My back is sunburned.

[Nickel Creek - Why Should the Fire Die?]

He had dark cropped hair, a trim moustache, a big ol' lone star pin, and a comforting Texas drawl -- the kind that is both a reassurance that all is well and a warning to toe the line. He was the man checking my passport before Customs in the DFW airport. To my surprise (grown accustomed to British reserve), he returned my perky smile with that funny half-smile that moustaches make.

"Now what have you been doing all the way over in England?"

"Studying in Oxford for four months!" Or maybe my whole life.

"Well then, welcome home, ma'am. We're glad to have you back."

Ahhhhhh, I've been anticipating this feeling for so long. The wide-open, personal, exuberant, endless-possibilities, frontier taste of America. And the direct look in the eye, the chatty intimacy of strangers. It's actually taking me longer to warm up to it than I thought it would. I forgot that transitions take time. But, gosh, culture is so amazing. And ours is a lovely, vast, many-colored tapestry that I love.

But now I have a few new traditions to add to the book called "My Life." Like tea with milk and sugar. And scones with clotted cream. And cloth shopping bags.

Today when I was on a run, every person I passed looked up, smiled, and gave a little wave. ::sigh::

Transitions are just a part of the rich fabric of life. My life is really blessed.

And my back is sunburned. Thank you, Texas, for sunshine again.

Time flies when you're fun.

Right now I am sitting on the kitchen counter - my usual perch for telling Mom stories - reaching over the guitar in my lap to type stories to cyberspace. I'm at home. Marshall, Texas, where the air is warm and sunny and smells a teensy bit like cows and not at all like Oxford.

I'm home!! It's really blowing my mind. Every night when I lie down in bed, I kind of expect that I'll wake up in the basement of Crick as usual and hear Angela in the shower and Amy breathing gently next to me or typing at her desk. And Genny and Carl talking up a storm in the kitchen above my head. Then when I wake up, I think I'm there for a second and then I hear Mom. It's happy-sad. REALLY happy and REALLY sad.

I had one of the best four months of my life in Oxford. I feel so overwhelmed and filled to the brim with glowing memories, loved faces grown so familiar -- and 10,000 hours of stories. As I walked through Oxford for the last time, I remembered the first time and how everything was so wonderfully new and strange and beautiful. Now the streets, corners, facades, spires, places of Oxford are so familiar -- every little piece of architecture that was once a strange face is now layered with memories.

That monument is where we ate burritos from The Mission and Hutton's tongue burned off. | That curb is where Daniel got falafel every night during Lent. | That corner is where that girl wiped out on her bike and Nick laughed and then felt bad. | That's the lane I walked down every Monday to meet with Josh. | Emily and I talked about life along that river. | That library is where I studied. And studied. And studied. | There's my church. | There's where we got ice-cream almost every night at the beginning of the term. | There's the coach station, there's Sainsbury's, there's Addison's Walk, there's Frewin Court, there's Port Meadow. | There's Crick.

It seems like it just started and yet it seems a lifetime ago I trudged the snowy streets of Oxford wondering what the next four months of my life could possibly hold. Now I have stories to tell, friends to love and try to stay in touch with, a new stage of life to look forward to. Time flies when you're fun. :)

"What we call the beginning is often the end

And to make an end is to make a beginning.

The end is where we start from...."

Not fare well,

But fare forward, voyagers.

Today.

I taught myself to play "Leaving On a Jet Plane" on the guitar. I thought it might be a good luck charm.

Nick transposed "Leaving On a Jet Plane" into a key I could actually sing it in. I taught myself that version (and learned a new chord!).

Emily, Nick, Daniel, and I climbed the tower of the St. Mary's and saw the dreaming spires from their own level.

Emily, Nick, Daniel, and I went to Merton again: the college where I had my Shakespeare tutorial and also the place where people like T. S. Eliot and J. R. R. Tolkien went and worked when they were here. Oh, also: second-oldest college in all of Oxford. No big deal. ;-)

Nick, Daniel, and I went shopping for food and clothes. I am proud to say that with our help, the not-a-natural-shopper Nick ended up with a great new pair of jeans. And I have food.

Now I am making cookies, listening to my "For Fun" playlist (which is currently on Elton John), and enjoying the late-afternoon sunlight filtering through the windows.

"We haven't located us yet."

[Music: Nick playing "Running to Stand Still" on the guitar -- he just taught me how to play it!!]

So the quote is from Darjeeling Limited, one of my favourite movies EVER!! Haha, it's also about stranded people. :) ("How can a train be lost? It's on rails.")

Still in the "wait and see" kind of phase right now. Apparently the volcano started erupting again and my flight for tomorrow was cancelled again. Now I'm supposedly flying out Monday. (MONDAY!) But a few people in the house still have flights scheduled for tomorrow so we're all crossing our fingers that they'll make it.

Today was another "one of the best days ever" in Oxford. We started off with coffee, porridge, and Mario Kart, during which I got REALLY MAD at Shane and Nick who were antagonizing me because I'm not very good (but I ALMOST BEAT NICK ONCE......sort of). Then we ate lunch and then we went out to the University Parks and played a really weird version of Ultimate Frisbee which involved Emily and me playing against Shane and Nick but really just jumping on them and trying to beat them up/get the frisbee from them. It was SOOOO cathartic.

Then we made a big ol' macaroni casserole for the whole house (I guess there's about sixteen of us left) and now we're about to head off to the Vines for some homemade chai tea and Heavyweights.

That's the wonderful news: underneath this, not everyone is adapting quite as well to the waiting game and it's definitely been an emotional up-and-down for a couple people. We just got news that Jen, who took a bus to Heathrow earlier today, had her flight cancelled and is coming back. She's gonna get some major TLC tonight.

"Has anyone said yet that this is a pain in the ash?" -Carl

The Eyjafjallajokull Diaries: Day Four.

It is now the fourth day of my extended stay in Oxford. I'm sitting out in the back garden enjoying the sunshine, wondering where this blasted ash cloud is. If it's causing so much chaos, why is the sky so very blue and the sunlight so very clear? Who knows. Talk about disconnect.

Though I'm getting quite desperate to see my family and eat some crawfish étouffée and drink coffee with chicory in it, I am still really enjoying the extra few days here in Oxford. I guess since I spent so long trying to prepare emotionally to leave right away, now I feel like every extra minute is borrowed time -- little moments magically stolen from What Should Have Been. The city of dreaming spires has never been so beautiful.

Jay left on a bus this morning after reading Wendell Berry's short story "Are You All Right?" from That Distant Land. (It was deemed the best selection because it's about people being stranded.) After he hugged everyone around the circle and walked out the front door, down the little dirt path to the street, and disappeared down Crick Road, Kate said, "A piece of the Crick soul just left." Then we all got really mad at her.

Then the girls decided to watch Friends because it would make us feel better and "In Jay's memory, we'll do something he definitely wouldn't have wanted us to do." :)

There seem to be some positive reports right now about the ash cloud and flights picking up again. We're cautiously hopeful, but ready to wait it out.

Sheer Insanity

(Just try to believe half the things in this post. Try. If it was in a movie, we'd all say, "Yeah, right.")

So here's the thing: There's this volcano erupting in Iceland. And before I even get to the point, let's just consider the this volcano's name. Unbelievable Fact #1: "Eyjafjallajokull." That's sixteen letters. SIXTEEN. Speaking of numbers, Unbelievable Fact #2: The last time this volcano erupted, in 1822, it went on erupting for TWO YEARS. So there's some scope.

Why is this so important? You probably already know Unbelievable Fact #3: We're all stranded in Oxford. Basically every airplane in Europe is grounded indefinitely because of this ENORMOUS cloud of ash that's now covering most of Northern Europe. It's completely surreal. Most of us should have left by now and we're all still here in Crick, trying to get our bearings and figure out how homeless we are. Our program - SCIO - is being magnificent and extending stays and inviting us over for lunch. One of the most incongruous parts of it is that the last two days here have been the absolute best weather we've had in Oxford all semester. Exquisite spring days. It's so hard to believe in this cloud that's casting major shadows over all our plans.

By this hour in American time I should have been sitting on Sarah's bed in her dorm room in Jackson, Mississippi. Instead, I am still an ocean away, crossing my fingers and hoping against hope that my flight that is now on Wednesday will not be cancelled again.

*cue Paul Simon "Homeless"* "Somebody cry why why why??!!"

Honestly, I feel like it's an adventure. It's slightly apocalyptic (you know, ash taking over the world and planes being grounded and thousands or millions of people being stranded without much recourse -- basically nature reclaiming her own), totally discombobulating, and really really funny when we stop to think about it. But a lot of girls have been crying and everyone is going TOTALLY CRAZY. Or, to Britishify it: "Really rather in a frenzy."

And yet. We're all together. All in this together. And it's a blessing to have a few more days with these people I love and this place I've learned to love, too.

But I really hope I can get home. Soon.

The Final Stretch.

This is the current state of things:

1) I have two hours before I have to print off my paper and walk it down to Frewin Court at which point I will be done with Oxford and my junior year.

2) It's doable. There is a light at the end of the tunnel.

3) Tonight Carl and Jay are feeding soup to our whole house. One last Crick family meal together.

4) In twenty-four hours almost exactly, I will be boarding a bus at Gloucester Green on my way to Heathrow and, eventually, home. I can't wait to be in Mom and Dad's arms.

5) I am listening to Christmas music. (WHAT?!?) Sing to me, Bing, sing to me.

6) This conclusion isn't going to write itself.

We're all mad here.

[Eva Cassidy - "Songbird"]

Everyone is going CRAZY working on their long essays. Here's the basic assignment: approximately 4000 words on a topic of your selection. Not too bad, right? It really isn't, but what with the trying to pack, clean the house, getting hostels and plane tickets and bus passes, eating, maybe sleeping -- and, most of all, trying to spend as much time together as we can before we NEVER SEE EACH OTHER AGAIN.....Well, all that is making 4000 words stretch out like the Neverending Story.

The coffee I'm drinking right now (which I stole from Christine's cupboard) tastes kind of like a combo of coffee, black licorice, and burnt wood. Ugh. I guess that's what you get for stealing people's things.

(Daniel just gave me a piece of beef jerky! That goes with the burnt wood taste of my coffee.)

My long essay topic (which I wrote for myself and got approved by the Oxfordian powers that be -- ie, the head of my program):

In his essay "Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What's to be Said" C. S. Lewis claims that through fairy stories, truth can be "smuggled" into the imagination and "for the first time appear in its real potency." Is myth appropriate in children's literature as a means to approaching truth and why?

Is that not the most fantastically interesting paper topic you have ever heard of in your life? I'm pretty excited about it -- so excited, in fact, that I think I'm going to recycle it and build on it for my SIP (Senior Integration Paper -- ie, senior thesis).

In other news, last weekend, I found my favorite pub: The Perch. It's set right in the middle of Port Meadow, nestled in a cluster of thatch-roofed houses and it has fairy-lighted gardens in the back. It is magical. Other notable pubs in Oxford.

-The Bear, the oldest pub in the city. It's oooolllllld, with really low ceilings (Nick and Sam B-T don't really fit in it) and a wobbly floor. In the cramped back room, the walls and ceiling are covered with the stubs of people's ties. Kind of like those restaurants where people pin a dollar bill to the walls.

-The Turf Tavern: probably the most famous pub in Oxford. It's really hard to find -- the only way to get to it is down an extremely narrow, dark, winding alley near the Bodleian. This is the pub where Bill Clinton didn't inhale when he was here as a Rhodes Scholar. Pretty much everyone famous who has lived in/been to Oxford has visited the Turf.

-The Eagle and Child. Duh. The Inklings met here. However, a less well-known fact is that, when the ownership of the Eagle and Child changed, these old guys decided they didn't like it anymore, so they moved across the street to:

-The Lamb and Flag. Cozy. Fireplace. No tacky music. Awesome.

-Bookbinders. They have board games in one of the back rooms.

We're all going to miss the "pub culture" over here in Britain. There's not really an equivalent to it in America. (I mean, seriously, can you imagine after church on Sunday night, a big old group of people - all ages - "Let's go grab a drink at the bar!!" Just doesn't work like it does here.) Sure, you go there to get some good drinks, but mostly you just go as a place to hang out, talk, chill, be cozy and loud with your friends. It's more down-in-the-earth than a coffee shop and much more family-friendly than a bar. What fun to grab a group of friends and walk a couple blocks down to the Rose and Crown for fish and chips or just sitting around.

When I finish this paper, I will officially be finished with my term at Oxford (and my junior year!). It was one of the best experiences of my life.

"I'm your huckleberry."

[Mumford & Sons - Sigh No More]

Daniel just introduced me to one of the best movies ever of all time. The guy owns Tombstone and BROUGHT IT WITH HIM TO OXFORD. Who does that??? Awesome people. Daniel Menjivar, that's who - the guy who aspires to be Doc Holliday.

DUDE. That movie is SO CRAZY GOOD!!! We just sat there with our jaws dropping and now we're all fired up to ride across the American plain and save people from bad guys. Or just be in love with Doc Holliday FOREVER. But instead, we have to sit in our house here in England and write papers. Shoot.

The thing is, it's our last week here, and even sitting in the common room of Crick writing a paper has taken on a giddy sweet charm. There is the random outburst (usually from a girl) of "Ohh nooo!! We have to leave in a week!!" which is always swiftly followed by a yell (usually from another girl...or Nick) of "I DON'T WANNA TALK ABOUT IT."

Here are some other things that have been happening in Oxford:

-Kate and I joined Jay at the Quaker meeting this morning. It was really challenging and fascinating and I had millions of questions for him afterwards. I really don't know much about Quakers at all, but I'm really intrigued to know more. I've been able to experience quite the gamut of church experiences here. While I've been very well plugged in to St. Ebbe's, I've also managed to visit churches of a lot of other traditions (Catholic, high Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, Quaker, etc.) and it's been both eye-opening, fascinating, confusing, challenging, and encouraging. It has also clarified a lot of vague concepts I had about what the church should be.

-Daniel decided to ask people if he were an animal which one would he be. So I made him pick one for me, and he said a peacock. Because they explode and make loud noises when you get them upset." (In his defense, he also tried to come up with some kind of "and peacocks are pretty!") Now he and Nick won't quit saying "peacock" whenever I get riled up. What can you do to that? It's like when you're in a bad mood and your mom says, "Hannah, you're grumpy." I'M NOT GRUMPY, DANGIT. Your response just proves her whole point. Dangit.

-We went to the Kilns yesterday. I have been where C.S. Lewis lived. Oh my he is my hero. I'll have to tell more stories about that some time. Suffice it to say: I was in a blissful state, soaking in the view and the stories.

-I met up with Nick Elledge and Jared Canfield in London. It was so weird, we used to hang out during all those long tournament hours when we were sixteen. Now we're all in England together. Crazy times.

-Our field trips have been awesome. OH MY. Some pictures are up on Facebook. Stonehenge is pretty legit, guys. :)

-I took a picture with Peter Pan.

-Jay and I played badminton against Christine and Hutton today. Our team: Spartacus. We won. Ohhhhhhhhyeah.

I guess I should go do some work on my paper now. It's due at 12:00 on Thursday and it is a MEGA MEGA MEGA PAPER.

Sun It Rises

["Go" - Jonsi. Oh my gosh I love this album.]

It's 7:03 a.m. on the tail-end of an all-nighter. I'm shivering a bit under a blanket, still cold from the walk I took at 6:00 into the sunrise. But the sun that I welcomed to Today is now peeking into the bay window at the front of Crick and pretending to warm things up. Jonsi is singing in my earbuds the most gloriously sublime music of morning-ness (and northerness). Nick and Christine are in here still writing papers.

OK, so in case anyone gets the wrong impression: I am not an all-nighter kind of person. I don't think I've pulled one all-nighter while in college. I just don't see the point. This is NOT to say I don't procrastinate. It's just that the way I see it, if I'm running that late on getting the assignment in, there's not a whole lot I can do at 4:30 in the morning that will up my grade enough to make it worth staying awake. I might as well not lose both a perfect grade and sleep, right?

But now I'm in Oxford living in a house of people who pull all-nighters (or about four or five of them do). And I'm leaving Oxford in less than (AGHDON'TSAYIT) eight days. So I figure, why not go all-out and do whatever the heck I want? I technically could've finished this paper by 2:00 or 3:00 a.m., but I had waaaaaaay more fun making multiple cups of coffee and tea, rolling around on the ground saying ridiculous, sugar-induced things to distract people, bouncing up and down on the living-room chairs, making paper airplanes, etc. In short, I decided to be super ADD and totally inefficient. For some reason, I never got sleepy enough to make me change my mind and go to bed like a normal person. And so I finished my paper rather leisurely around 5:00 this morning. I downed some cereal, sent my paper in, and then grabbed the blanket (that's still wrapped around my shoulders) and headed off to find a spot to watch the sun rise.

It took me a while, but I found a wooden gate to sit on overlooking a football (soccer) field and trees and fields behind it. I sat myself down for the next half hour and thought about my life and talked to God and was quiet and listened to the birds and got Fleet Foxes stuck in my head.

Y'all. The sun. It's a giant ball of liquid orange paint that's on fire. Betcha didn't know that.

(One of my favorite parts about finishing a paper I've been working on is closing all of the web browser tabs that have been open on my computer for days of research. *click* Gone. *click* Gone. *click* Gone forever.)

In approximately ten minutes, I plan on being snuggled in my bed and not getting up until it's a good solid 2:00 in the afternoon.

East Coker - T.S. Eliot

[movement IV]

The wounded surgeon plies the steel

That questions the distempered part;

Beneath the bleeding hands we feel

The sharp compassion of the healer's art

Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.

Our only health is the disease

If we obey the dying nurse

Whose constant care is not to please

But to remind of our, and Adam's curse,

And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.

The whole earth is our hospital

Endowed by the ruined millionaire,

Wherein, if we do well, we shall

Die of the absolute paternal care

That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere.

The chill ascends from feet to knees,

The fever sings in mental wires.

If to be warmed, then I must freeze

And quake in frigid purgatorial fires

Of which the flame is roses, and the smoke is briars.

The dripping blood our only drink,

The bloody flesh our only food:

In spite of which we like to think

That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood--

Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.

----------------------

It's Good Friday again. And again I am reminded of Love and how little I know it and how little I profess it, but how utterly I am changed by it.

THE ZOMBIES ARE TAKING OVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, so not exactly zombies, but something just as dreadful if you ask me: NOROVIRUS.

[cue blood-curdling scream]

It's kind of like the stomach flue only ten times scarier. Apparently it's one of the most contagious viruses in the UK because it spreads through touch -- entire schools have been closed down because of it and there's no way to avoid it. Once you have it, it lasts for up to 60 hours but once you're better, your immunity is gone within a few days. And we're pretty sure that's what Daniel has.

[another blood-curdling scream - just for effect]

Needless to say he's quarantined now (poor Daniel!) and the rest of of are living in terror and paranoia. (I mean, as much as we possibly can. You gotta milk this kind of thing for all it's worth.) Every hunger pang, twist of carsickness, or twitter of nerves could be the onset of "Noro." Kate and I have been making puking signs to each other ("April fools'!!!"). I've been pretty fatalistic about it ("Look, Laura, if I'm gonna throw up all night, I want this chocolate bar to be the last thing I ate"). BUT, so far no one else in Crick has gone down. WE ARE SPARTACUS. One girl from the Vines got it, I think.

It's like the Masque of the Red Death. Only no one has died yet. Minor difference. Maybe like the bubonic plague or something. Only not fatal. Whatever.

Pray for the health of your children in England. :)