Last month, I went three weeks without eating any fresh fruit. Each of my home-cooked meals had a heavy portion of carbohydrates (rice or pasta), a meat dish (chicken or pork), a few vegetables mixed in (broccoli, onions, mushrooms, and/or peppers), my requisite dairy product (cheese), and some flavoring (soy or chili sauce). I alternated the various components to create all sorts of tasty permutations. The meals were sufficiently hefty, and I would lean back from our little kitchen table feeling quite full, but not entirely satisfied. Hunger starts at your stomach, travels up your esophagus to yank at the bottom of your tongue, and ends by pushing small circles against your brainstem. But this need was a bit different. I couldn’t trace it to any body part, except perhaps to my teeth. I thought scurvy was imminent.
It has been nearly six months since I’ve written anything, but neither for lack of desire nor dearth of content, I assure you. There is so much I want to talk about: my first experience with 4-Loko on New Year’s Eve, the beauty of the sun setting beside Prague castle, a powerful epiphany on a San Francisco park bench. These things, and the need to express them in writing, have been building inside me over the last few months. Scarcely a day goes by but I think “Hey, that would be fun to write about”. But holding me back was a felling that I had unfinished blogging business.
At the end of those three fruitless weeks, I bought a sack of clementines from the grocery store. My first bite felt like all the taste buds on my tongue had stood up and ran to the point of flesh-fruit contact, singing hymns and shouting hallelujahs all the way there.
This is my writing clementine, and I want to taste it by saying goodbye to my recent home. It’s hard for me to talk about Cambridge without sounding sentimental, but if it pleases you, just share with me a few recollections.
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I remember seeing the front gate of King’s College for the first time. I had three bags and a heavy stink trailing behind me. I recall turning right from Pembrooke Street onto King’s Parade and seeing the spires silhouetted against the dim October sun. Pushing my way through cycle traffic, I crossed the threshold and turned left into the first room I found, and asked for the Porter’s Lodge. The man behind the desk looked at me stoically and said, “You’re standing in it, Sir."
I remember, near the conclusion of one formal hall, looking down and seeing a penny sticking out of my dessert. Ste then informed me that I was required to eat my chocolate soufflé without the use of my hands. To the detriment of my suit, I obliged.
I remember punting with my lab group. I had predicted that Shane would fall in the river, and he did so with absolutely no help from me. As the boat continued on, I looked back and Shane was standing there, submerged to the waist, with his hands on his hips and that big goofy smile on his face.
I remember paying rent to Liz by taking us to Jamie’s Italian for dinner. We drank lots of wine and had many different appetizers.
How they all come back to me now.
I remember driving to the beach in mid-November; we took the A-14 up to the Norfolk coast to a village called Holkham, adjacent to the charmingly-named town of “Wells-next-the-Sea”. We had brought some blankets, chocolate, bread, hummus, fruit, and drink. After a perilous toe-dip in the frigid North Sea, we huddled near some reeds and laughed at ourselves.
I remember Gareth’s leaving do: how we all got drunk and tried to cartwheel on the back lawn. One of the porters appeared and started yelling at us. We ran off, daring him in his large black robe to chase us. The night air was warm and we so jubilant in our rebelliousness.
I remember punting 3 hours to Grantchester and feeling the sun brown the back of my neck. I let my hand dangle over the side, and the river rose up softly to meet my fingers. Somebody had brought an i-pod, and we listened to music on those little speakers all the way up and back down the river.
I remember the swan family. When I first arrived, the cygnets were small and grey. Their feathers looked fluffy, and I remember being surprised that they didn’t just soak up with water and sink into the Cam. I remember sitting by the river and watching them swim by me. The mother at the front, majestic and imposing, and the cygnets in a perfect line behind her.
I remember sitting in the wooden chairs on the old shack’s patio near the northern edge of the Fellow’s Garden. At night, the trees to the left quash the motorway sounds, but somehow the wind manages to push through, free of the exhaust and bustle of the street. The grass stretching out in front curves left because the right-hand garden moves in to annex it. Flowers, low shrubs, and trees all sway with the wind, some more slowly than others. We would sit in those chairs and listen to music for hours. Often an album would finish and the night would take over, and we’d listen to it just as attentively.
I remember running, as I so often did, down King’s Parade. It was early December, only a few weeks before I was to leave. The night was cold and moonless, and I could see my breath puff out in front of me, illuminated by the street lamps. My sneakers pounded on the pavement: softer on the cobblestone and louder on the concrete. They made a melody of volume as I weaved back and forth between the two surfaces. I ran by the Copper Kettle, and then by Nero’s, Benet’s, King’s Shop, and then I crossed the narrow street in front of St. Mary’s Church. I rested for a moment and walked in a short circle with my hands tucked behind my head, and I filled my lungs with the frosty winter air. A few flakes of snow hit the pavement in front of me, and the bells of St. Mary’s Church began to strike. Six in a row, they went, one right after another. Because of the echoes and residual noise, each one seemed to grow louder than the previous. I stood there, unmoving, listening to the bells, and I was ferried back nearly a year earlier, to Christmas Eve 2009. On that night I had also been running and rested in front of the church, and I saw the first hints of snow blend with the cobblestones. I listened as the bells of St. Mary’s Church began to strike. Six in a row, they went, one right after another.
I was there as two different people. A young man newly arrived, and a slightly older one about to leave. Time lost it’s hold on me, and as my mind struggled to connect the two people, I seemed to shuffle back and forth among the memories I’ve laid out before you and the countless others that float before me now.
The cold brought be back, and I started to run again. Faster and faster I went as I sought that dissociation once more. My lungs were pistons, forcing bitter air out of my body before it could warm. I turned from Bridge Street to the wooden planks along the river and saw the swan family. I must have startled them, because as I drew abreast they took flight. The mother in the front, and the young ones (nearly fully grown now) in a neat line behind her. They glided just above the water and I glided just beside it, and we formed a triangle plane that breathed the night air back before us. We stopped, and I marveled at a few stars while the swans tucked their long necks under their wings and went to sleep.
I remember lying in the green of Bodley’s Court under the tree that overlooks the river. It is summertime, and the afternoon light bounces off the water onto the underside of the leaves to create a shimmering mosaic of color and texture. One of these days, you might see me sitting there with a book in my hand turned facedown on the grass, and I staring out at the passing boats. I invite you to sit with me. You can dig your fingers into the soft earth. You can smell the stone and the foliage. You can talk to me about your studies, or if the soup in hall was too salty. You can give me your jokes and your worries, your smile and your furrowed brow. You can tell me all about what you did today. But if I decline to turn my head, and appear not to respond, please do not be offended. I really do enjoy the company; it’s just that I’ve found a good spot, and we’ve got all the time in the world to move.
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