Oxford

Eight months into our English experience, Oxford feels very much like home.  That is particularly odd to me because 1) I don’t have a job that ties me to the town or to the university 2) we haven’t made a lot of friends yet, much less any that aren’t American or Canadian 3) we haven’t gone to any concerts or enjoyed many of the museums or other cultural riches on offer 4) the college system here, with its porters and closed gates, does mean that more than half of the town is closed to visitors 5) a large share of any of the people you see on the street are not part of the town at all, but tourists from Japan, Russia, France, or Spain.  I’m surprised to find myself loving the languages on the streets, both those I know and those I don’t.  And, for the record, American accents are pretty common here.

I’m realizing that I feel fiercely loyal to and nostalgic for places where I’ve done a lot of walking.  I don’t think of my hometown in Iowa, per se, but rather of the back roads that I walked, ran, and biked as a teen.  I remember routes from my college to my department or other points around the university when I was in New Haven, with favorite benches along the way, and the long, tree-lined, uphill walk to the divinity school, where I would meet Sydney after work on Fridays.  And Cornell has two places in my brain: the on-campus routes from car to department to library, and the long, curved country walk I would take several times a week from our house, down the steep hill, across the meadow (both gorgeous and, in winter, breezy), past the horses, the sheep, and the trailer park, and back again.

Here we walk everywhere, and my love of country is mitigated by my appreciation for a life where I can walk to groceries, parks, work, etc.  All of the jobs to which I’ve applied have meant short, interesting walks around town, some just a few blocks away, and some as far as a mile-and-a-half.  We’ve already learned that the hospital involves a nice walk through the parks and suburbs, with the occasional horse or cow and meadow.  Longer family walks take us up the path along the canal to Port Meadow, or down to Christ Church Meadow, where there are lots of open spaces and old, old trees along the paths.  Not to mention that I love being in a place that has paths: a place where walking is part of the culture, and not just something you do for exercise.  And it’s hard to overestimate the role of the university parks, a five-minute walk from our house, a place where I can take the kids for a picnic or a stroll, where I walk with Nathaniel most mornings.  It’s filled with more kinds of trees than I will likely ever learn, but each month or so the change of seasons highlights a new one that I hadn’t noticed before.  I still hope to become integrated with the university life, to visit the museums, and, good grief, to go to a few concerts, but even without those things I’m finding a lot of wonderful things about our current home.

Erin