5.20.2010 commentary

Recently I was reading a mystery novel (perhaps an Amanda Cross?) in which a character says that anyone who lives in Oxford, no matter how short the sojourn, feels compelled to write a book about it.... whereas nobody feels that way about Cambridge, no matter how long the retreat.

My visit thus far confirms this observation.

Oxford, for whatever reason, truly does have a kind of near mystical appeal. Dreaming spires and all that. How? Why? I do not know.

The only fact I can cite is that I have never dined in college during six years in Cambridge. But last night in Oxford I was seated next to the president at high table in the richest college in the entire world - and he found my scathing commentary amusing.

Later I was taken on a midnight tour of the fellows library, where I handled manuscripts older than my homeland.

The Ashmolean, Pitt Rivers, Maison Blanc cupcakes, the Angel & Greyhound meadow, meandering along the banks of the Cherwell. Picnics on Will & Lyra's bench with toga garbed students punting past and a wild fox scampering at my feet.

My lodgings are in a seventeenth century house with St. John's at the back and St. Giles to the front. How could a trip be more seductive? The only real problem is my persistent desire to be elsewhere.

My grandmother is still ailing, my aunt and cousin are dead. I can't go home to help or even for the funerals because my passport is needed in a faraway office while a bureaucrat considers the viability of my citizenship application. This is my choice, even if I am fated to forever wonder if the compromise is worth the pain.

I walk the streets and wander through the colleges in a state of melancholy amazement.

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