Walking Back to that Quiet Place
Finishing studies at Oxford, Lake District poems, and Wisdom from Sarah Clarkson
English summers sound like gentle rain droplets pattering outside your window just when you were about to go on a walk. But the ambience has a certain charm and sets the backdrop for this moody post which contains some pictures of the Lake District and meditations on transitions.
It's July, and I am emerging from the addictive chaos that is university life at Oxford. Summers here are quiet for students as we try to decompress and avoid the city centre, where Harry Potter tourists in matching T-shirts have ascended in droves.
Even with barely any hindsight nostalgia accruing yet, this year of life dazzles in my memory already. The candlelit formal hall dinners with friends, the world-class speakers populating your calendar in stunning venues, and the continual buzz of a place that runs on the fuel of ideas. Many people carry around a pocket moleskin notebook to all the events they attend, ready to jot down nuggets to mull over later or collect bits that may be relevant to their research. Each crevice of the campus is haunted by the ghosts of former students, figures who shaped history and the world we live in today (for better or for worse). The buildings themselves, detailed and majestic and enduring a thousand years, seem to call you to a higher standard. Add in the pace of coursework, presentations, and essays and you have this glowing mess of stimuli. A frenetic stress looms over you as attempt to milk every bit out of such a place.
A day here can feel like five days pressed into one.
My head and heart feel heavy with inspiration as my one-year master's degree has come to an end, and I am preparing for the next season of life and work here in Oxford. Currently, I feel as if I am coming down from a mountain, trying to remember how to contentedly ease back into mundane life and anxious about coming changes. But isn't daily life where all the sweetest and dearest things are tucked?
The aurora of the Lake District in Northern England has been helpful. Its colour pallet of cool blues and low-toned greens and the mist that drifts over the soft foothill peaks embody the tranquillity I hope will clothe me. The colors seem to bleed into each other, such seamless transitions.
Sarah Clarkson, an Oxford-based writer and mother, recently spoke on this topic, contending that 'all people need a season of transition, you need a way to walk yourself back home, to that place within your heart'. She says she can't 'take on quiet cold turkey' though.
Sarah mentions her practices of 'walking back' to that inner quiet place, like immersing in her favourite movies or novels, or taking long walks in nature, after seasons which have demanded a burst of chutzpah. Carving out a little space for these, Sarah says, ushers her into a state of 'holy attention and watchfulness', where she can 'emerge from that place, look up out of the window and take a deep breath. And then able to say, 'Here I am, Lord, I think I can speak with you now'.
Lately, savouring bits of poetry has been a way of walking back to that place of stillness for me. William Wordsworth wrote the below poem which was inspired by his time visiting the Lake District. Reading his words, I could physiologically feel them wash over me, the landscape holding me tightly for a moment.
‘Embrace me then, ye Hills, and close me in;
Now in the clear and open day I feel
Your guardianship; I take it to my heart;
‘Tis like the solemn shelter of the night…….
Dear Valley, having in thy face a smile
Though peaceful, full of gladness. Thou art pleased,
Pleased with thy crags and woody steeps, thy Lake,
Its one green island and its winding shores;
The multitude of little rocky hills,
Thy Church and cottages of mountain stone
Clustered like stars some few, but single most
And lurking dimly in their shy retreats.‘
Home at Grasmere by William Wordsworth
For now, I’ll be doing small rituals to slow down and be attentive during this in-between and preparatory moment while looking forward to what is next, confident it will carry its own peculiar goodness.
In other news, I’m excited to share some resource recommendations via Weekend Whimsy posts soon. But in the meantime, here is a melody I can’t stop listening to.
Drinking in all the beauties and oddities around me.
Warmly,
Carolyn