insider

proof that sometimes the weather is worth talking about: last night we had torrential rain and loud thunderstorms which we sat and watched from the warmth of our lounge. then, just as we were about to go to bed, the rain made an unwelcome entrance into our cellar, which we duly had empty out, using buckets, ice-cream boxes and old towels. it was quite the adventure, which - in addition to the fact that our water supply was cut off all night - made it quite a day, all in all. sometimes the weather intrudes when we would like to ignore it...

posted by Joanna Ruth @ 1:15 PM

arrived early this morning, and found myself - inexplicably - drawn into starbucks on cornmarket street. just opposite barclay's bank... ok. there's nothing inexplicable about it at all. either a) i stayed up too late last night lamenting my lack of evening and thus trying to extend it into the night, or b) it was only a matter of time before my addiction caught me up here on the other side of the pond, or c) all of the above. whatever the truth, darcy & i now find ourselves ready to face another day at the office.

i found out last night (over pimm's at the Head of the River) that miss ab abhors the english love of discussing the weather. she feels that as a conversational topic it's nothing more than a waste of time. i beg to differ, though i have been known to comment on temperatures in the absence of anything more astute to say. all of which amounts to the fact that i shall say nothing about current weather conditions in oxford. for the moment, at least.

posted by Joanna Ruth @ 9:10 AM

a mid-afternoon note from my oxford office... today the sun has made an appearance, and our window is being propped open by a video called 'responding to a postmodern world'. although i like to wax lyrical about oxford and its dreaming spires, it has to be said that it is also a city of many tourists, irate mothers wielding large (and thus dangerous) push-chairs, music-playing taxi drivers and oversized post office queues. not that the idyllic side doesn't remain, but the hustle and bustle of everyday life seem to prevail, certainly on mondays.

posted by Joanna Ruth @ 3:48 PM

a fresh, grey morning in leafy chorleywood. the kind of weather you feel guilty about relishing in late june, but it's perfect for a quiet saturday morning. having said that, the clash of a cymbal on the street outside reminds me that my brother and his band are practicing downstairs this morning. up here however, at the top of the house, i'm listening to the shins and looking out at the sky which is as white as the tip of the house next door, just visible from where i am sitting. yesterday was stormy, and today the air smells damp and all the gardens along our road look grateful for last night's rain. my mother (with whom i wandered down to the local bookshop this morning) claims that it makes the birds happy too, though personally i can't see how she could possibly know that. still, there is certainly a lot of birdsong in the air today.

i've now survived a whole week back in the UK, and that week has comprised three days in oxford, and two in london town. yesterday was my first day back at the british library at king's cross. i arrived in the sunshine and left in the rain, but in the interim i managed to do some writing and to remember that i love the british library. this has something to do with the quietness and lightness of the place, the sweep of the stone stairs and the absence of haste which is so noticeable once you step back out into king's cross. it certainly feels more relaxed than the bnf in paris, yet it remains a scholar's world, and as such also has the quiet seriousness of academia. there are no windows in the reading rooms, which means - in theory - that there is less to be distracted by, but i often find myself daydreaming about the other people working there, wondering what they are reading and writing. it's incredible to think that books, articles, perhaps poetry and plays are all being crafted there, as we all sit quietly amidst our words and our thoughts. i like to imagine what it would all look like if you could see the words floating around us, being added to and taken from as we construct the sentences on the pages in front of us. i had the idea yesterday of standing at the door and asking everyone who went in what they were working on ... that in itself would almost be worthy of a book.

after the serenity of the bl, i threw myself into the madness that is oxford street on a rainy friday afternoon. too stubborn to buy an umbrella just because i'd left mine at home, darcy and i got thoroughly soaked, and i was so intent on keeping my head down as i strode along, i didn't see my brother, who was walking from his office to the station, and tapped me on the shoulder as i was about to pass him. it always amazes me when i meet anyone i know in london, as it seems such a mass of strangers. there is no sense of community in those very busy london streets, though perhaps i am wrong and just see it that way because i am one of the strangers who walks the streets without really belonging there.

on the tube yesterday i tried to work out whether i feel like a londoner. technically, i'm not one, though i do feel at home there. perhaps large cities are easy to feel part of though ... since everyone is a stranger (until you bump into your brother) and we all have such different stories. here, in the smaller towns, we have stories which are much more alike, and are therefore quicker to identify those whose narratives don't match ours. in london there is space for any number and type of story. so, in a small way, i am a londoner, though more because i love it than because i truly belong.

the rest of today shall comprise (if all goes to plan):
- lunch at cafe rouge with miss dm & friends, in honour of the fact that she is now 32 years of age.
- a bbq at bugbrooke, in company of the locks. perhaps even a wander through the village fete, if we arrive in time.

now, to the mundane. i must finish unpacking.

posted by Joanna Ruth @ 10:59 AM

a quick note from oxford, where it all started. ok - not everything, but blogs in particular. in fact my first ever blog was written from another room in this building; one looking out over St Aldate's and Christ Church college on the other side of the road. oxford is a magnificent city, and one which i love for its firm hold on history. this morning as i walked up the high i saw students in sub fusc heading towards the examination schools for their finals, just as i did a few years ago. i love the solidity of the buildings here - somehow it reflects the solidity of time here. things do change, but slowly, and sometimes imperceptibly. and despite the age of the place (or perhaps because of it) it is a place in which one can dream, write, think, all of which i hope to do over the next two months. inbetween all the hard work, that is...

posted by Joanna Ruth @ 5:22 PM

a quiet evening in chorleywood; downstairs someone is playing the piano slowly, and outside the sky is a dusky blue. there are no sounds coming from the road outside, and i wonder whether the rest of the town - like me - is sitting contemplating the week ahead. sunday night in aa was my favourite movie watching evening; here i find myself looking for distractions, somehow hoping to prolong the hours before the end of the day. often i think there is little (if any) logic in our fears... here i find myself anxious about a new job in a city i love (oxford), with people i think some of the nicest in the world. it seems that whenever i am faced with change i ignore the possibility that the new might be better (or at least as good) as the now, choosing instead to assume the worst: that it will be harder, less rewarding, too much somehow. yet so often when we find pleasure (or perhaps it finds us), its source is something new: a spectacular sunset which we could not have seen before, a new horizon (real or otherwise), the voice of a person we have only just met. if we could accept (and remember - the remembering is so hard) that sometimes (often) the new is good for us, perhaps we would feel better the night before the first day at work. this i still need to learn.

posted by Joanna Ruth @ 10:03 PM

how many times have i written these words: 'i'm back in leafy chorleywood'? whatever the number, i find myself - yet again - surprised by the transition: the suddenness of moving (as k says) from one room to another, and then to another, yet with the result that we find ourselves in worlds which are other, in which people live at different speeds, see things with different eyes, and in which even the summer heat feels unfamiliar.

very early this morning i stepped off a plane from toronto, and was reminded that i dislike transitions, even of this nature (perhaps this is also related to the general unpleasantness of flying/eating airline food/watching bad movies). so, at this particular moment, though the sun is shining and outside everything is quiet except for the hum of a small plane passing overhead, i do not feel as happy as i ought. chorleywood is peaceful in a way which lulls you into a different approach to time, but at this particular moment i would rather be back in aa than anywhere else. this stems mostly from my inability to remember how much time it takes me to adapt to a new place, however familiar it may be. i was last home in march, but even with a space of 3 months between the person i was then and who i am now, i find myself looking at the books and music in my room as if they belonged to someone else. it's wierd to feel as if you're trespassing on your own territory. then, of course, come the inevitable (and doubtless jet-lag inspired) questions about the meaning of the word home. i use it so frequently when in the US that i forget its meaning has shifted, and continues to shift, though with no comforting rhyme or reason. i seem to forget that there is no longer one place in which i feel fully at home - only rooms, towns, apartments, libraries (ah, it's the grad student in me) in which i feel partly displaced yet always with some sense of belonging. i shall add to this the fact that k is in aa, and though it is hard to renounce my independence in matters emotional, i feel that the space between us has robbed me of a companion, confidant and coffee-shop conversationalist.

thankfully (or should it be sadly, since it shows how we relive the same patterns of emotions?) i imagine that in a week or two i'll be perfectly happy to renounce all of this whining and to declare that london is the only place i'll ever really belong. well, with the exception of paris, of course...

posted by Joanna Ruth @ 2:57 PM

it's been a long while since i've done this, but i am sitting in the fishbowl on campus, surrounded by the gentle hum of undergraduates on cell phones and the clicking of keyboards. i also happen to be wearing my yoga clothes - a sorry testament to my inability to read schedules - there was no class today, excited though i was about it. so here i sit instead, a little too aware that this is my last full day in aa, and thus wondering whether this is a good use of my time. it's entirely possible that if i gave up worrying about using my time wisely, i'd have more time in which to actually live, instead of analysing these things...

as always, when it comes to leaving a place i've become attached to, i'm feeling wistful today. i'm no longer sure how to categorise my feelings about going home (meaning Chorleywood, but then is that really home now?) and about leaving aa. it is true that this place is better in the summer, and i've become quite used to the quietness and the slower pace with which life continues. and the greenness of it all, which seems to go along with the different speed of living. the trees on campus are fuller, and the days seem to reflect that - they are richer, more colourful. there are - of course - friends to return to, and a job, and all those books i'm going to read over the next two months. but once again, i feel torn. there are friendships here which will be hard to leave behind.

posted by Joanna Ruth @ 6:00 PM

3:04pm and i am sitting in my carrel on the 3rd floor of the graduate library (south side) with a view out over trees and the top of the law quad. it's a grey and stormy day outside, trees swaying against their will in the warm wind. i've been here since this morning but am failing to get anything done - there is a pile of new books in front of me (lacan) and i'm feeling a little despondent at the prospect of re-writing chapter 4, the current project. if i do manage to get something done however, there is a movie to be seen tonight, and perhaps some popcorn to go with it. in the meantime though, the stormy weather seems appropriate.

posted by Joanna Ruth @ 8:04 PM