I have nothing to add.
Thursday, 24 May 2012
Saturday, 19 May 2012
Thoughts from Places: Southampton University
Today I woke up early and, finding myself with no particular purpose, did what I always do: picked up a book, read for a while, fell asleep mid-sentence, and then woke up again past midday with a powerful need to eat and achieve something with my life.
I read for a while longer. But as there was some welcome sunshine glimpsing through the blinds – a change to the heavy rain that had been plaguing us, not so much endlessly as unpredictably, for the last few weeks – I decided I’d go for a walk.
Of course it quickly wasn’t sunny anymore, so I waited out the afternoon before taking my chances. I could have stayed in, but I had determined myself to the excursion, and, anyway, I had to go into campus to return some library books – for the last time. My final assignments were in, my degree effectively over, and all I had left was to hand back those few borrowed items.
As I walked the streets towards campus, the sun was already starting to grow heavy, glancing its hot rays too close to the ground, casting the suburbs in that thick amber that manages to be invariably uncomfortable and beautiful at the same time. Puddles lay about the place, as well as those dark patches, the shadows of puddles past, stretching out over the pavement: the visible signs of invisible water. Elsewhere, rain pooled and ran like streams along the curbs, migrating south through the city.
I leapt over the puddles and the shadows alike, fearing, as I did as a child, that thick, clinging feeling of moisture that any one misstep might bring.
As I walked, I tried to focus on the houses and the buildings around me. I wanted to take them in, to memorise their shapes and colours. I had never really looked at them before. But as I walked, my mind drifted, and my feet continued steadily, treading the well-travelled paths they knew by habit. That made me think about home, about what homes are and what they mean and how they work. I wondered if home meant a place you could go without thinking, somewhere you knew so well that it didn’t matter how distant or distracted you were, as long as you went, you’d surely find your way. But I knew that if I had taken even the slightest diversion as I walked, I would have been lost. There was still so much of this city I didn’t know, so much I had never seen. It wasn’t my home. It wasn’t ‘my Southampton’, whatever that would be.
When I reached campus, I returned the books, and then I wandered for a while among the buildings. I knew only some of them well. Others were familiar only by distance. I thought about those buildings, how some were old and some were new, and I imagined for a moment being a piece of wood, or a tile, or any single object that makes up a whole. I thought about how each of those pieces eventually wore out, or grew weaker, or fell apart, and how they would all end up needing to be replaced one way or another. I remembered the old saying that you can take a person out of a place, but you can’t take a place out of a person, the idea that home is something you take with you, not somewhere you are or return to or come from, and I wondered if the pieces that passed through this place were changed by the buildings, or if the buildings were changed by them.
When I reached the other side of campus, I kept on walking. The clouds began to dribble, but I’d been rained on enough times in the past weeks not to mind. I walked to Avenue, the second campus, where most of my classes had been taken. As I approached, I wondered whether I had changed, whether I was any different to the boy who had taken those first uncertain steps here three years ago, desperately trying not to get lost. I knew I had learnt things – valuable things – but I didn’t know whether I had truly changed, for better or for worse, or whether the university had at all been changed by me. I figured that the pieces of buildings are made for their purpose, built to fit wherever they end up. But I didn’t fit when I started; it was something I had to learn. So maybe I wasn’t a piece at all.
The rain got heavier, and I took refuge inside for a while, heading to the bathroom. When I entered, I stopped. The walls were newly painted, the stalls done up, the latches on the doors fixed. For a moment I felt as if I were trespassing, like I’d walked into the wrong room. It wasn’t the same. This place wasn’t for me – it was for the new students, the ones who would pass through after me. I felt like I was lingering, like I’d become one of those dark patches: an unpuddle, an unstudent, a shadow reluctant to leave, the purposeless ghost of Avenue. For all the time it had taken to learn how to fit, suddenly there was no longer room for me.
(I should really stop having existential crises on the toilet.)
When I left, I took a different but equally familiar path back through the city. Again I tried to take in the sights and shapes and colours of the streets: the low hanging branches, the mismatched brickworks, the rows upon rows of takeaway restaurants. I knew that none of these things would last forever, and so maybe trying to hold on to them was a misplaced nostalgia for something not yet lost – which is, incidentally, true of most nostalgia. I knew that no matter which streets I took, or which way I turned, they and I could only ever keep on changing. I thought about the buildings on campus, constantly being made and unmade, and I wondered if that’s what I’d learnt, how to go about making and unmaking myself so that I could at least try to pretend to fit, changing and adapting just well enough to remain standing.
As I neared my house, I wondered what university meant for me, and what it means for most people. For many it’s a stepping stone, a way forwards towards other things, something to step on and step over in pursuit of the banks on the other side. And it’s one of many – all the places you go, and the places you come from – just stepping stones. The game is choosing the right stones so you can keep on jumping.
When I arrived, there was a small puddle on the path before the driveway; but, before I stepped over it, I stopped and took in the water for a moment: its shape on the pavement, the glimmer of waning light across its surface, the ripples of stray drops shaking themselves free from above. I imagined my future spreading out before me like a puddle that had become a lake, and, across it, hundreds of stones growing further apart, some of them barely visible, just peeking out of the water, some slippier and less stable than others.
Was little Southampton really just a way forward? Was it really as transient to me as I was to it?
Perhaps. But perhaps that’s not important.
I know that, as I leave this place, I am still the same child I’ve always been, jumping over puddles, searching for a way across. But, as I jump, I hope I can at least try to pay attention, to marvel at the size and shape and colours of the stones and of the water, just for a little while, even as I hop on over, trying - as we all must - not to fall in.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Thought from Places' stolen from The Vlogbrothers here.
Stepping stone metaphor stolen from Ze Frank here.
(What? You think I create original content? Please! That's for amateurs!)
I read for a while longer. But as there was some welcome sunshine glimpsing through the blinds – a change to the heavy rain that had been plaguing us, not so much endlessly as unpredictably, for the last few weeks – I decided I’d go for a walk.
Of course it quickly wasn’t sunny anymore, so I waited out the afternoon before taking my chances. I could have stayed in, but I had determined myself to the excursion, and, anyway, I had to go into campus to return some library books – for the last time. My final assignments were in, my degree effectively over, and all I had left was to hand back those few borrowed items.
As I walked the streets towards campus, the sun was already starting to grow heavy, glancing its hot rays too close to the ground, casting the suburbs in that thick amber that manages to be invariably uncomfortable and beautiful at the same time. Puddles lay about the place, as well as those dark patches, the shadows of puddles past, stretching out over the pavement: the visible signs of invisible water. Elsewhere, rain pooled and ran like streams along the curbs, migrating south through the city.
I leapt over the puddles and the shadows alike, fearing, as I did as a child, that thick, clinging feeling of moisture that any one misstep might bring.
As I walked, I tried to focus on the houses and the buildings around me. I wanted to take them in, to memorise their shapes and colours. I had never really looked at them before. But as I walked, my mind drifted, and my feet continued steadily, treading the well-travelled paths they knew by habit. That made me think about home, about what homes are and what they mean and how they work. I wondered if home meant a place you could go without thinking, somewhere you knew so well that it didn’t matter how distant or distracted you were, as long as you went, you’d surely find your way. But I knew that if I had taken even the slightest diversion as I walked, I would have been lost. There was still so much of this city I didn’t know, so much I had never seen. It wasn’t my home. It wasn’t ‘my Southampton’, whatever that would be.
When I reached campus, I returned the books, and then I wandered for a while among the buildings. I knew only some of them well. Others were familiar only by distance. I thought about those buildings, how some were old and some were new, and I imagined for a moment being a piece of wood, or a tile, or any single object that makes up a whole. I thought about how each of those pieces eventually wore out, or grew weaker, or fell apart, and how they would all end up needing to be replaced one way or another. I remembered the old saying that you can take a person out of a place, but you can’t take a place out of a person, the idea that home is something you take with you, not somewhere you are or return to or come from, and I wondered if the pieces that passed through this place were changed by the buildings, or if the buildings were changed by them.
When I reached the other side of campus, I kept on walking. The clouds began to dribble, but I’d been rained on enough times in the past weeks not to mind. I walked to Avenue, the second campus, where most of my classes had been taken. As I approached, I wondered whether I had changed, whether I was any different to the boy who had taken those first uncertain steps here three years ago, desperately trying not to get lost. I knew I had learnt things – valuable things – but I didn’t know whether I had truly changed, for better or for worse, or whether the university had at all been changed by me. I figured that the pieces of buildings are made for their purpose, built to fit wherever they end up. But I didn’t fit when I started; it was something I had to learn. So maybe I wasn’t a piece at all.
The rain got heavier, and I took refuge inside for a while, heading to the bathroom. When I entered, I stopped. The walls were newly painted, the stalls done up, the latches on the doors fixed. For a moment I felt as if I were trespassing, like I’d walked into the wrong room. It wasn’t the same. This place wasn’t for me – it was for the new students, the ones who would pass through after me. I felt like I was lingering, like I’d become one of those dark patches: an unpuddle, an unstudent, a shadow reluctant to leave, the purposeless ghost of Avenue. For all the time it had taken to learn how to fit, suddenly there was no longer room for me.
(I should really stop having existential crises on the toilet.)
When I left, I took a different but equally familiar path back through the city. Again I tried to take in the sights and shapes and colours of the streets: the low hanging branches, the mismatched brickworks, the rows upon rows of takeaway restaurants. I knew that none of these things would last forever, and so maybe trying to hold on to them was a misplaced nostalgia for something not yet lost – which is, incidentally, true of most nostalgia. I knew that no matter which streets I took, or which way I turned, they and I could only ever keep on changing. I thought about the buildings on campus, constantly being made and unmade, and I wondered if that’s what I’d learnt, how to go about making and unmaking myself so that I could at least try to pretend to fit, changing and adapting just well enough to remain standing.
As I neared my house, I wondered what university meant for me, and what it means for most people. For many it’s a stepping stone, a way forwards towards other things, something to step on and step over in pursuit of the banks on the other side. And it’s one of many – all the places you go, and the places you come from – just stepping stones. The game is choosing the right stones so you can keep on jumping.
When I arrived, there was a small puddle on the path before the driveway; but, before I stepped over it, I stopped and took in the water for a moment: its shape on the pavement, the glimmer of waning light across its surface, the ripples of stray drops shaking themselves free from above. I imagined my future spreading out before me like a puddle that had become a lake, and, across it, hundreds of stones growing further apart, some of them barely visible, just peeking out of the water, some slippier and less stable than others.
Was little Southampton really just a way forward? Was it really as transient to me as I was to it?
Perhaps. But perhaps that’s not important.
I know that, as I leave this place, I am still the same child I’ve always been, jumping over puddles, searching for a way across. But, as I jump, I hope I can at least try to pay attention, to marvel at the size and shape and colours of the stones and of the water, just for a little while, even as I hop on over, trying - as we all must - not to fall in.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Thought from Places' stolen from The Vlogbrothers here.
Stepping stone metaphor stolen from Ze Frank here.
(What? You think I create original content? Please! That's for amateurs!)
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