Relationships, Travel

Day 30: Belle Conversation. Conversación hermosa. Beautiful Conversation.

Today I needed comfort food.  I was tired, a bit worried about my upcoming exams, and strongly considering whether or not to take a hotel room here in Oxford for two or three nights so I could get some rest before finals.

Since my arrival, I have both appreciated the lovely view of High Street, and cursed the never-ending foot-traffic noises of said thoroughfare…sometimes on the same day.  Sometimes simultaneously.  After three weeks, the continued lack of a complete night’s sleep was wearing me down.

Hence the comfort food run.  For me, this meant my favorite restaurant, only a hundred yards from the entrance to Brasenose College.  It is a small establishment in the back of St. Mary’s Church called “The Vaults and Garden.”

The place really does deserve it’s very own post.  Everything organic, vegetarian and vegan friendly, free trade engaged – something for everyone.  The food is magnificent, the staff are collectively warm and friendly, the setting is divine…and if you sit there for very long, you’ll be entertained by all sorts of “storylines” taking place at each table.  For example, yesterday I went there for afternoon coffee and saw two young sisters dressed in darling outfits hopping around on the ancient gravestones and vaults, shouting out little British girly notices to each other:

“Let’s go to the shop and buy some sweets!”  “Yes! Let’s buy some sweets!”  “Let’s pretend we’re bees and buzz around.”  “O-KAY!   Buzzzzzzzzzz!”

Hip, hop, look for a spot, jump! – – they cautiously jumped from vault to vault in their brightly colored clothes.  I chuckled thinking of the saintly skeleton only a few feet beneath them and thought the old body probably never had it so good as to entertain these toddlers during their play.

There is certainly a nurturing feeling about the entire venue.  I’ve already adopted it, and I will miss the feeling I get while there after I go home.

Today my comfort food consisted of a roasted vegetable medley with lentils (onions, sweet potatoes, chunks of goat cheese, red peppers, tomatoes…yum); steamed English peas with baby onions, fresh crusty bread with butter, and lemon pound cake with just enough lemon filling to make you want more and more.  By the time I had added a bottle of my favorite sparkling water to the tray, I was already feeling better – – and I hadn’t even begun to eat!

I headed outside and looked around for a table.  “Yes!” I thought as I spied one vacant, usually a rare occurrence.  I sped up my steps to try and get there before someone else snagged it.  The weather was too beautiful and the sun too bright to waste the day eating inside.

Approximately half-way into my meal I began to realize another “storyline” at the table next to me was revealing itself.

Sometimes certain words or phrases familiar to a listener can sort of punch through even the most dense gray fog of introspective thoughts.  That’s what happened to me when I heard…

“…you cannot do that.  No good will come of it.  If you push and push, the only thing he is left to do with all that inertia is either run away or push back, don’t you see?”

The voice was just about as close to Kevin Klein’s “French Kiss” character as can be found.  My ears began to radar in on the subject matter.

“I know this, but I cannot just Turn Off all that I am between the hours of eight and five, then go right back into a conversation with all that emotion.  I cannot just leave all of my life at the door! I must do something…something with all (she gestures by balling up her tiny fist and placing it on her heart) of me!”

The best way I can describe her voice was Penelope Cruz, only with slightly less heavy of an accent.  As she continued, I made the connection that she was probably Spanish.  She sounded like most of the Spanish folks I’d met during my trip.

He listened to her with intense focus, as did she to him when he responded.  He thought out loud, she considered his remarks.  She thought out loud, and he disclosed some of his struggles.  Volley, think…volley, respond.  Their conversation went on for 20 minutes.

He suggested to her that “you can’t understand why something is until you understand how something is….you need to break it down.”  She responded, “I think about these things.  When I first left home, I used to wish people would rescue me…I would call my mother.  I wanted her to solve my problems.  But over time I am working on myself.”  He reflected, “I know what you mean.  I have done that too.  I discover sometimes that when I think myself out loud with someone like you, I see myself anew.”

What was I doing while this beautiful conversation was taking place?  Honestly?…I was cursing the fact that I didn’t have my camera.  I wanted to capture their relational dialogue in some way.  I made a snap decision, left my table, ran back to my dorm room and grabbed my camera.  Halfway across the public square on my trip back to the restaurant I spied them.  They were still talking.

I waited a moment upon arriving, then approached them.  I asked them if perhaps I could take their picture, and that their conversation had moved me.  They looked at each other, smiled and then began talking to me.  “Who are you? What was it we were saying that touched you?  Have you had some of these thoughts?  How do you solve these problems?”

I introduced myself and rather briefly I told them that I thought they were doing just fine.  I told them that as long as they had friends like each other to share intimate struggles with, then they would overcome whatever they set out to find.  The young man seemed intrigued that “somehow something they say has touched something in me,” and she told me, “I have thought about becoming a marriage and family therapist myself.”

He was doing his doctorate in nuclear fission.  She was a philosophy student.  The Frenchman and the Spaniard were extremely warm, generous and open.  They asked if I wished to join them, but I declined – asking rather, for a photograph.

They agreed to let me take a picture and told me they would have not even asked for permission.  However, he said, “Could you let us resume our discussion for a few minutes THEN you take the picture?  It would be difficult for me not to pose if I knew of your intentions.”  I agreed, and went to get coffee.  Later, I peeked around the stone corner of the castle and took their picture.  In less than a minute they got up and walked away….

Side by side, she would talk then he would respond.  Then he would state an issue, and she would respond.  Volley, think…volley, respond.

The rhythm of human kind, solving their problems without therapists, eventually walked out of site…around a corner and down an alley.  I was comforted by the interaction, by the storyline at the table.  Perhaps by these thoughts even more than by the food.

Nah…the food was amazing.



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Homestead and Garden

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch….Garden Season 1

by Julie Allgyer

My husband Greg and I are celebrating our 6th successful year in the country.  The success is measured simply by the fact that we are still both alive and still married.

After two years of sharing a trailer with his father-in-law and four years getting our log cabin just the way we want it, I decided I didn’t have enough to do this summer.  Hence, our garden was born.

It is still unclear to me why a gal whose first salads consisted of only lettuce and French dressing would want to start a vegetable garden.  I even have a story of how, at an early age, I successfully hid Brussels sprouts in an air conditioner vent to avoid eating them.

The bottom line is that I didn’t do it for the food.  I did because I had two key elements:  time and space.
A fabulous garden was designed by yours truly that would not only be productive, but would also look like a work of art to any small plane traveling over our area.  (See graph below)

I filled the soil with all the goat and horse poop I could get my hands on, harvested directly out of our pasture. I planned, researched, and studied the Farmers’ Almanac, but nothing was happening. (Meaning, the plants were just sitting there.  So GROW, already!)

One Saturday morning I walked outside to find my beautiful plots of lettuce, peppers, and peas redesigned into rows! My husband Greg had been busy.

Note:  I do NOT have a graph to show the modified version of my garden.

Before I knew it, however, I had a crop.  As the summer progressed, we consumed all of the lettuce that survived.  Next, I gently added one cantaloupe, one watermelon, and cucumber plant.

Why only one of each, you ask?  Well, my pepper plants are filled with enough peppers to rival any Christmas tree look alike contest.  I can only make so many bacon-wrapped, filled with cream cheese poppers, and the tomato plants are speckled with green balls ready to ripen at any minute.

Selling some of my veggies seemed to be the next logical step.  I made a sign, put it out by the road, and waited.  As it turns out, however, the older clientele can’t really eat peppers.  Trust me.  I heard all about it.

Shortly after returning home from my “farmer’s market” trial excursion, it was back to the internet to explore another adventure:  canning.

As it turns out, canning really isn’t all that difficult if you’ve got two major elements: time and space.

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Travel

Day 29: The Shared Territory of a Christian and a Hedonist, or, “Inside Ben’s Head.”

Hedonism:

Democritus seems to be the earliest philosopher on record to have categorically embraced a hedonistic philosophy; he called the supreme goal of life “contentment” or “cheerfulness”, claiming that “joy and sorrow are the distinguishing mark of things beneficial and harmful” (DK 68 B 188)

The first time I recall interacting with Ben, we were sitting at dinner. Someone around us was helping along introductions among the group. “How would you describe yourself?” was the question. Some responded in terms of their goals. Some related their places of origin or where they attended school before entering the law program.

“Brown. I’m brown, with curly hair, ” Ben responded. His face conveyed someone who was fairly comfortable with himself, and as he looked around the group those who heard his retort laughed readily. He laughed too, and the conversation moved on to other things.

The second time I spoke with Ben, I was walking across campus through one quod to the next. I greeted him with a congratulatory comment: “Hey – I really appreciate your questions in EU class. They’re helpful and they make me think.” Ben’s smile broke out showing grand rows of straight white teeth, and with a twinkle in his eye, he raised his hand for a high five.

So, I responded by giving him a rather resounding high five. We exchanged a couple more sentences then went our separate ways.

The third time I spoke with Ben was based upon the prompting of his peers. I strolled into the dining hall toward the end of last night’s diner, approached the first group I saw and asked, “If I were going to interview someone in the program for my blog, who would you suggest?”

“Ben,” they immediately responded. “Definitely Ben.”

“Well, that was pretty easy,” I thought.

I located Ben at the next table, proposed the idea, and he agreed. “Right now?” he asked. “Sure,” I replied. “Now is as good as any other time.”

We walked to our lecture room. Ben filled his glass from the plastic bottle of Cabernet Savignon he had purchased for dinner, kicked his feet up and said, “All right. What do you want to know?”

After I had covered the, “Do you want your name in the post? Is it okay to identify you?,” business I then began a comfortable volley of questions, responses, follow ups, and insights. Twenty minutes later a few friends wandered in. “What are you doing?” they asked with curiosity. They joined the group, filled in a bit of the conversation on their own, drained the glasses they had in tow, and headed to the pub to refill them.

Fifteen minutes later I was done. I took Ben’s picture, and we then headed down to the pub for “Quiz Night.”

Why did I want to interview someone for the program for my travel journal? I think I wanted to get another perspective. I’m a minority demographic. I’m a 46 year-old doctoral student. The majority demographic is a 25-30ish student between their first and second years in the program. I wanted to see what “they” thought. I’m usually pretty clear on what “I” think.

Here are a few things I learned about Ben:

He’s a self-described Hedonist, raised by his mother who is a medical doctor. Much of his family is in the D.C. area, so when Obama was sworn in last year, “all he needed was the gas money to get there.” He ‘wasn’t going to miss that for the world.’

He and I talked quite a bit about the “drinking culture” of the law community. Our professor had mentioned, during a discussion about equal rights, how it might be difficult for a working mother picking up her child from an early learning center to be included in the “deals and decisions” made in the pub after she left. I asked Ben if he agreed with the opinion I had heard from one student about feeling occasional pressure to participate in the drinking so as to be included in the networking and the camaraderie seemingly endorsed and even encouraged by the faculty. He said he could definitely understand their opinion, and then told me that lawyers have the “highest suicide rate, the highest alcoholism rate, and the highest divorce rate,” of any other profession. We broke that comment down for a while, then moved on.

I asked Ben if he was glad he decided to come to this particular summer conference. He said yes, talked about his rationale for financing the trip, and then we talked about student loans and Graduate Plus loans for a bit. It seems that most of the students tried to get a loan of approximately 8-10,000 for this particular trip…and when it gets down to it, some of their thinking might be, “Well – it’s 80,000 for law school, OR 89,000 for law school plus the Oxford trip. In the broad scope of things, that doesn’t seem to make a lot of difference.”

Initially Ben responded to the question, “Why are you in law?” by answering, “For the money.” But a bit later, I could see an activist brewing under his law student fascade. He wonders about statutes that don’t seem fair and wishes that there were opportunities to rally a group and go lobby the legislative branch to change things. And, although the standard form of instruction in a typical law school is the Socratic method, our EU class has raised his interest a bit because the majority of class isn’t spent on the readings, per se, but on a discussion that enhances or exemplifies the readings.

Ben seems to be empathetic to his group. He’s encouraged his classmates to speak out in class, and muses about the, “What if people other than the eight that always comment starting opening up and adding to the discussions?” idea. This thought process is inherently democratic and shows he feels for the group, and wants them all to benefit from the experience. And…it may show that he wants the professor to hear as many different voices as possible…in essence, showcasing the group’s acumen.

Finally, when I asked him how he would describe his program, he produced these three comments: 1) It’s a fairly socially conservative program; 2) They focus on getting you a job; and 3) the community is fairly tight-knit…there are 600 in law school and by the time you finish your three years, you basically know most all who are there.

When I reflected back to him that it seems that he was describing the State of Oklahoma as much as anything, he agreed….community, stability and socially right of center. I think at that point, we had sort of a “meeting of the minds” that you get what you ask for, and you take from it what you can.

Although Ben emphatically stated that he’s not all that great of a writer, he also mentioned with a certain sense of pride that his Moot Court team came out 7th place of the 200 students who entered the competition. He wants to be a litigator; he wants to convince someone of his case by oral argument.

I would say that if Ben stays positive like he is right now, if he keeps his optimism and smile, and if he gives the jurists or the judge an occasional resounding “high five,” he’ll have all the money he wants…and he’ll make quite a statement in the courts of the future on behalf of his clients.

I’m kidding, of course, about the high fives. But I’m not kidding about his ability to persuade.

After all, last night during our interview, Ben persuaded me to appreciate who he is and what he stands for, and when I think about it – there’s not a whole lot that we really have in common at all.

Except, for the fact, that maybe we like to raise questions of the professor in class.

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Travel

Day 28: It Was So Loud, I Couldn’t Hear Myself Praying

My brother travels outside of the continental U.S. quite a bit, and every once in a while he mentions something along the lines of, “It might be good if you go see that place soon, before the tourism footprint destroys what’s there – or they close it to keep the place preserved.”  These conversations were regarding various places in South America, India and few other destinations.  Based upon my experience here, however, I would say they hold true for areas within the UK as well.

As I’ve walked around Oxford on my daily strolls, I sometimes hesitate as I begin to take a stair case or a step into a building.  When I look down to place my foot in a solid position, I consistently notice that there is a sagging dip in the stone or concrete.  This isn’t a design flaw and the steps aren’t sinking…they’re worn down from millions of other footsteps walking in the same place, day after day.

The sidewalks of High Street in Oxford are so crowded that it seems like you are occasionally swimming upstream to go somewhere when all others you meet are headed in the opposite direction.  It was this way in London as well.  And in Bristol.  And in Bath.  And at Stonehenge.

I think there are a combination of factors in play: it’s summer, it’s “backpacking season,” it’s sporting event season (World Cup, Tour de France, Wimbledon), etc.  However, the locals say that it’s like this most all the time.  Everywhere you turn, individuals, couples, families, groups of students…are all weilding their cameras, taking the same pictures of the same places.  They get the shot ready…wait for one, two, ten or twenty people to walk by, and then…”click!”  They get it, right before a tour bus drives in front of their view….or not.  I’m sure there are many a shot that end up looking sometime like this (the side of a tour bus):

Here is a little movie of a street entertainer who was in a public square in Bath.  I don’t know if you can tell, but there’s quite a crowd.  That crowd was there before the entertainer started, and remained after he was done….

This particular day in Bath, I had just about had it with crowds as it was the day after I was kept up until 3:30 a.m. with the noise on the street below my window in Oxford.  I went into the Abbey there in search of a bit of peace and quiet.  The line to see the Roman Baths was going to require a one hour and forty-five minute wait, so I thought, “Hang the baths – we’ve got two hours so I’m going to try and find some peace.”  As I walked into the Abbey, I was met with a full choir of local women singing a concert.  Normally, I would have enjoyed this little surprise.  At that point, however, I was thinking, “Quiet!  Everyone just go home, already!”  Here’s a peak at the choir and the inside of the Abbey:

I watched them perform one song and then looked around for the exit.  As I was headed out of the Abbey, I noticed a small chapel area.  These are common in the Abbeys around here – the one in York had a chapel, a prayer area, a reading area…several places to have quiet time.  A sign on the entrance to the chapel said, “Quiet please.  We ask that you respect those who have stopped to pray.”

Ha!  I thought, “Okay – I’ll go in the chapel, pray, and enjoy the quiet.”  This is what my face looked like with two hours of sleep after a long day while attempting to pray in the chapel…

I was sitting there in the corner, with my head leaning back against the wall, eyes closed and hands folded in prayer.  The women were singing pretty loudly.  I concentrated harder.  The next thing I hear is:

“Oh, here’s the chapel!”

“Shh – we’re supposed to be quiet in case people are praying.”

“I don’t think she’s praying, I think she’s resting.”

“Do you think we should ask her?  You know…whether she’s praying so we can know if it’s okay to take a picture of the chapel?”

I got up, left the chapel and tried my best to take in the beauty of Bath and the interesting architecture, Masonic mysteries, the beautiful bridges, etc.  Flash forward two days…

Tonight I was sitting at dinner with other students and I heard them complaining about the mounds of people in Oxford, and how they were having to give directions to “the tourists” all the time.  I thought it was funny because we’re students, but we’re also tourists.  I’ve felt the same way, and I wrestled for a bit with conflicting emotions thinking, “People here are thinking the same thing I’m complaining about others.”

My brother is right.  We “tourists” have to do the Earth right and try to avoid impressing upon her face footprints that are irreparable.  So, what have I done to find a peaceful place where I CAN hear my prayers in my mind as I send them to God?  I decided to go on a search tonight for that elusive prize.

I walked out of the college stopping at our Brasenose Chapel.  I peeked in, but the large brass birds of prey looking down on those entering gave me the creeps.  I walked outside the college and for a moment saw a beautiful light in the sky just over St. Mary’s Cathedral.

It disappeared quickly, however, and the noises of those on the street at night took over.

As I went back inside and headed toward my dorm room, I saw two students whom I’ve befriended on the trip.  One was having a discussion about being a ‘big believer in meritocracy…if people are nice to him, he’s nice to people…’  Another had broken her toe and was going to the doctor’s office tomorrow.  I traded one a ten pound note for ten pounds in change, went to get a bottle of water out of the machine and returned to my room.

I think for me, I’m going to find my quiet when I get back home.  However, I noticed that in the short time the two students and I had our short discussion, I had relaxed.

I guess, sometimes, it takes interacting with people to find “a point of stillness in the heart of the city.”

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Travel

Day 27: An “Advert” Equally Cool as Toy Story? Perhaps. See for Yourself.

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My first week here, I took a train to Bristol and noticed something not unlike the Willy Wonka Factory (circa – Gene Wilder) across a field as I neared my destination.  I inquired about the factory while in a meeting, and was told it was an older Cadbury Chocolate Factory.  I love it when things look like what they are.  It was recently purchased by Kraft, and the locals wonder what will become of the outdated factory and previous ways the employees were treated.

I wasn’t aware until I began speaking with friends before I left that there are Cadbury treats galore simply unavailable to us in the states.  One of these requested was the Crunchie bar.  Another mentioned was the Cadbury Flake bar. Flash forward two weeks…

I ventured to the local cinema today and watched Toy Story 3.  Prior to the show, the audience was graced with a bunch of commercials and the standard previews, suitable for children ages 4 and older.  One of the commercials, or “adverts” as they call them here, was so artistic it still has my attention in spite of the wonderful movie.  And…it was for a Cadbury Flake Bar.  Go figure…


See for yourself by clicking here.

“Sweet” dreams…Kelly

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