Sorry about the lack of photos on the previous post. This damn internet, I tell ya...
So I looked in my SPO today and realized I had a card for an oversized envelope. Convinced it was my letter either accepting or denying me to the University of Minnesota, my shaking fingers handed the slip over to the attendant. My pulse raced, my palms sweated, my life flashed before my eyes. Then I realized the envelope in question was not from the University of Minnesota, but the University of St. Thomas, and they were sending me a "St. Thomas School of Law" t-shirt. A very kind gesture (this from the same folks who sent me the delightful snowy Minneapolis Christmas card), but one would think that as students going to study law would base their decisions to attend a school on more factors than a free t-shirt.
It's January. My j-term class is almost unbearably easy. I have much time on my hands. Similar to last January, I am facing something of a crisis of effective time management. Last year, save the highly enjoyable and culturally stimulating six days I spent in Vienna, I utterly failed this test. My days, which could have been spent exploring Nottingham or the surrounding countryside, were mostly spent inside the flat watching 24 and enjoying copious bowls of multi-grain Cheerios. This January, spurned by my science teacher's admonition to make j-term a "free exercise in the liberal arts," I have resolved to do otherwise. First of all, I've decided to spend my days not playing video games or simply watching TV, but keeping track of the news and reading. To further the reading point, I checked out Beyond Good and Evil (Nietzche), Lyrical Ballads (Wordsworth), A Passage to India (Forster), and The Mother Tongue (Bryson). I'm still working on good ol' Bill's A Walk in the Woods. I pretty much almost went into a diabetic coma laughing at it today. If I would one day have the wit, broad knowledge, incredible mastery of the English language, and observational prowess of Bill Bryson, I would die a happy man. In addition to all of these, I've been working on practicing trombone for my spring recital.
Of course, j-term can't be all intellectual mumbo-jumbo. I've been watching a lot of Arrested Development. Damn it is funny. Maybe not quite so as The Office, but in the same plane. My three friends and I have started a 12 WEEK PROGRAM TO A HARD BODY. This entails punishing our muscle groups to the point where I'm collapsed on the floor gasping desperately for air. This morning, we did arms, and I sort of felt like I was enduring a session on a torture rack. But I suppose the benefits of a certified hard body will be apparent when I'm chilling out at the Copacabana in Rio in May.
Even as I struggle to remain productive during j-term, I can't seem to shake off a certain sense of directionless-ness. I don't know what it is. It might be next year's uncertainty, the contrast with the comfort of Luther. But I think to myself, I've defeated leaving the comfort of Luther once before, in much more drastic circumstances. So maybe that's not really it. Maybe it's just the anxiety that in 5 months, that fundamental shift is coming again. I can no longer see my best friends every day, don't have the luxury of this unique Luther environment. Who knows. When I look inward though, I sense that something is stirring within me, a sense of restlessness. Maybe it's for the city. Maybe it's for England.
I've tried to distance my English thoughts from this blog. That was last year, its been documented. I wasn't planning on having these emotions remain, these flashes of feeling, of an almost tangible relationship to a place. Like every event that occurred in the past, Nottingham flows farther back into time by the second. Things that were there possible then are no longer possible, and vice versa. But somehow, a part of me was left at 67 Homefield Rd. I have to go back, someday. But what will it be like? So much of my England experience is inextricably tied to a group of people who can be called nothing less than family. It's impossible to separate the physical space with the 9, plus Mark and Carol. These people, as I see them around Luther, as we bump into each other in the bustle of our daily lives, I see them not as friends, but as cousins, or some sort of relative. And that's the truth, something elemental bonds us together. But I worry, do I really miss England, or do I miss that constant family? And it's a little of both. I miss spending time with Kevin, Brandon, Ryan, all the girls, Mark and Carol. Sometimes I miss it so much that I can barely contain myself, tears threaten to burst forth, like water through a collapsing dam. Other times, I absolutely yearn for little bits of England, for Lucozade, or a double decker bus, the confident heft of a pound in my hand. Real ale in a pub. I think maybe, I miss a combination of the two. The 9 of us shared in experiences that caused us to individually fall in love with England, to become addicted to the rolling green and dry stone of the countryside, intoxicated by the heaviness of the damp air, touched and confused by the people. It will be hard to return without the rest, but it will be possible. Not ever quite the same, but possible.
And I hate to live in the past, I really do. I love my native land, I love so many things about it, what it stands for. And I love the people I'm surrounded with today. And I'm excited for what is to come, in our nation and in my own journey. But the past is an integral part, and England is a part that refuses to pass into the annals of "oh, that's just something I did." It's a part of me. I feel like a British-American, or an American Briton, or something. And maybe it just aches that I don't know when, if ever, I'll be able to reconcile these two parts of my life. I think I'll be a good lawyer. I think it's a profession where I can do something good, where I can use the talents God gave me. But I worry that maybe I'll make a wrong step, make a wrong choice. Maybe my values will be compromised. Maybe my career won't allow me to return to England. Maybe money will take a hold of me. So many things are just so frightening, so uncertain, it's hard to stay centered at times. I want to do good, I want to move back to England for a time, I want to find what exactly it is I'm supposed to do. I want to have a family, to raise children that will (hopefully) represent all that is good in the world. Life is a challenge.
Sorry that got so rambling, but I actually feel it's therapeutic to get this stuff out, to try and flesh out the wordlessness I'm feeling. But that's how January is going. Hopefully this blog can get up and running a bit more too. Intelligently. Wittily. All that jazz.
P.S.- In response to a comment left on my post about Coffee Cups, I made coffee last night in my cafetiere. And it was absolutely delicious. Much better than the tea I tried to brew tonight. The water here, it's just not the same. That's what I'll blame it on.
