In the Margins of a Research Book...

"Ancrene Wisse, a well-known and lavishly praised but little studied religious work of the early thirteenth century."

A boy (I'm assuming off handwriting) has underlined "little studied" and then in the righthand margin written, "Maybe in California dear but not in Oxford."

Directly above it, someone has written in black in with an arrow pointing to the comment, "Prick"

Directly above that, in pencil, with an arrow pointing to "Prick," someone's written "The prick is right."

Then below the main comment:

Directly below, in blue ink "Ugly arrogance."

Then below that, in pencil, with an arrow pointing up towards the main comment, "But it's quite funny."

Part of some amazing photos I read about in an essay on the medieval practice of 'reading'. Isn't it interesting that, in the second image, rather than look at Mary with the baby, the young woman is flipping through a book, with her fingers between pages?

This Tree

This tree is confident, not arrogant. She trusts her strength against what comes. Holds herself high enough, but in humility. She only takes the space she needs, narrow at the base where other life must grow, but limitless in its top. Opens with elegance and grace. Doesn't bend to wind, nor curl onto itself in rain. Lets snow settle on her branches, flake by flake, because she knows that just as it came, it shall leave, drop by drop. And what makes her beautiful is what she's endured. Every scratch, every bruise- a new pattern on her base. And though her skin only thickens, she hasn't lost her vulnerability, nor her sensitivity. It only takes a scratch to expose the raw green that rests behind the thick, rough brown. Only takes a prick to feel the wet, freshness of her tears on your fingers. And yet she never drops her gaze, nor turns away. She is patient, and it is only because she is patient that she is the center of this landscape, the shelter above my head, the surface I lean against, the reflection I aim to see in the mirror.

She feeds me my breaths.

Yes, finally, I have found home.

Yesterday was the first time I casually sat on a train and rode through a landscape covered in snow. A white horse only visible because of dark eyes. Sheep grazing, rather 'digging' through to graze. Men and women, holding hands in trails parallel to tracks. Children sledding on small mounds of snow. I'm in the British Library, sitting at a desk in a beautiful room, still awed by the fact that I can order a book from 1200, put it at my desk, flip through its pages. I can't get rid of the feeling that I'm still on that train, that all I need to do is turn my head and look out of a window, past my reflection, and catch sight of a river, hardened just enough to hold a thin layer of snow. Ducks standing in places where they once swam, turned upside down and fished. A fallen tree's branches caught frozen in a creek.

So I Don't Get Too Comfortable

Where are you from?
No, where are you from from?
Some president you got there, no?
How did you get here?
Your parents ran away?
No? Then why is it that you don't cover your hair?
So, which do you like better, here or there?
How is it that your English is so good?
How funny. What a strange combination. Now how is it that an Iranian girl ends up studying English literature?

We were standing in one of Ici's ridiculously long lines on College Ave. It ran down the block. We stood at the trunk of the third tree from Ici's door. There was a father, holding a dog's leash in one hand and his boy's hand in the other. His daughter was swinging herself around her his legs. We'd been standing in the line for five minutes predicting the flavors. There was this moment of silence before we both turned to each other.
"We don't have to get ice cream from here."
"No, we don't."
"I mean, we could walk down the block and get ice cream from Haagan Dazs."
"Yea, it's just as good."

We left the line, both knowing quite well that we were settling for something far inferior, that no ice cream beats Ici ice cream.

I find myself in memories like these. Random memories with no significance. Yet, in those moments when I'm digging my face into my scarf so my lips don't go numb, I have a Tesco bag in one hand, and an ice cream in the other, thinking about the medieval relationship between Christians and Muslims that I find myself in some mundane moment of my past life.
I always smile.

Memory is a strange thing, turning moments of nothingness into 'moments' worth recalling.

I need to leave. The pavement that marks the circular route I take to class and back is worn, and I am struggling to keep my head lifted to the tops of the buildings and the branches of the trees. The sky is beginning to drop too low, closing in on me. Maybe it's because I'm weary of this Friday when I get the mark for my paper last term and I have my first dissertation meeting. Whatever it is, the fire in me is beginning to dwindle and another weekend alone in this room will put it out. I need to leave.