St. George’s Day
Yesterday was St. George’s Day and I didn’t even know that until it was almost over, buthe is the patron saint of England (although he was from Turkey) and I guess it’s an occasion around here. Perhaps it explains why we were hearing a discussion about dragons on the BBC radio station as we drove along the M1 the other day. (Then again, that could be just an everyday topic.) But it is certainly the reason for the red and white flags I glimpsed snapping in the breeze here and there, and Miranda tells me it was probably what was being celebrated by a noisy group of lads we saw wearing commemorative 1966 England World Cup football jerseys at the pub, although they probably didn’t need an excuse.
Earlier that day, I was sitting at the Vaults and Gardens of St. Mary’s with a former student of mine who happened to be in town after studying theater for a semester in London, and suddenly the bells began to peal. They rang clamorously, joyfully, majestically, and for a very long time. It was a flawless spring morning, and everyone seemed to pause, transfixed by bells and sunshine, and a sense of euphoria washed over me. I jumped up and hugged my former student, and she hugged me back, not at all embarrassed. (She’s a theater major, after all.)
Other images from yesterday, my last full day here, lest I forget: A scruffy yard on Madgalen Road across the street from the Electric Transport Shop and the Goldfish Bowl in which nothing was growing but dandelions, but dandelions in abundance. A tree in front of one of those honey-colored stone buildings of Oxford heavy with the plumpest pinkest blossoms I have ever seen. The musty rooms of the Museum of the History ofScience, a building that dates back to 1683, its display cases filled with cameras, clocks, compasses, chemistry beakers, and other curiosities. Three men taking a break from business for tea and conversation on the sunny side of a busy street, their teacups placed on an old brick wall. Young girls in flower print dresses riding their bicycles, Miranda among them. Walking home in the crisp night air with Miranda and the Cansells, laughing and silly, after a wonderful dinner at the Madgalen Arms (which, to quote an article in the Guardian, was once a "rough boozer on the cheap side of town" and is now "one of the finest gastropubs in the country") -- it was late but we were loath to say good-night.
So here we are on the last day, the day after St. George's. The wait-for-the-bus, airport routines, knot-in-the-stomach, lump-in-the-throat, fly-away day. Our flight is supposed to be on schedule, and all the chaos and uncertainty of the early part of the weekseems to have subsided, and a very great distance is about to unfurl between us and someone we love, and I’m back to that morose sort of feeling, the good-bye part again.