I need time to let Oxford fester. Fester not by decomposition but to stew in that uncomfortable, sinking feeling until your body adapts and the necrosis is simply another part of life. It's been seventy-two hours since my arrival and my second attempt at capturing its essence and my ghost while wandering its streets. The gravitas all but escapes me. I am disembodied, disjointed. My first attempt at describing to you, dear viewer, of my experience fell sorely on Oxford as a place. Its main attractions, my observations, and my siting of Stephen Fry at the Ashmolean. It is a shallow grave, and I desire to be buried deep.
This city is a peculiarly beautiful menagerie. It is like viewing the entire world through the eye of a needle. People from across the globe fill its streets while living history, its spires, towers, and buttresses, consume you in their lofty shadows and remind you that the dead walk these streets, too. Yet I am blind to it all, reduced to its superficial attractions and squinting down at a digital map to guide my family. They fixate on Oxford as a place, its main attractions and gleaning storefronts. My mother trespassed on Christ Church's grounds just the other day - emblazoned by the American entitlement that her legacy managed to be accepted into those hallowed halls, therefore she could operate like she owned the place. She owns me, anyway. Owns my time, demands all of it. Gorges herself on the silence I desperately crave. The whole world is before me, and my family squeezes and folds it down to the size of a needle's eye.
Oxford represents freedom, I think. A sort of reckless bleeding. I'm sure I cannot be the first arrogant scholar to stroll down these halls thinking they could bestow me with all that I ever wanted in life. I want to be thrown straight into the fire, tested, forged, and come out stronger. Yet I cannot do that with my past and my family tearing me down. I desperately search for some optimism and enjoyment in their company. I should be happy they came, right? I cannot derive exactly why they feel like such a burden. I want to say that I am exhilarated to be here. This is a dream come true, a dream I've crafted for nearly seven years. A dream born out of an incomprehensible desire to escape my past, my family, and those needless strings. Strip that away and just be... me.
Me, smiling painfully in front of the Bod while my body is encased in the shadows. I think it sums up these first few days quite well.
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