Exploring Before Dark at Regent's Park

Last weekend, I visited London with a few friends also studying at Oxford through the same study abroad program (Butler’s IFSA). As it turns out, the train ride from Oxford to London isn’t much of a journey, only about an hour or so and the sun was out, which tends to make everything, well, sunnier. Trains are a wonderful travel, no matter the scenery: they’re quiet, smooth, safe – a good place to talk with others or be quiet and think about whatever it is your mind drifts to when you give it the chance to wander. Trains in the UK, and Europe, are especially great, though that assertion might be partly due to the fact that my basis of comparison is the Metra that travels to and fro Chicago. Oh, Metra, some days I want to curse you, some days I want to give you a hug.

The two friends I was with, Anna and Danielle, arrived in London around 1:00 in the afternoon, with exploring on our mind. Our stomachs weren’t grumbling too loudly, since they both bought bagels from a scrumptious, small sandwich shop (The Alternative Tuck Shop – which will earn itself a post very soon) and I packed trusty comfort food: peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and a granola bar. My failsafe. My solid rock in the uncertainty of this new land. We made our way to the Tube, our destination the Camden Market in the north of England. Upon arriving there, after a stroll through the borough, I was ready to leave. The area must have possessed the highest concentration of street vendors, of food and t-shirt and questionable paraphernalia, of anywhere on earth, Calcutta included. Sensory overload. Olfactory overload.

After wandering about for a good while, we miraculously found a burrito stand attended by a cheerful, heartwarming Irishman, who made us impeccably fresh and well-balanced (is it presumptuous to assume that you, too, are easily irritated at Chipotle’s probably-intentional disproportionate amount of rice-to-meat?) chicken and steak burritos. Score one for team us! A friend of Danielle’s, Grant, who is studying abroad at King’s College in London, met up with us shortly before our delicious discovery, and vowed to guide us to Regent’s Park as the sun’s descent further approached the horizon.

I had been to Regent’s Park while in London upon first arriving in England, yet only while jogging through, not absorbing the wonderful blending of natural growth and human cultivation of its gardens. The Queen’s Garden was our goal, because of its roses that were slowly dying to the impending winter. When we arrived at the gates, I was worn. Traveling, constantly making logistical decisions, accounting for others’ desires, remembering to keep your wallet in your front pocket, checking your surroundings around every turn, remembering directions, pulling off and donning more layers, working within time constraints, makes me tired pretty quickly. Though it had only been six or seven hours, by the time we arrived at the gates of the Queen’s Garden, I was ready to sit and be still and quiet, to fade into the background for a little while, and watch and listen. And, thankfully, that’s what I got to do.

Look at a few of the flowers I found:


It was good to sit on the park bench there, watching a French couple walking alongside one another, the father pushing a stroller cradling a fleece-swaddled napping baby, seeing a dad chase his toddling son through the garden, them both giggling at one another, hearing Danielle’s and Grant’s conversation drift from the bench a little ways away. There’s something restoring that comes from simply listening, seeing, trying to do no more, and no less. The roses were beautiful, and partly because they weren’t in their prime. Many of them were faded, wilted, calling it quits for the season. Yet there were a few that rewarded the patient explorer, full and vibrant, seeming to take one last stretch in the fading sunlight. I smiled in return.

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))