Notes

Notes from the Botanic Gardens, November 9 2008

This is the one place in Oxford where I always feel that I am on the inside, looking out.

The river is green, the trees are yellow.

What is it about a garden? All around me are signs of Autumnal decay--a wet and barren landscape, the scratching of leaves against a cold ground. And yet I think that, in the presence of things which have grown, will grow, we can suddenly believe that we, too, grow.----There in the murky pool we see peace, or hope, or both; our thoughts become un-crowded, we start to believe in the permanence of the trees and the transience of all else. We have a clouded sense of happiness--not perfect, or impure, but unusually tangible.


(I go for a run today. The sky is heavy, the grass has turned a deeper shade of emerald, and the yellow leaves have all fallen from the tree outside the study window. Every season is the most beautiful season, here.)

Bonfires & Remembrance

My first bonfire night on Wednesday. We walked down the river to the Isis. There was no Guy but there was a bonfire made of old boats, and mulled cider with bits of apple in it, and sparklers, and homemade lentil and chestnut soup served in paper cups. There were fireworks splattering the sky, and the Man and I agreed that our favorite part of the fire was not the flames but the sparks that were drawn up, like red stars fading fast. We wrote our names in the air with the sparklers and when the bonfire had died down and all the men were trying to revive it, I went to the edge of the river. The night was wet and windless, and the water itself stood black and still, so that the reflection of the trees looked almost more real--starker certainly--than the trees themselves. Jerome's three men (and a dog) may not have paddled down the river in November, but for a moment I could feel them sleeping on the shore here. Then we all went inside again, to warm our hands and lean against the bar.

The fireworks have been going ever since. On my walk home tonight I see them blazing above my street; sitting here in the house, I hear them going off with imperfect but inevitable regularity.

We still battle this cold; blowing our noses, overcome with lethargy and a need for fruit. This morning I woke up and suddenly wanted to make myself toast with honey and bananas, which was something I ate a lot in my first year of university; first I stilled myself because I am not like I was then, but then I thought: we do not have to erase every memory just because it is not the way we are now, and I cut up the banana into slices and placed them on my toast. But we had no honey after all.

***

In the waiting room at the doctor's the other night, a white-haired woman with a cane broke the English code of silence amongst strangers despite the open book on my knees. First she said she wasn't here for herself.

"I'm here for a friend," she said. "She's got dementia. She can't take care of herself. I've known her oh--eighty, seventy--sixty years, if not seventy. We were very close. It's horrible to see her like this. I still care for her but her family won't take any responsibility. It's all up to me. I am feeling resentful today. Today is my day, for me. I'm having to miss my afternoon rest which I'm all but ordered to take. I could have sat at home and read a book."

She looked at me. "I suppose you're too young to have to deal with this. You're of--another generation."

I said I was, yes, but that still, I knew people who were struggling with the same thing. She nodded.
"It's everywhere, isn't it."
"Horrible," I agreed. Then she asked what I was doing here.
"Studying?"
"I'm doing a masters," I told her. "At Oxford Brookes."
"I've got two grandsons here at Oxford, and another at Oxford Brookes. And my daughters went here, and I was at Oxford as well, you know. And my mother was here! She was here before the War, the First War. She left in 1912 and do you know when she was given a degree?"
I smiled; I did know the answer to this one. "Not for quite some time after, I would imagine," I said.
"Not until 1928," she said. "Can you believe that?"

Then she was silent for awhile, and I tried to read about the origins of human creativity but my head felt full and my nose dripped. I coughed into the turtleneck of my jumper.

"My uncle was in the first war," she said abruptly. "He lied about his age to join up, in 1917? Or 1918. But he died. It always seemed to me that they didn't know what they were fighting for, then. In the other war at least they had Hitler to rally against, but that first war, it had no--direction."
"Yes," I said.
"It's been coming up a lot recently," she said, touching the red poppy pinned to her breast. "All that generation is gone."
"Yes," I agreed.
"And my husband--before we were married. He was in the second war. He joined the Air Force and was there in the Battle of Britain. And it's strange--I remember that summer. I was at Oxford, you know. And we were throwing our mattresses out of the windows so we could sleep outside, it was that hot--and the men were coming across from Dunkirk. The College authorities must have been worried about us, you know, but they let us do it, they let us put our mattresses outside because they knew what we were going through."

Then the doctor called her in.

And I thought: to a shell-shocked soldier the blasts of fireworks or the cracking of the bonfire might mean something very different than it means to the rest of us.

Things at the Moment

I have a lot to write about, but no impetus to do it. I'm suffering from a miserable cold and though they've finished work on the house little things still seem to be out of place: my bicycle is naked without its basket, the mirrors are still not up, we have more laundry than seems humanly possible for two people to have. We spent a few days out in the country, both of us coughing and groaning, feeding pigs and then sitting close to the fire catching up on our television-watching (as we don't have one, every time we're in a place with a TV, we become a bit scary). I appear to be useless at the moment; all I can manage is to suck on Strepsils, feel sorry for myself, flip through the Observer, watch snippets of Lord of the Rings (why that, I couldn't tell you).

It's been rainy and cold lately, but in general, the city has taken on a hue of almost heartbreaking beauty: late autumn, and though dark falls early, to catch the sunlight glinting off the windows is a reaffirming experience.

I'm formulating new ideas on literature and politics (more to come), aided by a quick and almost careless line in Joyce's The Dead: "He wanted to say that literature was above politics" as well as by various more overt articles. I'm rearranging books and looking forward to making the house nice again. I'm listening to music and buying all my winter clothing secondhand. Next week is election day; so I remember four years ago, being in Boston and walking in a chill November fog to Copley Square where thousands were rallying for John Kerry. I remember going to sleep with the nation still undecided and waking up to dissapointment, and having to change my outfit because I was irrationally afraid that people would think I supported George Bush because I was wearing cowboy boots. Our own minds are very strange sometimes.

Also, my first Guy Fawkes night coming up. It's going to be a very political week.

Things That Have Recently Made Me Smile

• Late night city walks


• The slightly smokey smell of September


• Finally being warm because it's Autumn and I don't have to pretend anymore that the weather is summery and wear skirts and sandals


• My new rust-coloured coat


• Watching bad television online whilst in the bath (glass of wine optional but always appreciated)


• Using the fireplace again


• Woolen jumpers


• My bicycle--avec recently pumped tires


• Walking through Radcliffe Square in the evenings and getting to think, I live here!


• Lazy, lounge-y Sundays with good friends and good food


• Knowing my neighbors (even just a little) and passing gardening equipment over the fence


• Wearing The Man's scarf to work


• The way my coat flutters when I'm cycling
  


• Chocolate in the afternoon

• Being snuggled up when it's cold outside
  

Found in Moleskine

"If this is love...there is something highly ridiculous about it."
Virginia Woolf, Orlando

After the crowded late-Summer bustle of Brighton, Oxford seemed full only of ghosts if it was full of anything: the streets wide and empty, the people, when they came, very quiet. Gone were the calls of the Hare Krishna as they marched, the yelps of excited babes and the storms of hip young traffic. All old; all calm.

As I sat waiting for the clouds to part overhead (they showed some inclination to do so just over Blackwell's), it seemed to me that all of Oxford was bathed in the most precious of blue-grey light, which made the walls shimmer and the air, though quite cool, as in a dream.

At last I began to feel cold, sitting there on the steps, and glancing idly to my left saw that tiny pub, The White Horse, and thought, just as idly, that I could go and sit in the warmth and have a half-pint of cider and be quite content for a time, especially with a book; and so struck was I with the idea that I leapt up almost at once and began to make towards the place, whose windows glowed appealingly yellow. I was tired of sitting on the hard stone, of watching everyone on their way, of being unmoving; tired of waiting for a friend or acquaintance to pass, and quickly, happily, found myself inside where all smelled of wood and ale. It was warm, too, and this warmth meant a great deal to me, for all the air of summer seemed to have been bled from the day, leaving only a soft Autumnal chill and a grey haze over the city. I asked for a half of cider.


"Just a half?" said the barman, but without any humour. I might easily have been cajoled into a pint by a cheerier 'tender, but so dry seemed this one that I simply said:
"Yes, just a half," and took it and sipped, and sat down upon a high bench near the window.

Clown and Pelican, Entertaining Crowd

A few weeks ago, I experienced my very first St. Giles' Fair. Surely this must be some kind of secret Oxford induction: in the dead-quiet of early September, when the leaves are on the cusp of changing and a hush has come over even the busiest streets, suddenly the flame of festivity erupts on one of the city's most charming tree-and-college-lined roads. In my research, I read that, "since the nineteenth century, St. Giles' Fair has been held on the Monday and Tuesday following the first Sunday after St Giles' Day (1 September)"—a fittingly circuitous formula for a circus-esque display.

Here's what John Betjeman wrote about it in 1937 (in An Oxford University Chest):

"It is about the biggest fair in England. The whole of St Giles' and even Magdalen Street by Elliston and Cavell's right up to and beyond the War Memorial, at the meeting of the Woodstock and Banbury roads, is thick with freak shows, roundabouts, cake-walks, the whip, and the witching waves. Every sort of fairman finds it worth his while to come to St Giles'. Old roundabouts worked by hand that revolve slow enough to suit the very young or the very old, ageing palmists and sinister, alluring houris excite the wonder and the passions of red-faced ploughmen…. Beyond St Giles' the University is silent and dark. Even the lights of the multiple stores in the Cornmarket seem feeble…. And in the alleys between the booths you can hear people talking with an Oxfordshire accent, a change from the Oxford one."

It isn't so very different today, fundamentally: "Beyond St. Giles' the University is silent and dark...".

Historical photos of the fair show ladies under wide parasols, in sweeping black skirts and busty white blouses. The men wear caps at jaunty angles and plus-fours, or suits and bowlers. There are striped tents and little girls with ribbons in their hair. The great stone walls of the University are all but hidden. Elaborate, fairy-tale structures have been erected where once was only an empty avenue.

The caption of one photo, taken in 1895, reads: "A large crowd gathered in St Giles during the annual fair to watch the Fair Days Menagerie. A clown and a pelican are entertaining the crowd waiting to enter."

When I attend the fair, the outfits are t-shirts, scarves, and denim, and nobody carries a parasol, though they wouldn't need to anyway: it's a day as grey as they come. A mist settles on my bicycle as I wheel it through the crowd. There is none of the frivolous accordion music you expect at a fair, only the heavy thump of electronic beats and rock bands (the Man, who works in an office on St. Giles itself, came home that evening looking frazzled and as if he never wanted to go near the place again). The only people on the whirling carousels are white-haired women being photographed by their white-haired husbands, reliving the glory of their childhood one musical spin at a time. Today's young prefer the faster-paced rides: the roller-coaster outside the doors of a college, the things that spin and shake you into a state of blissful oblivion.

I am reviled by the prospect of such things, though a lifelong attraction to bumper cars is rekindled as soon as I see the shiny floor of the Dodgeum ring. Enormous stuffed animals, arcade games, and the universal sweet smell of the fair (cotton candy mixed revoltingly with fried foods) accost the senses at every turn. I have the sense that I have stepped off my cycle and into a Fellini film. I don't know quite where to look: at the Haunted House? The giddy teenagers in their tiny straight-leg jeans and pixie haircuts, cigarettes protruding from underage lips? The enormous pink polar bears on display, the food stalls, the patient tweed-clad fathers trying to keep up with their eager, bounding toddlers? I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest to see a clown and a pelican holding court. Part of me is disgusted, but another part of me can't help cracking an enormous grin.

**

When I get home I check the news, as if there might be something new, but there isn't. There's doom and gloom and the circus of the presidential election--McCain/Palin (a clown and a pelican?) making gaffes wherever they go, Obama making speeches, pundits and political analysts making predictions, everyone else making noise. The whole world appears to have been swallowed by the same Fellini film that took over St. Giles for two days in September.

that good-old-back-to-school-busy-season

I went to buy a new bath mat today, but they didn't have any under £12.99 that weren't all kinds of ugly, and I decided I'd rather not spend that much money on something I'm going to use to dry my feet off with after a lengthy soak. Too lazy to try anywhere else, instead I went down Broad Street and bought myself a few books--which came to a grand total of £13. But in retrospect, I'll take books over bath mats any day.

We have other people's mail coming through our letter box. Some of it I don't know how to send on, so it just piles up on the second desk in the study. We don't own either of the desks, but there they are, lit up by lamps that aren't ours either. I think if you stripped the both of us down to our own true possessions we would have nothing but books and clothes, in that order. I can't decide if that makes us free or just pathetic. But when you have somebody else's furniture crowding up the house you've come to think of as yours, even when it isn't, you start to feel tied down by things.

When I paid the tuition for my MA the other day, I swear my card looked weary when it came out of the machine. It looked up at me balefully as if to say: don't ever make me do this again. I spent a full quarter of an hour marvelling at the fact that I had never ever spent that much money in one easy go before. And I wonder, in a way I've never really wondered before, how all those people with their fancy strings of degree initials actually manage to pay for that much education.

But I'm distracted by the necessity of buying new books, and pens, and stationary. Eighteen years in you would think this might get tiring but there is something eternally satisfying about the back-to-school season, and I don't think that I could ever feel disappointed by the return to education.

It's funny to think of the formative memories I have from my early schooling. Mixing raisins with my apple juice, with disastrous consequences (I was put off raisins for years). Being in the bathroom at preschool and wondering what it would be like to pee standing up, like the boys did. Mouthing the words to a song and having the teacher call me aside after. Her gentle, crushing admonition. Saying my favorite color was white, and not pink, just to be different from all the other little girls. Running across the tarmac at snack-time, falling, scraping my knee, crying, being helped by a boy whose name I have no recollection of. Making stories with felt cutouts. The teacher who limped and carried a cane and frightened me so much that I dreaded the days when my mother would tell me she couldn't pick me up until after storytime. Children calling "na, na, na na na!" at each other on the playground for no good reason. Putting on a play I wrote in the second grade and later in the year coming home to my mother after discovering that King Arthur, our newest focus of study (we'd just finished a lesson on giants), hadn't been a actual king and asking when we were going to learn about real things.

***

It almost almost smells like autumn outside. And it's getting to be chilly. I wore a wool coat to a dinner the other night, and I wasn't sorry. Inside we wrap ourselves in duvets (I'm wrapped in one now). We refuse to put the central heating on until October of course.

Mostly I am in the back-to-school daze, and everything I think to write has left my head by the time I make my busy way back home. The house has become a refuge. Which is funny really. A few weeks ago there was the house down the road which burst into flame; and the fight at the pub at the other end of the street which warrented what seemed to be an entire fleet of police vans. This weekend we were startled into wakefulness by a pair of voices--male, female--arguing in that way that only couples do, and just when we thought maybe they had had their last go we saw the ambulance coming down the road and the man got in with a book tucked under his arm. In the morning we saw the blood pooled outside the house directly next door, where the head wound he had inflicted on himself by hitting the door had spilt onto the concrete. And after all that was over there was an incessent rapping across the street, all morning long, it felt.

Sure, we stick our heads out of the door. We can see other heads poking out, too. But I feel like this is part of living here, and the truth is that I still think we have the most beautiful house in the neighborhood, just like I think I have the handsomest bicycle in Oxford; and we cosy up to the rush of September leaves together: he now only semi-bearded, me wearing thick jumpers. It's winter in California, here: green, rain, cold sunshine, gentle light.