Notes from the Botanic Gardens, November 9 2008

This is the one place in Oxford where I always feel that I am on the inside, looking out.

The river is green, the trees are yellow.

What is it about a garden? All around me are signs of Autumnal decay–a wet and barren landscape, the scratching of leaves against a cold ground. And yet I think that, in the presence of things which have grown, will grow, we can suddenly believe that we, too, grow.—-There in the murky pool we see peace, or hope, or both; our thoughts become un-crowded, we start to believe in the permanence of the trees and the transience of all else. We have a clouded sense of happiness–not perfect, or impure, but unusually tangible.

(I go for a run today. The sky is heavy, the grass has turned a deeper shade of emerald, and the yellow leaves have all fallen from the tree outside the study window. Every season is the most beautiful season, here.)

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My first bonfire night on Wednesday. We walked down the river to the Isis. There was no Guy but there was a bonfire made of old boats, and mulled cider with bits of apple in it, and sparklers, and homemade lentil and chestnut soup served in paper cups. There were fireworks splattering the sky, and the Man and I agreed that our favorite part of the fire was not the flames but the sparks that were drawn up, like red stars fading fast. We wrote our names in the air with the sparklers and when the bonfire had died down and all the men were trying to revive it, I went to the edge of the river. The night was wet and windless, and the water itself stood black and still, so that the reflection of the trees looked almost more real–starker certainly–than the trees themselves. Jerome’s three men (and a dog) may not have paddled down the river in November, but for a moment I could feel them sleeping on the shore here. Then we all went inside again, to warm our hands and lean against the bar.

The fireworks have been going ever since. On my walk home tonight I see them blazing above my street; sitting here in the house, I hear them going off with imperfect but inevitable regularity.

We still battle this cold; blowing our noses, overcome with lethargy and a need for fruit. This morning I woke up and suddenly wanted to make myself toast with honey and bananas, which was something I ate a lot in my first year of university; first I stilled myself because I am not like I was then, but then I thought: we do not have to erase every memory just because it is not the way we are now, and I cut up the banana into slices and placed them on my toast. But we had no honey after all.

***

In the waiting room at the doctor’s the other night, a white-haired woman with a cane broke the English code of silence amongst strangers despite the open book on my knees. First she said she wasn’t here for herself.

“I’m here for a friend,” she said. “She’s got dementia. She can’t take care of herself. I’ve known her oh–eighty, seventy–sixty years, if not seventy. We were very close. It’s horrible to see her like this. I still care for her but her family won’t take any responsibility. It’s all up to me. I am feeling resentful today. Today is my day, for me. I’m having to miss my afternoon rest which I’m all but ordered to take. I could have sat at home and read a book.”

She looked at me. “I suppose you’re too young to have to deal with this. You’re of–another generation.”

I said I was, yes, but that still, I knew people who were struggling with the same thing. She nodded.
“It’s everywhere, isn’t it.”
“Horrible,” I agreed. Then she asked what I was doing here.
“Studying?”
“I’m doing a masters,” I told her. “At Oxford Brookes.”
“I’ve got two grandsons here at Oxford, and another at Oxford Brookes. And my daughters went here, and I was at Oxford as well, you know. And my mother was here! She was here before the War, the First War. She left in 1912 and do you know when she was given a degree?”
I smiled; I did know the answer to this one. “Not for quite some time after, I would imagine,” I said.
“Not until 1928,” she said. “Can you believe that?”

Then she was silent for awhile, and I tried to read about the origins of human creativity but my head felt full and my nose dripped. I coughed into the turtleneck of my jumper.

“My uncle was in the first war,” she said abruptly. “He lied about his age to join up, in 1917? Or 1918. But he died. It always seemed to me that they didn’t know what they were fighting for, then. In the other war at least they had Hitler to rally against, but that first war, it had no–direction.”
“Yes,” I said.
“It’s been coming up a lot recently,” she said, touching the red poppy pinned to her breast. “All that generation is gone.”
“Yes,” I agreed.
“And my husband–before we were married. He was in the second war. He joined the Air Force and was there in the Battle of Britain. And it’s strange–I remember that summer. I was at Oxford, you know. And we were throwing our mattresses out of the windows so we could sleep outside, it was that hot–and the men were coming across from Dunkirk. The College authorities must have been worried about us, you know, but they let us do it, they let us put our mattresses outside because they knew what we were going through.”

Then the doctor called her in.

And I thought: to a shell-shocked soldier the blasts of fireworks or the cracking of the bonfire might mean something very different than it means to the rest of us.

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I have a lot to write about, but no impetus to do it. I’m suffering from a miserable cold and though they’ve finished work on the house little things still seem to be out of place: my bicycle is naked without its basket, the mirrors are still not up, we have more laundry than seems humanly possible for two people to have. We spent a few days out in the country, both of us coughing and groaning, feeding pigs and then sitting close to the fire catching up on our television-watching (as we don’t have one, every time we’re in a place with a TV, we become a bit scary). I appear to be useless at the moment; all I can manage is to suck on Strepsils, feel sorry for myself, flip through the Observer, watch snippets of Lord of the Rings (why that, I couldn’t tell you).

It’s been rainy and cold lately, but in general, the city has taken on a hue of almost heartbreaking beauty: late autumn, and though dark falls early, to catch the sunlight glinting off the windows is a reaffirming experience.

I’m formulating new ideas on literature and politics (more to come), aided by a quick and almost careless line in Joyce’s The Dead: “He wanted to say that literature was above politics” as well as by various more overt articles. I’m rearranging books and looking forward to making the house nice again. I’m listening to music and buying all my winter clothing secondhand. Next week is election day; so I remember four years ago, being in Boston and walking in a chill November fog to Copley Square where thousands were rallying for John Kerry. I remember going to sleep with the nation still undecided and waking up to dissapointment, and having to change my outfit because I was irrationally afraid that people would think I supported George Bush because I was wearing cowboy boots. Our own minds are very strange sometimes.

Also, my first Guy Fawkes night coming up. It’s going to be a very political week.

❧

• Late night city walks
• The slightly smokey smell of September
• Finally being warm because it’s Autumn and I don’t have to pretend anymore that the weather is summery and wear skirts and sandals
• My new rust-coloured coat
• Watching bad television online whilst in the bath (glass of wine optional but always appreciated)
• Using the fireplace again
• Woolen jumpers
• My bicycle–avec recently pumped tires
• Walking through Radcliffe Square in the evenings and getting to think, I live here!
• Lazy, lounge-y Sundays with good friends and good food
• Knowing my neighbors (even just a little) and passing gardening equipment over the fence
• Wearing The Man’s scarf to work
• The way my coat flutters when I’m cycling
• Chocolate in the afternoon

• Being snuggled up when it’s cold outside

❧

“If this is love…there is something highly ridiculous about it.”
Virginia Woolf, Orlando

After the crowded late-Summer bustle of Brighton, Oxford seemed full only of ghosts if it was full of anything: the streets wide and empty, the people, when they came, very quiet. Gone were the calls of the Hare Krishna as they marched, the yelps of excited babes and the storms of hip young traffic. All old; all calm.

As I sat waiting for the clouds to part overhead (they showed some inclination to do so just over Blackwell’s), it seemed to me that all of Oxford was bathed in the most precious of blue-grey light, which made the walls shimmer and the air, though quite cool, as in a dream.

At last I began to feel cold, sitting there on the steps, and glancing idly to my left saw that tiny pub, The White Horse, and thought, just as idly, that I could go and sit in the warmth and have a half-pint of cider and be quite content for a time, especially with a book; and so struck was I with the idea that I leapt up almost at once and began to make towards the place, whose windows glowed appealingly yellow. I was tired of sitting on the hard stone, of watching everyone on their way, of being unmoving; tired of waiting for a friend or acquaintance to pass, and quickly, happily, found myself inside where all smelled of wood and ale. It was warm, too, and this warmth meant a great deal to me, for all the air of summer seemed to have been bled from the day, leaving only a soft Autumnal chill and a grey haze over the city. I asked for a half of cider.

“Just a half?” said the barman, but without any humour. I might easily have been cajoled into a pint by a cheerier ‘tender, but so dry seemed this one that I simply said:
“Yes, just a half,” and took it and sipped, and sat down upon a high bench near the window.

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