My morning realization...

...is that when one travels to a new country (or perhaps even to a new town, or to a new relationship, or new pair of socks or skis, for that matter) there are many things going on, but the main one, I think, is this underlying flutter (that perches in the soul & sings the tune without the words & never stops at all) that maybe here lies the possibility of all the things you wanted the world to be--already existing--and all the things you didn't want--not existing.  For example, and the very thing that inspired what is now perhaps appearing to be a convoluted, nonsensical (even slightly adolescent) thought, as I prepared omelets with Devonshire cheddar, Oxfordshire eggs, EU basil, tomatoes, peppers, kale, and green onions with a fair-trade mocha in the other hand moments ago, I realized that a country that opts not to put little irritating stickers on the peppers and tomatoes that none of us want to be there is a very good and intelligent country.

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These are photos taken the other night when we first dined in Hall (capital 'H') at Christ Church.

Underneath the coats were very pretty outfits that were never let out because the building is so old it can't exactly be properly heated on a 30 F night.  Imagine the strong smell of kerosene, two-hundred British accents bouncing off the arched dome & walls, eating with unusual swiftness as the servants are arriving already with course two whether or not you are done with course one, and being seated directly beneath an original painting of Sir Thomas More (Utopia's author)--and, you'll have a hold of a tendril.  I put it forth again that I am allowed to bring two guests per night, so all you have to do is get here and then you too can wrap yourself in wool and take deep inhales of kerosene just as Einstein must have.  You'd be crazy (one sandwich short of a picnic) to pass it up.

One more thought, as this is a new shift--something changed yesterday for me.  I never took out the map and I knew my way around and I didn't feel the previous tendency to say very clipped sentences in hopes they wouldn't place the American accent.  I ordered a book from "the stacks" at the Bod to be delivered to the lower reading room of the Radcliffe Camera on Monday morning with ease.  I eavesdropped on a funny conversation with a mad professor at a bookstore cafe and smiled back and forth with the woman who was enduring it.  People moved aside when I walked down the various alleys and sidewalks instead of walking straight for me.  One woman took photos of me outside a college where I was waiting for a meeting.  I met with my tutor, Dr. Henry Dicks, for the first time and felt jovially intelligent with no need to equivocate during the literary line-drawing we were engaged in.  And none of that really indicates anything, it just sounds like me listing more of how swoony I am here but in between the lines there is something different.