Tree

I took this picture when I went hiking in Bryce last year. I don't know why, but I keep coming back to it. I love that it's covered with snow and still green. I love that it's all twisted and gnarled. I love that it's reaching towards the light. I love that it looks so big and small simultaneously-- that it can be so vulnerable and strong at the same time.

i miss it.

I was sitting in front of the Travel Office, headphones in and cramming like mad with my microbiology book.

I took the headphones out when a boy sat next to me. We were both waiting to talk to travel agents, and they were taking their holy sweet time.

"Getting ready for finals?" he asked.

"Yes. And yourself?"

"Actually, I'm graduating this semester, so I'm only taking six credits. So actually, finals aren't looking too bad," he replied.

"That's exciting. What are you planning to do after graduation?"

"I'm going to grad school at Cambridge."

"Cambridge? You mean, like, Cambridge as in Cambridge, Massachusetts? Or Cambridge, Cambridge as in, in--" I must have sounded like an idiot.

"Cambridge, England."

The story doesn't go much further. He had never been, so it was the perfect opportunity for me to wax eloquent on how Cambridge had basically been the best experience of my life. I did.

The receptionist for the Travel Office stuck her head around the door and told us we might as well come back later. All of the travel agents were stuck in a meeting.

Boy left, but at least he was going to Cambridge.

I left too, insanely jealous of the fact that this complete and utter stranger was getting to go live and study in this place so so dear to my heart.

Now it's almost 3:00 in the morning, more than 12 hours after this random encounter. I haven't stopped thinking about Cambridge all day.

In fact, as the hours ticked by into the wee hours of the morning and as my IRB approval application became more and more of an annoyance to fill out, I found myself clicking on my album of Cambridge photos on facebook. I've looked at them all now.

And now I'm just sitting in this plain chair in my plain apartment in Provo, Utah and more than anything I want to be back in Cambridge. So many wonderful memories in that place, and they are still so clear that I'm chuckling to myself thinking about them.

I want to go back and I want all the same people to be there. I want to live in my same apartment and study in the same Kings Library. I want to go to Sainsburys. I want a Cadbury McFlurry. I want to go to The Snug and sit in the same corner I always sat and drink hot chocolate and read some more Shakespeare. I want to go on weekend trips to Paris and go punting on the Cam. I want to pull an all-nighter with Katelyn, struggle through essays, and eat Chinese take-out. I want to go to another plenary lecture at the Union and I want to hear my professor cuss again in his dry British accent just because it would make my entire class titter like schoolgirls. I want to go to another formal hall. I want to walk to school in the cool hours of the morning and dash home in the rain. I want to drink tea and eat scones in Grantchester.

I want all of these things, and I can't have them. I miss my friends from Cambridge. I miss the classes. I miss the atmosphere. I miss the adventure. Maybe most of all, I miss the romance of it. It was such a romantic life I was leading, where I could do anything I wanted, pretend to be whatever I wanted to be.

It was a romantic life; even the broken kitchen table in my basement, and the dirty dishes, and the half-empty bottles of vodka and gin in the corner--they seemed almost poetic, especially with the static-y jazz playing in the background on the cheap alarm clock radio.

It was a romantic life--when my light was on at 3:00 in the morning because my essay has to be perfect, and I knew that there were countless rooms scattered across Cambridge with the light still on too.

It was a romantic life. One where I could push my glasses up my nose and philosophize aimlessly and feel like I was on the verge of some great discovery, as opposed to just being extremely nerdy and slightly delusional.

It was a romantic life and I miss all of it.

My dirty dishes here just look dirty, as opposed to being a sign of a harried intellect far too busy for such common things. Walking to school just reminds me of the fact that the FLSR is too far away from campus, as opposed to stimulating thought on the nuances of classical and gothic architecture. And half-empty bottles of liquor are frowned upon, as highly stressed BYU students are encouraged to turn to people (preferably of the opposite sex) with their problems as opposed to substances against the Word of Wisdom.

I guess what I'm really saying, is maybe it's a good thing that Cambridge only lasted two months or I may have come back as an entirely insufferable, rather supercilious lass.

Doesn't change anything. Still miss it.

Summer 2011. Me on the River Cam.