One of the nice things about cavorting around the UK during a viral panic is that the streets are slightly less crowded, and the claustrophobia less intense. I always forget how intense and pressing city life is until I’m in the midst of it, and by then I’m already halfway to sensory overload. I can’t imagine how thoroughly uncomfortable I would feel roaming the bookstores of Oxford at the height of its usual energies, as even now I’m constantly dancing with the store managers shelving new acquisitions and the other shoppers, and an apology is constantly just one half footstep away.
I feel like an absolute lump here. Unfashionable, yes, but I’m actually rather comfortable with that. I’ve always made a kind of statement out of my unfashionability, and how little I care about face and hair. No, the lumpishness comes more from falling into a kind of performance. And the choices for roles is somewhat limited: the casual, comfortably liberal American, constantly a-jest at the State of Things, and the obvious outsider, dropping pound coins everywhere while juggling unfamiliar currency. Judging by how many mugs and wine glasses I’ve chipped over the years, you can imagine which of the two is my first instinct.
One really can walk the entirety of Oxford in a day, a fact I managed to verify by constantly getting turned around on my first two days here. I’m absurdly familiar with certain postwar-era buildings simply because they stand out enough to serve as landmarks in a city where everything has reached the kind of dignified age where my American-bred brain is hardwired to question is ADA compliance. Earlier this week, I walked the length of one canal, crossed town through a bunch of weird residential neighbourhoods where nobody spends any time outside, and found myself at University Parks, then Blackwells. I managed to pick up the new Hilary Mantel, which is an absolute brick in hardcover, but worth purchasing with its UK-specific cover art. Then I stayed up until five in the morning local time, obsessing over US media reports on COV-19 and predicted travel restrictions. What followed was a day where I was completely useless, nauseous, and prone to overheating in public spaces. I don’t think I’ve ever sweat so much in my life for so little effort as I have in the last three days.
Perhaps it’s the virus, as everyone keeps saying about everything. Is the weather dreary? Perhaps it’s the virus. Are you feeling a bit overwhelmed by a midlife crisis? Definitely some kind of symptom.
Meanwhile, M’s bathroom mirror is one of those with a near-neon blue light around its edge to point out every flaw in your appearance, and it turns out the white hairs have been creeping up on me much faster than expected. This brings me great comfort, since I’m not completely unreasonable in confronting midlife crisisdom a few years earlier than most as I already look forty or forty-five. I swear those frown lines between my eyebrows are from perpetually squinting in sunlight, not abject misery.
Last time I was in Europe, I was a full-blown, unapologetic tourist on the hunt for Inklings-related places to steep my fledgeling creative brain in. That was over a decade ago, and while I have changed a great deal, Oxford hasn’t, and now I feel somewhat at a loss. What does one DO in a foreign city when old buildings and empirical histories have lost their allure? I want to feel what M feels about this place, where folks wander off late at night to chase Pokemon or take late afternoon spin classes because they’re the only options at the gym not already completely booked up.
I’m not particularly good at writing at the end of the world. Or perhaps it’s because my brain chemistry is finally balanced, and I don’t feel the need to convince anyone of some hair-brained idea. I’ll ponder this some more and get back to you; apparently there’s some delicious food nearby that needs my attention.
-K