Quirky People Coming Home to Roost

An aspect of Oxford that I’ve grown to love as I’ve noticed it is the quiet quaintness of this place. The stores, the streets, the proximity of places – there are so many nooks to explore and corners to turn, all of which creates a curious and quietly alive atmosphere. Students, no doubt, contribute to this, what does one call it?, quirkiness. I talked with a friend at dinner last night who told me about a friend of his who, when asked his favorite place in the town said the Ashmolean Museum, where he “can spend hours.” A museum! Not a club, not asleep in his bed, not the dining hall. I’ve noticed that students here seem OK with their peculiarities, more so than students in the States. They aren’t self-conscious when they talk about enjoying reading or writing, or going to plays, and they don’t say it in a pretentious, self-satisfied way. Granted, I have talked with a total of ten British students, and am sure that those with pompous tendencies abound, and students here are still students, with their complaints and stresses and uncertainties about themselves and the future. They are still people. Yet, the community encourages quirkiness, curious individuality, and I like that students go about that in quiet ways.

While walking through University Parks a few days ago, I came upon this curious mound of leaves and sticks beneath a few maples:

A human-sized nest, it seemed to me. Immediately curious, I read the sign planted in the ground nearby, explaining that the creation was the art project of a University student learning about birds’ nest-making processes. So what did she do? Made a nest! Why not? I imagine her walking lightly through a nearby forest, tweed bag in hand, listening to the crowing of birds and crinkling of leaves and sticks underfoot, wearing leather boots and black tights and a grey jumper, a very British outfit, eyes open for medium-sized twigs. She probably spent an afternoon searching, and another afternoon building, smiling at incredulous passersby, sometimes explaining herself to the bolder ones who ask her intentions. I imagine she’s worked on projects before and has moved beyond the defensive posture of one feeling ridiculed by others to a quiet confidence in the joy of her endeavor. And I imagine there are many students like that here, who live into the intellectual and creative freedom offered through the tutorial system, possibly realizing that life itself is about that kind of freedom, to pursue joys and questions and others.

I haven’t yet found a good enough word to express the flavor of life here, and will keep searching for a way. For now, quiet-quirkiness will have to suffice.

The Sweet Ride

So, the thought of a study-abroad-life-blog has overwhelmed me a bit over the past two weeks since I last updated. Perhaps it's the amount of reading and writing I do daily at this academic hub, or all of the things I think about during the day that might be worth writing about but also might be a waste of time, or perhaps it's the idea of a blog, of publishing unedited blurbs from my life for anyone to read that makes me feel a bit discouraged. Needless to say, I have an odd aversion to consistently updating others with my life via an online journal. Yet I still want to document things, to take pictures and make lists and explore little wonderings and wanderings.

I was walking around town the other day when a thought hit me, an idea that fits this conundrum and provides me an avenue for expression and documentation and space to write. So, I'll try it for a bit, though not strictly. Taking from Amy Krouse Rosenthal's style, and sticking to my initial desire set in the first post of the trip, I propose to explore small things and ordinary things and lovely things, one or so at a time.

The Sweet Ride
Let's talk about bikes. Let's talk about the joy of living is significantly augmented with the gift of bike. Let's talk about how good it feels to hop on the pedals on a brisk, sunny, breezy fall day, scarf wrapped and helmet buckled (as dad would have it), heading to the park to read and write, on the left side of the road because it's England, on the one-foot-wide green path designated for bikers and encroached upon by bus drivers. Let's talk about how I wandered around Oxford for three hours one afternoon in search of a used bike, to no avail, and eventually settled upon this magical machine after returning to the bike store twice because they prepared the wrong bike for me:
Let's talk about how awesome it is to attach a bungee cord to the package-carrier on the back to hold necessities such as a water bottle and jacket, or small woodland creature. Let's talk about how good it feels to pass someone who doesn't need to be somewhere as badly as you do, so you stand up on the pedals and pump and smile to yourself as you pass them, and imagine yourself sticking a wheel in their spokes to further insult their lack of vigor which makes you laugh to yourself because that's so uncharacteristic of you.

Though this bike isn't nearly as sleek as the hot rod I have at home, it provides swift access to the downtown area of Oxford, rides quietly, smoothly, and confidently. His name is Spencer, and he is a reliable friend in a territory becoming, with his help, more familiar each day.

826? More Like Great26!

Two summers ago, while in Sandwich, Illinois, I came upon a book in a used bookstore after eating a sandwich with a few friends from high school – an annual outing. My heart leapt when the book’s binding registered on the ever-growing wish list in my mind and, as sometimes happens, I sensed a certain providence in the discovery, a sense that I was meant to find that work then and there. A friend of mine recommended Dave Eggers’s achingly sincere, enjoyable, and tragic autobiography A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius some time before the convergence, planting the seed that would prepare my receipt of the book. While an affecting, inspiring, book that reached me on many levels, what is even more interesting is where the book has helped point me.

Researching an author post-read is a healthy activity for any curious reader (right?), and I found myself wanting to know more about Eggers and his life, what he might be up to after releasing such an earnest and noteworthy work, if he was basking in the glow of its success, swimming in pools of gold coins like Scrooge McDuck, or continuing living as an ordinary individual who happens to possess a singular literary talent. Helping start a publishing house, McSweeney’s, that gives ardent, sometimes undistinguished writers a chance at a novel, or inclusion in the quarterly publication, Eggers also began a writing center in San Francisco. His idea was to create a tutoring center in conjunction with the publishing house: with the many talented and encouraging authors loitering around together in a building, why not, in their spare time, extend a pen-ink-stained hand to students in the area? Thus, 826 Valencia was conceived, a child bursting with creative energy the heart to help, quickly wandering to almost every major city in the US, Chicago included.

With the recession in full swing, I knew, this past February, chances were slim that I’d land a lucrative, conveniently scheduled three-month job while home from college on summer break. Living at home has its benefits: free food, my own room, and a bathroom. Oh, and a family that cares for me. Though our well-being does not depend upon my income, thank goodness (that would mean far less used books to buy), I felt a nagging voice in the back of my head: “You need to do something during summer. I know you’re a human being, not a human doing, but that is not an excuse for avoiding involvement.” I knew a bit about 826 Chicago: the storefront, ambiguously called “The Boring Store,” was spy-themed. Plus. It was located in Wicker Park. Plus. It was an 826. Plus. So, with determination and not a little uncertainty, I fashioned a résumé, set up an interview for February 21 and waited.

The interview went semi-awkwardly, on my part, yet they saw something in me, perhaps it was the eagerness with which I answered their inquiries, or the glint in my eye, and I was asked onboard as a summer intern. Right on! Instead of write a “a day in the life of an 826 Chicago summer intern,” I’ll proceed more in the spirit of the community there, by using various objects associated with or belonging to the center to elucidate the experience, with one admonition: to better sense the vibrant and delightful atmosphere there, a visit is necessary. The trip is worth an afternoon.

The Cast-Iron Mechanical Cash Register
Located on Milwaukee Avenue in Wicker Park, the exterior of 826 sports an ostentatious sign signaling “The Boring Store,” with ironically superfluous captions, technical jargon, and product descriptions that mostly say “we don’t take ourselves too seriously.” Inside, one finds oneself amidst rearview sunglasses, posters of international secret intelligence insignias, faux security cameras, and a fake-mustache-trying-on station. The cash register at the clerk desk, at first look, seems rather out of place: a big, cast-iron mechanical register no doubt from the turn of the century. However, after more perusal of the store, you realize what holds everything together, the undercover, antiquated, literary (there is a shelf of McSweeney’s-published works) atmosphere – the playful tongue-in-cheekness of the place and the people. And it works. All of the proceeds, the staff are quick to share, help fund the writing center at 826.

A Sunday Afternoon Hotdog Meal
Walk through a doorway next to the register, and you find yourself in the workshop area of 826, a big, open room that feels like a classroom with splashes of color, humor, and enthusiasm. Staff members and volunteers run creative workshops and drop-in tutoring for first grade through high school students year round, free of charge. During the summer usually two or three workshops are held per day, with such titles as, “Travel the World Through Chocolate,” “Once Upon a Time Again: Using Improv to Create a Fairytale Parody,” and “Mystery Mail: Surprising Serials!” (the latter of which I happened to have taught!).
A requisite of the workshops (volunteers submit proposals) is that students receive a tangible representation of their work afterward, usually a booklet compiling the writings of all the attendees. Every year or so, 826 National, the umbrella organization, accepts submissions from the 826s for an official publication. 826 Chicago recently made a book, A Sunday Afternoon Hotdog Meal, a collection of elementary-aged students’ essays concerning all things Chicago: where one should visit, must-see destinations, and where to find the best Chicago-style hotdogs.

White MacBook Laptops
Pardon the break from the single-object description imposed upon the latter half of this essay, for their was not one MacBook employed within 826, no, generally five to six were up and fashionably running at any given moment. The staff members joked that 826 was a prime spot for a Mac commercial with such a uniform technological and aesthetic preference. However, they are not a superficial bunch. Working long hours, constantly helping one another and walking to the Jewel around the corner for sandwich parts, joking with students to elicit their engagement, and somehow finding the energy for patience and wit – they are a lovely and persevering bunch. Much of the encouraging, spontaneous atmosphere of the place, no doubt the only way to foster creativity, is owed to their heartening personalities, and the students are better for it.

There you have it! The place is great, wonderful even. It’s a place where imaginations are urged to wake up, funny bones tickled by oversized feathers, and hearts are encouraged to feel. And the joy is a contagious thing.

(Note: The picture included is of me (on the right) a few of the interns, and a handful of students after a play-writing workshop. Fun! This piece is also pending publication for the Glen Ellyn Bookstore's online journal.)

We're Not In Kansas Anymore, and the Colors are Beautiful

Day 11

Today’s breakfast consists of:
- a lightly-toasted egg-and-cheese sandwich on wheat (sandwich at 8:30am? Of course!
- a bowl of a granola-y cereal I found at the grocer downtown that has chunks of yogurt and raspberry and happiness.
- Claritin (not much nutritional value, to my knowledge), a Vitamin C (more nutritional value) and a pink multi-vitamin (the mother lode of nutritional value.)
- Sunlight streaming through the blinds of the floor to ceiling window in my half of our en-suite room.
- Bon Iver’s “Blood Bank EP,” through headphones (Justin Vernon wasn’t able to make it over this morning)
- A lovely email from a lovely girl back home, a significant girl in my life, a life-giving girl.

I really couldn’t have concocted a better morning. Since arriving at Oxford, at England for that matter, finding a sense of home hasn’t been easy and the first coupe days here felt, at times, gut-wrenchingly strange and awkward, much like freshmen year at high school all over again. I forget how it is to walk into a dining hall seeing 96% unrecognized faces, no friend-anchor insight to grab a seat next to. Socializing here is an interesting thing: the central place of socialization at St. Catherine’s is the JCR (Junior Commons Room), which boasts a big-screen TV, pool tables, a fire place (that’s never been used, I was told), comfy chairs, and, last but not least, the college bar. At night, students, after finishing dinner and their day’s work, congregate at the JCR simply to hang out and have a drink. This certainly isn’t a strange occurrence – people in the States drink alcohol and meet with one another, sometimes at the same time. Yet, this is certainly not how I’m used to meeting others. I’ll generally meet people I know and then head somewhere.

This past week at Oxford has felt very much like the first week of freshman year at IWU, not a little bit because they pair visiting students with the freshmen here for orientation-type activities. The same element of meeting people, of figuring out how to live and work and play here, of wandering around knowing peoples’ names but not their favorite thing to read or what their real laugh sounds like, is consistent with the beginning of college. In many ways it does feel like I’m carving out a new life in unknown territory, yet now that I have a home-base to return to, a little nook that feels like me with its maps and familiar books and peaceful pictures, the half of my suite (I have to say half because my roommate gets the other half, our spaces divided by a curtain), the territory feels a bit more known. And I would say this is true for many things here.

London was very overwhelming in that sense. While I met some lovely American students who knew the town well and shared significant similarities with me, I still felt like a stranger wandering in a strange land, without a landmark in sight except for the touristy-ones. My map was not yet well-worn, and much less memorized, coupled with the navigation of relating with new people I was placed alongside. I tend to be an incremental person, wanting to slowly appreciate and explore and learn things, and the constant dousing of newness wore on me, this past week at Oxford too.

Yet, and yet, each day continues and I feel more myself, more connected with this place and the people here. Two days ago, I had some free time in the morning, a rare sunny morning at that, and I left St. Catherine’s small-ish campus in search of a quiet bench to read and pray. After ten minutes of walking down a trafficky (pedestrian and automotive) road, past towering, ancient-stone and curiously welcoming Oxford colleges, about to turn around, I happened upon Oxford University Parks, a collection of sports greens on the outskirts of town. By myself, I strolled across the fields, a lone park bench near some small trees (I wish I knew what type). When I reached it, I sat, and breathed, and looked around at the loveliness surrounding me: students in the distance walking to and fro class, the empty soccer pitches resting, waiting for the next games, an older couple sitting on a similar bench a few hundred yards away, the city center not too far off in the distance as indicated by the handful of steeples reaching toward the sky. I wasn’t distracted by a sense of having to meet people, or of having to appreciate where I was because of Oxford being Oxford. I was simply, and peacefully, there, looking around and seeing.

Sitting on the bench, reading a CS Lewis book, Letters to Malcolm, I felt a true sense of belonging here, in the midst of its newness to me (oldness to itself). This place will certainly come to me in increments, as will the friendships and the learning, and the less I feel pressure to absorb it all, the more I am able to. It’s good to be here. It’s good to be here for a while.

Away He Go

It’s an unsettling thing to live in a country different from one’s own, to intentionally place oneself in a wholly unfamiliar context and see what happens – what changes, what grows, what is challenged, what becomes quiet, what remains about and within oneself. Having spent only four days in London thus far, days spent largely with other United Statesians, I already sense some of the subtle contrasts of US culture and that of the UK. Before beginning that twiggy branch of thought, though, I’ll posit a “statement of purpose” for the writings to follow in the coming year, a request also asked for by Oxford in its study abroad application, in all its philosophical ambiguity:

“First of all, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I do not intend to transcribe a detailed schedule for you as an attempt to tell my story of studying abroad (though I may choose to do so once in a while, if I have a quite unconventional day or am fresh out of good ideas for a post). I do, however, intend to communicate the curious particulars of the days to come, for I find that these are what tend to interest me most in life: the lilt in my Irish friend’s voice, especially evident when he mentions his nation of origin. The compounding frustration of trying to find a reasonably priced, reasonably nutritional, reasonably delicious meal in a supermarket at 18:30. The mildly awkward music situation in the hotel lift, how it turns on when the lift begins moving and turns off when the doors open, as a strangely utilitarian European courtesy. The bleached, matching mullets of the two large, presumably Dutch women sitting next to one another on a sofa in the lobby. The background things. The things that interest me which, therefore, I tend to remember. Hopefully they interest you too.
I intend to try to not focus on myself. I get tired and bored of me rather easily, and since I’ll be around me a lot, I’ll enjoy considering other things. I intend to be honest, as honest as I can while maintaining a tact I hope to cultivate. It’s easy to fall into extremes with honesty – clamming up for fear of alienating another, unabashedly confessing for fear of not finding some way, any way, to connect with others. As a wise friend often says, there’s a balance to it.
I intend to invite you to glimpse into this experience with me. Let’s see what happens, this uncontextual adaptation.”

Being away from home and friends isn’t the strangest thing right now; I’ve dealt with the adjustment to living at college, being apart from friends during summer (and this fall, having left two months later than most), and have traveled a bit. Perhaps being in England still feels like a weekend trip. Perhaps I will realize “being here” more fully once I arrive in Oxford, or when I am given a look of disgust after putting peanut butter (I brought two jars – comfort blankets – from home) and jelly on a piece of bread for a sandwich (much like the look I gave to the cheese-and-pickle offering at today’s lunch buffet). Maybe I’ll realize it tonight when I wake wanting to read a Carl Sandburg poem from my favorite anthology and can’t. Maybe I’ll realize it when I walk into CS Lewis’ favorite Oxford pub, The Eagle and Child.

The strangest thing for me right now is a sense of being out of rhythm, physically (eating differently, not exercising on the same schedule), mentally (not writing and reading on my own, to the extent I did over the summer), relationally (meeting new people constantly, being away from my family, from BethAnne, from friends), spiritually (it seems that some from the UK like to flaunt the fact that they are very much a post-God culture, as if that were a good place to be).

I’m not upset or miserable here – just processing, and a bit worn too. I’ll probably do a lot of that on this site (thinking, processing, expressing), and I promise more humorous anecdotes and themes. I know I said that last time, honey, but this time it's true. You gotta' believe me. You gotta. Don't leave me.

Anyway, final thought: recently (the last two years, that is), life has seemed to be largely about rebalancing in new contexts, and it is a new balance I now have to find. It’s something that will change, will be challenged, and no doubt strengthened as I seek and remember my Center in this new place.

(Written 3 September 2009 in London (I like to write by hand before typing, though this causes a publication delay))