Last year, around this time, if you had told me that I would be hopping across the Atlantic on a sweet sojourn to the UK, I not only would not have believed you, I probably would have laughed in your face.
Many things have materialized in the past months, a number of them weighty and determining for the future. In retrospect, perhaps the gravity of all that has transpired since I last wrote here is the best explanation for my (hypothetical) rebuke to the suggestion that I would be doing any traveling - and that too traveling for fun. But alas, life twists itself into unexpected forms in unexpected ways, shaping up eventually to send me all the way to England.
My dearest is studying for the year at Oxford, where we spent some blissful days together exploring uncharted streets and hidden corners, new cafes and old libraries. Oxford, is of course, home to the legendary and ancient university with its 38 constituent colleges, each an academic artifact in its own right. But strolling the city, it is quite difficult to tell where exactly the school ends and the town begins. The two are so intricately woven together, physically, but also intangibly. Colleges are flanked on either side by curiosity shops and coffeehouses - and flowing through, transcending these scholarly spaces and cityscapes, are so many people, and different people that too, from all walks of life representing a distinct creeds and heritages, hailing from all corners of the world. It is impossible to tell, at least from my perspective, who is a student and who isn't. But everyone puttering around town puttered with a unifying air about them, a dedication to learning that cannot be measured, only felt.
The stalwart landmarks of the school are indeed just as beautiful as in pictures, inspiring a quiet kind of awe. The Bodleian Library, famed cathedrals, gated colleges and lush quadrangles, the Radcliffe Camera. Their witnessed beauty is only enhanced by the realization that they've been around for literally hundreds of years. You would think that a place so old would sag from the weight of its history and responsibility of its legacy. But this is strangely not the case. There is incredible vitality here, perhaps due to the inhabitants of the city and school, as well as these inhabitants' quest for knowledge, their contemporary academic purpose. The vitality cohabits with antiquity, doing so in a way that produces a distinct kind of synthesis, that itself permeates through the old walls, perking up the stones, alighting along the cracks and withers of each building, edifice, and street path. Spirited, yet stately. This paradoxical temperament hovers over the city, casting a mysteriously seductive glow to every interaction. The old and new are woven together by the tenuous but hearty string of a common pursuit of education. Of course this could be a broad generalization based on my limited exposure. But it seems like this would be a difficult place to exist if one did not have that desire. The school has subsumed the city - one does not exist apart from the other. How has this pursuit remained so strong throughout thousands of years - strong enough to keep centuries old palaces of learning operating? I think, perhaps, that humanity must require education to survive, not just in a tangible sense, but a spiritual one. The passage of knowledge sustains, in us, a feeling of purpose - of meaning. And perhaps most importantly an acceptance of our own mortality. It provides sustenance for the soul in a world that sometimes feels intent on starving us. And this is comforting, if not liberating.
Oxford is a tad confounding for reasons I've been trying to articulate since I arrived. In some ways, it feels like a large city artfully stuffed, almost crammed, into a small town - bursting at the edges. It is tough to wander around for less than five minutes without encountering a sense of urgency, embodied best by the plethora of speeding cyclists whipping around and through lollygagging pedestrians, automobiles, and buses. Also indicative: a lack of free tables in any cafe, people and their jovial laughter spilling out onto the streets, very few inches of sidewalk left untrampled anywhere you go. But it is also difficult to meander about without sighing in delight at the sheer grandeur of the place - of something that not only still stands, but still functions. For example, I'm writing this in a third-floor cafe, leeching of the free wifi. One turn around to the window and across the street is the old library itself, a monolith, complete with gargoyles and parapets, its expansive form taking up the entire window's panorama. This is probably the tenth time I've seen it, the last four were unremarkable, but this time, I gave pause in contemplative appreciation. Such is the alluring ubiquity of history: after a while it loses novelty but can mysteriously win it all back at just the right moment, in a second.
The act of giving pause is a concept I have been thinking about more and more recently. It's true, I am the kind of traveller, the kind of explorer that needs to see everything there is to see. I like to make an agenda, get up and go, deriving a sweet satisfaction from ticking things off my to-do list as I do them. But walking through the Oxford Botanical Garden, arm in arm with my sweetheart, our stroll together eclipsed any to-do list I had stored in the cavities of my brain, each open box awaiting a check mark dissipating into the cold Oxford air. In truth, nothing was actually blooming to see (it was too cold). But it didn't matter. Giving pause to revel in a beloved's company, the simplicity of being in love under the soft gleam of wintery sunlight, such are the moments that propel meaning to our existence. One can feel almost an incandescent happiness in such pauses.
And so we sought out these pauses, not directly per say, but we certainly abandoned the agenda. We ambled through the Gloucester Green market where I rejected a taste of famous dumplings to much consternation. We wiled away hours in a board-game cafe where you pay to play, rather than consume. We snuck into closed colleges to marvel at the architecture and ambience (and sometimes, the sheer pompousness). We turned into alleys just for kicks and rummaged through every bookstore we happened upon. We drank a lot of coffee. I tasted the most divine Turkish delight I've had the fortune to try at the oldest coffeehouse in England, Queen's Lane. Strongly rose-flavored, for those who are curious. We lost ourselves in deep conversation over elderflower cocktails. Marched our way through museums, from art to natural history. We caught a play (Sense and Sensibility). We just walked. For hours, through serene neighborhoods and along the river and in the Christ Church meadows.
We were together. And that, maybe, was the most precious experience of all.
Many things have materialized in the past months, a number of them weighty and determining for the future. In retrospect, perhaps the gravity of all that has transpired since I last wrote here is the best explanation for my (hypothetical) rebuke to the suggestion that I would be doing any traveling - and that too traveling for fun. But alas, life twists itself into unexpected forms in unexpected ways, shaping up eventually to send me all the way to England.
My dearest is studying for the year at Oxford, where we spent some blissful days together exploring uncharted streets and hidden corners, new cafes and old libraries. Oxford, is of course, home to the legendary and ancient university with its 38 constituent colleges, each an academic artifact in its own right. But strolling the city, it is quite difficult to tell where exactly the school ends and the town begins. The two are so intricately woven together, physically, but also intangibly. Colleges are flanked on either side by curiosity shops and coffeehouses - and flowing through, transcending these scholarly spaces and cityscapes, are so many people, and different people that too, from all walks of life representing a distinct creeds and heritages, hailing from all corners of the world. It is impossible to tell, at least from my perspective, who is a student and who isn't. But everyone puttering around town puttered with a unifying air about them, a dedication to learning that cannot be measured, only felt.
The stalwart landmarks of the school are indeed just as beautiful as in pictures, inspiring a quiet kind of awe. The Bodleian Library, famed cathedrals, gated colleges and lush quadrangles, the Radcliffe Camera. Their witnessed beauty is only enhanced by the realization that they've been around for literally hundreds of years. You would think that a place so old would sag from the weight of its history and responsibility of its legacy. But this is strangely not the case. There is incredible vitality here, perhaps due to the inhabitants of the city and school, as well as these inhabitants' quest for knowledge, their contemporary academic purpose. The vitality cohabits with antiquity, doing so in a way that produces a distinct kind of synthesis, that itself permeates through the old walls, perking up the stones, alighting along the cracks and withers of each building, edifice, and street path. Spirited, yet stately. This paradoxical temperament hovers over the city, casting a mysteriously seductive glow to every interaction. The old and new are woven together by the tenuous but hearty string of a common pursuit of education. Of course this could be a broad generalization based on my limited exposure. But it seems like this would be a difficult place to exist if one did not have that desire. The school has subsumed the city - one does not exist apart from the other. How has this pursuit remained so strong throughout thousands of years - strong enough to keep centuries old palaces of learning operating? I think, perhaps, that humanity must require education to survive, not just in a tangible sense, but a spiritual one. The passage of knowledge sustains, in us, a feeling of purpose - of meaning. And perhaps most importantly an acceptance of our own mortality. It provides sustenance for the soul in a world that sometimes feels intent on starving us. And this is comforting, if not liberating.
Oxford is a tad confounding for reasons I've been trying to articulate since I arrived. In some ways, it feels like a large city artfully stuffed, almost crammed, into a small town - bursting at the edges. It is tough to wander around for less than five minutes without encountering a sense of urgency, embodied best by the plethora of speeding cyclists whipping around and through lollygagging pedestrians, automobiles, and buses. Also indicative: a lack of free tables in any cafe, people and their jovial laughter spilling out onto the streets, very few inches of sidewalk left untrampled anywhere you go. But it is also difficult to meander about without sighing in delight at the sheer grandeur of the place - of something that not only still stands, but still functions. For example, I'm writing this in a third-floor cafe, leeching of the free wifi. One turn around to the window and across the street is the old library itself, a monolith, complete with gargoyles and parapets, its expansive form taking up the entire window's panorama. This is probably the tenth time I've seen it, the last four were unremarkable, but this time, I gave pause in contemplative appreciation. Such is the alluring ubiquity of history: after a while it loses novelty but can mysteriously win it all back at just the right moment, in a second.
The act of giving pause is a concept I have been thinking about more and more recently. It's true, I am the kind of traveller, the kind of explorer that needs to see everything there is to see. I like to make an agenda, get up and go, deriving a sweet satisfaction from ticking things off my to-do list as I do them. But walking through the Oxford Botanical Garden, arm in arm with my sweetheart, our stroll together eclipsed any to-do list I had stored in the cavities of my brain, each open box awaiting a check mark dissipating into the cold Oxford air. In truth, nothing was actually blooming to see (it was too cold). But it didn't matter. Giving pause to revel in a beloved's company, the simplicity of being in love under the soft gleam of wintery sunlight, such are the moments that propel meaning to our existence. One can feel almost an incandescent happiness in such pauses.
And so we sought out these pauses, not directly per say, but we certainly abandoned the agenda. We ambled through the Gloucester Green market where I rejected a taste of famous dumplings to much consternation. We wiled away hours in a board-game cafe where you pay to play, rather than consume. We snuck into closed colleges to marvel at the architecture and ambience (and sometimes, the sheer pompousness). We turned into alleys just for kicks and rummaged through every bookstore we happened upon. We drank a lot of coffee. I tasted the most divine Turkish delight I've had the fortune to try at the oldest coffeehouse in England, Queen's Lane. Strongly rose-flavored, for those who are curious. We lost ourselves in deep conversation over elderflower cocktails. Marched our way through museums, from art to natural history. We caught a play (Sense and Sensibility). We just walked. For hours, through serene neighborhoods and along the river and in the Christ Church meadows.
We were together. And that, maybe, was the most precious experience of all.
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