Oxford

Oh, Oxford.

You shaped the early stages of my adulthood. My second migration. My third language in which I now dream.

The first years of my professional career. The steps one takes with the freedom that comes from financial independence. The routines. The trips around the world. An ambrosial world of light and darkness.

The loves. A love brought me here, another kept me, and the last one forced me to be aware of who I have become. And of who I had forgotten I was. And now that I remember, not a single day passes by without this bliss of extraordinary awareness that I am back, and lost no longer. Now that I remember, I’m off to be(come) who I am. Off to where I last left myself, ten years ago, an August summer day. (A sudden premature death of one’s most loved can push us to devour life as if there was no future. Life becomes everything, now, in all its intensity. Because tomorrow, who knows if we’ll even be alive, still. So one forgets about the longer term, focusing only on what one can experience in this right moment, in case this experience is lost forever. Slowly, however, the longer-term project of becoming oneself, which needs a bit more work and effort than the instant gratification of having a new experience, gets pushed away. Slowly, one forgets who one wanted to become, and starts being whatever the day-to-day experience shapes of one. One is no longer the architect of one’s life.)

I was only going to stay one year, Oxford. I understand now that I needed the extra four. I also understand that sudden premature death may happen someday again, but the rest of the days, it won’t happen. I get it now – I am rushing no more. It is easy not to rush when one has the clarity of where one is going, and when one no longer has an enemy within. Any external obstacles, one can deal.

City of Dreaming Spires, you are my forever La, la land. Only here, I have found myself again. Maybe one day our paths may cross again. Bless you, Oxford, for how much you’ve given me all these years, and for your last lesson.