My flight to London was to leave that morning and my suitcase lay empty on the bed. A sigh expressed my frustration as I remembered my grand plans of exquisite preparation. What was wrong with me? I was to be a student at Oxford University, and yet packing in a timely fashion eluded me. Staring at the piles of clothes, I hoped that this next semester would be different; maybe I would finally find it within myself to follow through with something.
Though I complain most other days, that day I was grateful for my rather small wardrobe. If things had been different I might have missed my plane. I quickly filled my bright red, oversized, and slightly tattered suitcase, and dragged it downstairs one step at a time.[1] It was an aggravating task, but I have rolled that worn piece of luggage through so many amazing places that I could not ever bring myself to be angry with it, especially that morning, as my mind teemed with thoughts of the places we would soon see.
I had quite a journey ahead of me and many places stood, in every sense, between me and my destination: Oxford, England. I began in North Carolina and remember glimpses of Boston, London, New Hampshire and Iceland, though surely not in that order. The complicated itinerary looked different on paper weeks before – I was excited to have found such a cheap flight, even if it was going to take me a little longer to get there. I believed that anything was worth saving a bit of money. I was only en route to Oxford and already I was learning; saving money is not, in fact, worth anything and particularly not forty-eight hours spent half on planes and half in airports. I arrived in London, England, extra money in hand, but having lost brain cells for lack of sleep.
If I hadn’t been carrying twice my weight in luggage, I would have sprinted through Heathrow airport to the bus depot – the time at which my hostel would close its doors was drawing neigh. Ironically, on this particular night, the 9:30 p.m. but aspired to be the 9:25 p.m. bus and succeeded. I sat, quite glum, on the suitcase that had slowed me until the 10:00 p.m. bus began to board.
The corpulent and scruffy-faced bus was in a foul mood. His was the first British company I met, and the experience did not bode well for the next few months. He avoided eye contact and refused to acknowledge my questions. In fact, the only noise I heard from him was a painful groan under the weight of my luggage. I assumed this was directed at me and his lack of cordiality officially succeeded in dampening my excitement at finally being in England, but I pressed on. A friendly, tall, bald, middle-aged man from Boston befriended me. He was waiting for the same bus and was kind enough to provide me with the information and guidance I needed to find my hostel quickly and avoid sleeping on the street that night.
The next morning, family cars, too many planes, unfriendly busses, shiny black taxis and a less-than-immaculate hostel behind me, I finally stood at the door of my new home. It was a large red brick house nestled among a small forest of trees filled with the countless bright green leaves of late summer. There was a sign posted on a tree by the road that I could see from where I stood - it read “The Vines.” As I made use of the large brass knocker on the door, I could not help smiling at the thought of living in a house with a name. I felt as though I would be living in a Victorian novel. “The Vines,” I repeated in my head. It was decidedly fitting.
There would be forty-three of us living in The Vines that semester and I was one of the first to arrive. A pretty, young, blonde woman named Jackie opened the door and invited me inside. I learned later that she was one of the two people responsible for keeping us from burning the beautiful old building down. I dragged my luggage up the stairs, one step at a time, found the room that bore my name on its door and set my things down inside. There were two bunk beds and four desks in an otherwise large, blank, beige room. I chose a bed and a desk and wondered about the other girls, my roommates. I knew next to nothing about them. It was strange to think about how much those relationships might form and change in a matter of days.
I spent the next several hours meeting my forty-two housemates. We were an eclectic group, all from small, Christian liberal arts schools and all engrossed in the humanities, but each with slightly different interests. The names of obscure authors, philosophers and theologians filled the air, and the excitement swelled as we all realized we were among our own, and need no longer be ashamed of our love for learning. I heard conversations around me begin with rather unusually scholarly questions like “Who is your favorite French philosopher?” I was amused, but one thought lurked in the back of my head: “Do I belong here?”
That first night, though sleep seemed a distant memory, we refused to get much-needed rest like responsible Oxonian scholars-to-be. Excitement provided the energy that sleep could not. Anxious to explore our new surroundings, we unanimously decided that there was no choice but to visit The Eagle and Child Pub on this epic first night’s journey. Pubs line the streets of Oxford, but this particular pub had served as a home for the Inklings, a small literary society including the famed C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. After making the long walk into the city, we entered the pub. It was a narrow, dark space with a low ceiling, and the walls spoke to us. They told us of tales weaved in that very place, stories that had formed minds and imaginations for decades, young and old. We found a small table in a back corner and tried, rather unsuccessfully, to blend in.
There was something about that place, an ambience that made ordinary conversation inadequate. We needed to offer something to the great artists and thinkers that had lingered there long before us. We did our best, as the night wore on, with our hushed voices drifting in and out of theological debates, philosophical discussions, on and off of soapboxes. The night was surreal, and as we journeyed back to The Vines, I knew that the feeling of awe would likely not subside until I was once again boarding a plane to cross the Atlantic.
That night launched my initiation into Oxford life. It was the first time that simply standing in a place called me to better myself, and it certainly would not be the last. Under the spires of Oxford I felt a beautiful tension begin to stretch me, the tension between who I was and who I was becoming, who I wanted to be. I did not know it then, but for the next few months I would be forced to defend or reject everything that I thought made me who I was, every belief, every opinion, and every inclination. What would emerge would be something completely different, and that night began the transformation.
[1] I actually had a large duffle bag as well, but decided not to mention it– we don’t have the same relationship.
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