 1933 version of "King Kong" when she was two years old. Mark and I hit it off when we discovered we shared an affinity for the Gialli of Dario Argento. Ruth was engrossed in her sticker activity book but paid me the huge compliment of giving me one of her stickers representing an ice cream cone. During the meal, we caught up on family doin's and I bored them with an account of my reunion weekend thus far. After lunch, I invited them to accompany me back to my room. More on that later.

An outdoor cocktail party the evening of our arrival which was to have taken place on the north terrace of the Rotunda was moved to an indoor location (Newcomb Hall?) because of extreme heat. It was around 95 degrees that day and the following day. By Sunday things had cooled into the 80s. Susan and I decided not to attend.

Also moved to an indoor location was the first of our two outdoor dinners. Thunderstorms were predicted for Friday afternoon and the predictions were spot-on. Susan and I attended the University Singers concert as planned but decided to find a local spot for dinner rather than getting on a shuttle bus to go God knew where for the relocated event. I was disappointed when I learned that there would be no "Reunion Sing" event which was, for me, a highlight of my previous reunion. The University Singers concert was just as special in its own way. The performance was exquisite and it was a pleasure to sit once again in the audience at Old Cabell Hall Auditorium, hear beautiful music and gaze on the reproduction of Raphael's "School of Athens" on the wall above the stage. Memories flooded in of countless rehearsals and concerts attended in that glorious space: playing my first piano recital during first year, an orchestra rehearsal that took place during an important UVa basketball game which was punctuated during rests by calls for "score" from a group of people clustered in the glow of a portable TV up in the loge, the raucous audience-participation component of the holiday Glee Club concert in which the attendees were divided into groups to shout out the words to the "Twelve Days of Christmas" (the group responsible for "eight maids a milking" were particularly rambunctious, if memory serves). Things took an emotional turn at the end of the concert - the director made a speech informing us that this was the very last event of the year and that the graduating senior members (newly graduated?) would, in effect, be released into the wider world and would, at that instant, become alumni of both The University and The University Singers. His speech to them was lovely, telling them that they will make music all their lives and will always be a part of the University and the University Singers. Their names were read one by one, and I found myself choking up as I saw them embracing each other as the moment came and went. As an alumnus, it was uniquely affecting to witness the very moment of transition for those talented young people. I suddenly felt the weight of thirty-five elapsed years and all the triumphs and tragedies they contained. As the audience filed out, I lingered to take a few photos in the emptying auditorium. As Susan and I emerged into the lobby (with its wonderful murals of student life - new since we were there), it became clear that the weather predictions were being affirmed with a vengeance. Looking through the lobby windows, we could see the trees on the lawn being whipped about by the wind and the Rotunda all but obscured by veils of torrential rain. We stepped outside into the are protected by the entrance portico and thrilled to the rush of wind, brilliant flashes of lightning and deafening claps of thunder. The weather was too violent to permit us to leave so we retreated back into the lobby and spent a few minutes eavesdropping on conversations among the singers and their families and friends and watching the lightning through the tall windows. From the brilliance of one bolt and the almost immediate clap of thunder, it seemed as though lightning had struck on Central Grounds. Again, the concert felt like a special bonus of the weekend - it was an opportunity to participate once more, at least vicariously, in the student life of the school. There's something so immediate and intimate about music performance - if there was a way for me to feel a meaningful connection to the institution and its current members, that was it. After a few minutes, we decided to brave the run to the Lawn colonnade. The violence of the storm seemed somewhat diminished, that is of course, until we'd actually left the building at which point what seemed like a fusillade of lightning bolts was unleashed. Susan and I ran, laughing nervously, under the colonnade roof near Pavilion 10 and slowed to a walk as we approached my room. I pulled my desk chair and rocker out onto the bricks of the colonnade so that we could enjoy what remained of the storm. I had been looking forward to the reunion weekend for months and had imagined any number of activities and encounters - the experience of that evening just goes to show that sometimes the most exhilirating and pleasureable moments can't be anticipated. We sat, rocked, and chatted as the rain drummed on the roof of the colonnade and pattered onto the bricks at the edge of the walkway. Our suspicions of the lightning strike were confirmed when emergency vehicles were heard approaching, their lights visible through the walkways on the opposite sides of the Lawn. An emergency responder walked by making an inspection - when asked, he told us that lightning had indeed struck close to one of the Pavilions on West Lawn and that routine inspections were being made to confirm that there wasn't any damage or fire risk. The red lights flashing on the white-painted brick walls gave the stairwell opposite us a hellish look.

I can't remember if the Virginian was closed or whether we decided to just see what might be open, but an hour or so after the end of the concert, we found ourselves sitting in a booth at Crozet Pizza, at the end of Elliewood avenue, a side street off The Corner. I honestly don't remember ever going there before and I have no idea if it was open when we were students, but it's a really lovely place - rustic and cozy. Susan and I sat at a weird sort of high booth. The place was practically empty - at one point during the meal, we may have been the only customers.

Susan and I ate at several other places during the weekend - a lovely wine bar on 14th Street very close to the French House where I lived my second year (possibly in the space previously occupied by The Rising Sun Bakery), a doughnut shop on Main Street between the Grounds and the downtown, and a Ben & Jerry's in a strip mall on 29 just north of the University.

Arguably, the main event of the weekend was the second and more lavish of the two outdoor dinners. Susan and I had skipped the first one, in part because it had been relocated because of weather to one of the sports facilities a shuttle bus ride away. This evening's event took place on the Lawn just in front of Old Cabell Hall. It's a beautiful setting - that end of the Lawn, outside of the original Academical Village, is enclosed on three sides by porticoed academic buildings added by architect Stanford White, shaded by large trees, and has at its center the statue of Homer and his little protege. I checked the statue for any remaining traces of the nail polish applied to Homer's finger and toenails by me and some fellow Lawn residents back in 1984. None remained. I had arranged via email and text to meet up with a fellow alumna, my friend Amy with whom I lived in the French House second year. It was lovely to see Amy. Getting to know her was a highlight of my second year at UVa. Hearing her voice and being in her thoughtful, serene presence took me right back to the Fall of 1981. (The fact that she looks only about twenty minutes older than she did then added to the time-displacement effect.) We had a very pleasant meal. For the life of me, I can't remember what was served, but I have a vague memory of proceeding along a long table draped in white linen, serving myself from chafing dishes, and getting some sort of beverage from a glass urn beaded in condensation from the afternoon heat. Our table was close to the concrete walkway in front of Old Cabell where, in my third or fourth year, I participated in a concert by a subset of the UVa Symphonic Band in which we performed the Mozart Serenade "Gran Partita". As I did during my previous reunion, I had the occasional sense of what I think of as "time folding" where I feel as though past events are separated from the present by the thinnest of veils - as though my former self might have looked up from my music stand during a few measures rest to catch a fleeting glimpse of my present self looking on. Susan excused herself at the end of the meal - I lingered for a while talking with Amy until she also departed. As the sunlight waned and the illumination from the strings of light bulbs overhead became more dominant, I walked among the tables and talked with Minnie, a fellow French student, and Latane, one of my neighbors on the Lawn our fourth year. There was some species of live music presentation scheduled to occur in the amphitheater later that evening, but I chose to spend the rest of the night back at my room.

In advance of the weekend, Susan and I had agreed that we would go together to two daytime events: a tour of the arts buildings and a presentation by Larry Sabato and Katie Couric. The former began in the early afternoon on the Saturday, I think. I was a little late getting over to that part of the Grounds, but I caught up with Susan and the tour at the drama building, which was a strange amalgam of the familiar and the un. I remembered the entrance to the theatre and the stairs that went down to the classroom level. I'd taken one or two acting classes, a voice and diction class, and had been in the chorus for the musical "She Loves Me" and so had spent a fair amount of time in the building. The unfamiliar part of the building was a new arena-style theatre that opened off the other side of the lobby - very impressive. The visual arts building was also very impressive - a vast improvement over the cramped quarters we occupied in Fayerweather Hall during my time. We were shown through a series of lofty studio spaces and beautiful, airy exhibit halls in one of which there was an intriguing multimedia presentation being projected on one wall of a huge, otherwise empty space. The architecture library was interesting for me in that the reception area was backed by shelves containing a huge number of exquisite models of famous buildings from around the world. It was the new marching band rehearsal space that proved the most striking location on the tour. Our tourguide led us into an immense, cubical building which consisted of a single immense, cubical room. Stacks of chairs and larger musical instruments, drums, tubas, lay around the perimeter of the space against the walls. I was predisposed to disapprove - being in the Pep Band was a highlight of my UVa experience and I remember fondly our rehearsals in the bandroom in Old Cabell Hall. This space, for me, represented a rejection of tradition and originality in favor of banality disguised as progress.

Whatever memories I may have taken away of the specifics of Katie Couric and Larry Sabato's talk have fallen victim to the year that has elapsed between the event itself and this writing. As recently as last night, Paul has complimented me on my practice of taking notes while on vacation for future documentation, but this time I failed utterly. What I do remember is that the experience was thoroughly enjoyable - Susan and I managed to get seats on the very lowest level of Old Cabell Hall Auditorium and so were only twenty feet or so from where Sabato and Couric sat in neighboring armchairs on the stage. Their conversation was a lively mix of reminiscences of their time at the University, personal anecdotes, and commentary on the current state of politics. I was wondering if they would "go there" and they did - neither made any attempt to veil their opinions of our current president, but they did bemoan the polarized, toxic state of politics and public opinion. Both were absolutely charming. Sabato had already been a political science professor at the University while I was there. Couric had lived on the Lawn just a few years before I had. Together, they represented both my experience at the University and the years between my graduation and that moment. If memory serves, Susan and I had already, earlier in the weekend, walked past the UVa cancer center named for Emily Couric, a Virginia state legislator and sister to Katie who promoted cancer awareness in the state and later succumbed to the illness. To see and hear these esteemed alumni sharing their experiences was both humbling and uplifting.

So, the weekend ended up being rather light on programmed event attendance, but the time Susan and I were able to spend in strolling, conversing, and remembering was the defining feature of the reunion. Now that I've attended two recent reunions, I can say that I'm now beginning to accumulate reunion traditions. At a breakfast reception for Lawn residents in the garden of Pavilion I one of the mornings of the weekend, I met up with fellow alums whom I had met for the first time at the previous reunion. Roy and Charlie, respectively an emergency physician and New York lawyer, are both very interesting and fun guys. They were there with other family members this time and we had a lively conversation over breakfast in the beautiful setting of the serpentine wall-enclosed garden in the shadow of the Rotunda. Who knows what the next reunion will bring, but I hope it's another encounter with those two.

“The connection I felt was aesthetic rather than historical.”

I decided to divide these diseased ramblings so that "Lawn" and "40 East Lawn" were separate sections, I'm really not sure why. Now I'm faced with the challenge of teasing apart room-specific memories from more general "Lawn" ones. If I had to haunt a locale for a while after my death, I think it would have to be The Lawn at The University of Virginia. When I sit on the grass I feel completely cut off from the outside world and safe within an idealized landscape of trees, pavilions, colonnades, walkways, arbors, gardens, fountains, and porticoes. The Lawn is the centerpiece of The Academical Village and was the centerpiece of my life at The University. My routes from the dorms and my off-campus housing to my classes, to the Dining Hall, to the Libraries all took me through Central Grounds so between the intentional visits to play frisbee, read under a tree, or meet up with friends, the Lawn was woven through my everyday activities. I remember walking around (never diagonally across!) the area bounded by Rouss, Cocke, and Cabell Halls to get to Wilson Hall for an evening movie and drinking in the sights and sounds of late afternoon - the slanting shadows cast by the columns in the porticoes, the cornices lit up gold against the deep blue of the sky, the smell of the boxwood hedges and the rustling of the leaves. Then, after the movie, to come back out and see the scene completely transformed - the warm rectangles of orange light against the shadowed blue of the white facades, the black lace of the treetops silhouetted against the blue-black of the sky.

One might ask: "did living on the Lawn during fourth year give an increased sense of connection or ownership of the space"? I think the short answer would be "no". Partly because then and now I feel unworthy of the honor. My room was, of course, my own private space and of course the colonnade just outside and the daily-seen views of the surrounding pavilions gave me a sense of belonging and familiarity, but I don't know that I ever felt much in the way of pride or ownership. The connection I felt was aesthetic rather than historical. I experienced a very strong sense of place but not of heritage, if that makes any sense. I felt connected to the Lawn throughout my years at the University by virtue of my acceptance and participation and through an active intention to connect with the space. Living there my fourth year intensified and personalized that connection, but it wasn't the source of it.

I envy more recent residents because of all the wonderful events and activities that have been instituted since I left: the lighting of The Lawn, the community Halloween celebration, the musical events. That, plus the restoration of student spaces to the Rotunda really make it feel like a more inclusive community space than it perhaps had been when I was there. Our Halloween party was fun in spite of being a bit of a misfire. Cordoning off section of the Colonnade with hung sheets sounded fun, but ended up feeling exclusionary and awkward. Honestly, that's really the only organized event I remember - we must have not been a very community-spirited bunch. I remember a great many small gatherings - hanging out in each other's rooms, playing frisbee, sitting on the steps of the Rotunda, impromptu picnics. I worry that in mentioning speciic names, I might be slighting someone. Marisa, Scott, and Eloise were certainly my most frequent partners in crime. I remember staying up late with Marisa, assembling our silly costumes for the Beaux Arts Ball. I remember sitting with Eloise outside her room (or was it mine) and listening to he breathlessly recounted (real) ghost story. Janet visited at Halloween that year and she and Susan and I carved pumpkins in front of the fire in my room. Oh, but that's more of a 40 East story, isn't it? Late in the year, not long before graduation, I remember lying under a tree on the Lawn and reading "Cold Comfort Farm".

A memory that only recently has returned to me was sparked while I was playing my keyboard in our breezeway recently. During our Covid-19 stay-at-home period, we'd gotten the wood floor in the living room refinished - my piano was exiled to the breezeway. I enjoyed playing with the windows open, hearing birdsong and feeling the breeze. It may have been only once that I had a piano lesson in one of the upstairs offices in Old Cabell Hall. It was either early Autumn or late Spring because the weather was warm and the windows were wide open. For a few minutes, whatever I was playing merged with the sounds of students walking to class, the birds in the trees, the rustling of the leaves, the life of the Lawn.

“The cemetery, because, well, Poe.”

I always make a point of taking something to read on a trip. It's often a P.G. Wodehouse or a Bond novel - something familiar and fun that would help pass the time in the airport concourse after hearing that my flight was delayed. When visiting family, I'll often pick something off the bookshelves to read in bed, but I always make sure I bring SOMETHING with me for the in-transit times. Occasionally I'll pick something that has some connection with the destination. I actually read the first part of a newly-released Harry Potter book in a cupboard under the stairs of a London townhouse and I read part of Stevenson's "Treasure Island" in a sea cave on the island of Virgin Gorda. While scouring my bookshelves for something to bring to Charlottesville, my eye landed on an edition of Poe's complete works. I looked no further.

Poe's presence during my reunion weekend took two forms: I read a number of his stories in my room during my stay and I photographed Paul's Poe action figure at several places around the grounds. This latter activity was admittedly silly, but it did make me think about what it might have been like to encounter Poe on Grounds and, by extension, what life may have been like at the University in its infancy (Poe attended for a year starting in 1826). I made a point of carrying the figurine with me throughout the weekend in case I was inspired by a certain location. The Rotunda, certainly, because he would, one assumes, have gone to the library at SOME point during his stay. The cemetery, because, well, Poe. 13 West Range, the room in which he lived while in school. The practice of photographing figurines was new to me, but I was inspired by our friend Jeff's documentation of the adventures of Drunk Wonder Woman and Paul's recording of the 2018 exploits of Funko Pop Prince Harry on our England trip.

As for the stories, it occurred to me that by reading them in that setting, I could create a connection to my old room that could be recaptured by reading them later on. The theory remains untested as I haven't yet re-read any of them as of this writing. So, several times during my stay, and every evening without fail, I read one or more of the Poe stories. I read in my rocking chair both inside and outside the room. I read while lying in bed, although because the only light in the room at night was the ceiling lamp in the center of the room, I had to read lying in the top bunk. My selections were made based on familiarity (I wanted to reread some familiar old favorites), unfamiliarity (I wanted to branch out), and local interest ("The Tale of the Ragged Mountains" is actually set in Charlottesville).

Ligeia

I don't think I'd ever read this one - I chose it out of my desire to "branch out". I quite liked it. I learned later that the familiar-sounding poem "The Conqueror Worm" composed by the title character, was a pre-existing work by Poe that he incorporated into this story, in which the hero has not one, but TWO young wives who fall ill and die on him. Sad.

The Tell-Tale Heart

The CLASSIC! Paranoia, dismemberment, what's not to like?

MS. Found in a Bottle

I had never read this one either. It's an odd, fantastical tale of a shipwreck in the South Seas in which the lone survivor manages to climb aboard a mysterious black galleon which whisks him off toward the South Pole. He writes an account of the voyage which he then seals in a bottle and casts into the sea on the chance that someone might find it. The story has, like I said, a fantastical, poetic feel and is evocative but, because of its tone, didn't create a feeling of immediate danger or involvement. It made me wonder if Lovecraft had found inspiration in it for some of HIS more poetic ramblings.

The Fall of the House of Usher

Another old favorite. The eminently smackable Roderick Usher inters his sister without bothering to make sure she's really dead. The house falls figuratively (with the deaths of the only two surviving members of the family) and literally (it splits in two and crumbles into the surrounding lake). Great stuff. Oh, and this one also incorporates a pre-existing poem - "The Haunted Palace" - here presented as a song composed by Roderick.

The Tale of the Ragged Mountains

The local interest selection. This is a really weird story about a hiker who experiences a strange hallucination while walking in the hills outside Charlottesville. It relies on the intriguing idea that someone's thoughts can be transferred from one person to the other. Strange stuff. Not sure I fully understood it. I'd been hoping for more local color, but the bulk of the narrative describes the hallucination, not the actual setting.

The Oblong Box

I love nautical intrigues - in this one, a piece of baggage brought on board for an Atlantic crossing is a wooden box about six feet long two-and-a-half feet wide (I wonder what THAT might contain?). The secret is revealed during a hurricane off Cape Hatteras. Lots of fun. It reminded me a lot of Marion Crawford's "The Upper Berth".

The Mask of the Red Death

Wonderful imagery. The relevance to our current predicament only just occurred to me. Prince Prospero hosts a pandemic party with inadequate social distancing and non-protective masks. The fete is held in a series of wonderfully described rooms with a prismatic color scheme. The clock has an unpleasant-sounding chime which ruins the mood on an hourly basis until midnight when the mood is ruined permanently by the arrival of The Red Death.

The Curious Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar

Dodgy, end-of-life healthcare is examined graphically in this upsetting tale. M. Valdemar consents to being hypnotized at the moment of his death. It doesn't go well.

Hop-Frog

An enthralling tale of revenge. The court jester concocts an elaborate scheme to avenge himself on his cruel, abusive oppressors. This one is up there with "Valdemar" for its effectively repulsive descriptions.

Dream within a Dream

I'd heard this poem quoted and decided to finally read it. I don't read much (be fair, any) poetry and I would like to be better at it - more receptive to imagery and allusion. The succession of sounds in this poem struck me as very beautiful, particularly in the second stanza. An interpretation that I read after the fact resonated with me: that the sand slipping through the fingers of the person standing in the surf could represent the resistless passage of time and one's inability to hang on to cherished experiences. That fit the weekend like the paper on the wall (as Wodehouse would have it).

“Body by Lamborghini, high fidelity by Alpine.”

In a favorite flashback moment from "The Big Bang Theory" Sheldon is interviewing prospective roommate Leonard and states that one of the conditions of residency is that if they managed to invent time-travel, they would agree to travel back to meet their former selves "ten seconds from NOW". (They wait a few seconds.) "Well, THAT was disappointing."

Nothing dramatic of the kind occurred over the weekend. I didn't see shadows of my former self. I wasn't spirited back to the Fall of 1983. Delbert Grady didn't turn up to tell me that I'd somehow always been there. I felt no inclination to try to will myself back to my fourth year a la "Somewhere in Time". I was by no means disappointed, however.

My stay at 40 East Lawn that weekend allowed me to recapture a variety of experiences and impressions from my fourth year, some anticipated, some not. The rocking chair was just as I'd remembered it (although for all I know it isn't the same one). The shadows of people walking past the room flitted across the shutters the way I remembered. I'd forgotten the way that the supports in the desk automatically extended when the lid was folded down. The act of putting my toothbrush down on one of the little shelves inside the sink cupboard immediately brought back the memory of the several hundred times I'd performed the same action during my fourth year. The contour of the handle and the weight and motion of the closet door felt instantly familiar. The view through the peephole in the door brought a rush of pleasurable familiarity. Everywhere I looked there was something familiar: the way the floorboards met the bricks of the hearth, the caning of the chair seats, the slow passage across the floor of the rectangle of light from the window, the sound of the rocking chair.

Looking around, I remembered how the room had been when I was there. There was a coarse, stripey, hairy rug from (I think) Africa on the floor which Mom and Dad had consented to allow me to use. There was a Lufthansa poster depicting Neuschwanstein Castle on the wall to the right of the fireplace. Over the fireplace was an advertising poster for Alpine car audio systems showing a red Lamborghini. "Body by Lamborghini, high fidelity by Alpine." Looped over a series of strings anchored into the picture molding was a white nylon snake kite (of my own design and construction) whose face bore a high-contrast portrait of actor Maud Adams. I forget how it played out, but a photographer asked me if he could take pictures of my room for a Japanese fashion magazine (!). He sent me a copy which I think I still have somewhere. On the desk was a box of grey stationary given me by my parents and one or more of my silly calligraphy pens.

That weekend, I was able to finally do something in my room that I hadn't done once during the year I stayed there: I threw a party. It was an entertainment on a very small scale, but it was a party, nonetheless. After our lunch in that gastropub on The Corner, I invited Christina, Mark, and Ruth back to the room for drinks and nibbles. Earlier that day I'd gone to the convenience store and bought a couple of bottles of wine, some cookies, and some grape juice for Ruth. We sat on the chairs in the colonnade in front of the room and drank wine from the three Jefferson cups I had with me (two from home, one that I'd bought at the bookstore at Newcomb Hall that weekend). At my previous reunion, I had the wonderful luck of spending time with Jim St. Pierre who was in Charlottesville that same weekend for a conference. What a treat it was to spend time with the Lawsons at my next reunion. We sat there in the colonnade and chatted, sipping wine and munching on cookies - Ruth fiddled about with her sticker book on the bricks. My Aunt Mary, Christina's grandmother had visited me along with my parents at the beginning of my fourth year. The present gathering was sweetened by memories of that prior one. Our little party over, I walked with the Lawsons as far as the Rotunda - we said goodbye there and I made my way along Rugby Road to meet Susan for a scheduled tour of the creative arts buildings.

“...this time with a mind to returning many of the spaces to student use...”

One of the events I'd attended during my previous reunion was a lecture about the then ongoing renovations to The Rotunda, the central building of Jefferson's Academical Village. Originally the library, it had been expanded and repurposed as classrooms, burned down, been rebuilt, reconfigured, remodeled, restored, and now was being done over yet again, this time with a mind to returning many of the spaces to student use, and striking a better balance between historical preservation and modern usage. Catering facilities were being removed from the building proper and relocated to a new underground space connected to it by a tunnel. Structural modifications and reinforcements were being carried out - the cylindrical shell of the building was fitted with laser alignment equipment to warn of any shifting or instability during the process. The deteriorating marble column capitals which, for years, had been shedding skull-crushing fragments with gay abandon were being removed and duplicated in newly quarried Carrara marble carved by advanced computer-aided milling techniques. It all sounded marvelous and fabulously expensive.

On my prior visit, the building was shrouded in scaffolding, encircled in plywood and festooned with netting to prevent passersby being brained by falling fragments of marble acanthus leaves. The newly replaced copper roof was without it's final coat of white paint and was an interesting burnished bronze color. This time around, the process was complete and the Rotunda was once again open for business. Susan and I gave ourselves a tour. The main differences that we could see were the addition of a museum in one of the lower-level elliptical rooms and new stairways to the upper gallery of the Dome Room which was lined with tables and armchairs for student use. Exporing this last reminded me of another tour - one given me many years before by my friend Becca who studied classics at The University in preparation for seminary. Bec had a gig as a Rotunda tourguide and she granted me the privilege of a tour of some of the then-inaccessible areas of the building. This time around, I was especially glad to see that the building has been made more available to students, particularly now that it costs fuckety-seven thousand dollars a year to attend. That upper gallery is a wonderful space - Susan and I sat in neighboring armchairs and watched other visitors moving around the dome room and walking through the shaft of sunlight projected through the oculus. Sitting there, it was easy to imagine that the candlelit Rotunda dinners we attended, for Pep Band and other organizations, were still somehow going on and that we might catch a glimpse of the revelers if we could somehow look through the veil. Back on the ground floor, we explored another of those wonderful elliptical spaces, this one a reception room pleasantly furnished with furniture that could actually be used by the visitors. Also a vast improvement, to my mind.

On two of the mornings of my stay, I got up fairly early, bought a cup of coffee and a bagel at Bodo's on The Corner and walked back up to the Rotunda to eat my breakfast at one of the cafe tables in the west courtyard. It's a lovely setting in which to get outside of a cup of coffee and a bagel with lox and cream cheese. The curved wall of the Rotunda rises above on one side and the ornamental railing of the terrace on the other. Needless to say, I mountaineered around on the terrace a couple of times getting photographs. It was a double pleasure to find the Rotunda fully renovated and reopened and to be able to enjoy the new public spaces. Really, apart from Rotunda dinners and visits from relatives who wanted the tour, there wasn't much of anything for students there.

Leaving is difficult. I followed the instructions and put the bed linens and towels into the appropriate container. I packed up all my stuff and made sure I hadn't left anything behind. I arranged my duffle bag and my backpack so that I could pick them up and walk out the door knowing I had everything with me. And I hesitated. This room was mine again for a brief time. It would always be mine, I reminded myself. I'd earned it (however much my innate self-deprecation would object). But for the past three days it had been mine once again in a more real, immediate sense. It was my home again, however briefly. When I walked through the door and locked it, it would no longer be my residence. I snapped the latch handle on the door, pulled it shut, and heard the bolt shut against me. I put my earbuds into my ears and pressed the "play" button on my antediluvian iPod. The plaintive piano intro to "Suspirium" by Thom Yorke began to play and I walked down the colonnade and across the Lawn towards my rendezvous point with Susan on the West Range.

We drove north on 29, stopping at a family restaurant for breakfast. We conversed about the reunion, I suppose. My mind was full of thoughts about my fourth year. I remember nothing of the ride home or of the remainder of the trip.

So much has changed in the year since the reunion. On the day that I write this, it was reported that our country's economy just had its worst quarter on record. Tens of millions of Americans are out of work, a thousand die each day from Covid-19, and with no end in sight. Back in March, I felt for the Lawn residents who were forced to shorten their stay in the rooms that they earned the privilege to occupy through their hard work and devotion to the University community. I don't know what the institution's plan is for the Fall. I read that the reunions for this summer were postponed to the following Summer. Selfishly, I hope that by the time my next reunion rolls around, things will be back to, nay, have arrived at some new normal. Until then, I will visit the Grounds vicariously through the memories and images recorded on this page.