Mi Vida Loca!

Memory Lane

sometimes the slightest thing can send me sailing off into memory lane. i miss oxford. it was so long ago and yet i remember it like it was yesterday. i miss walking everywhere, and never really being in a hurry. i miss university park where i would sit and people watch and journal and write poetry. i miss walking along the river Thames and see the boys on their boats (can't remember what they are called, those long ones where you sit in a row). i miss st aldates cafe where i would buy a fresh scone with real cream and strawberry jam and i would sit at a window table eating, drinking coffee and journaling about what i saw. i miss St Aldates church that i attended every saturday night - the prayers, the communion, the people. i miss the college group there, we'd meet on wednesday nights and for 2 pounds have dinner and dessert (whatever they were serving) and Bible study. It was so fun. i miss taking the oxford express into london for 6 pounds return trip and wandering around london, sitting in cafe's or the park and journaling. i wrote a lot while i was in england. i miss the french pastry shop where i would go to buy yum yum's. i miss bimbles where i would go to mail my letters in the foreign looking air mail envelopes. i miss the grocery where i used a tiny shopping cart since everything was so fresh and you can't buy in bulk because it goes bad. thats where i bought my first block of red liecester cheese. and it was in Oxford where I could drink milk and not get sick. i am lactose intolerant here in the states but not over there. i don't know why. i miss the food van parked on woodstock where i could buy a baked potato smothered in cheese and chilli. i miss g & d's creamery where I ate such delectable ice cream like bailey's and sweet cream or marsmania. best ice cream i've ever had - well its tied with gelato. i miss sitting in the eagle and child pub drinking cider after church. i miss hearing the accent. i miss people saying "cheers". i miss who i was when there - i went to plays and musicals and i read a lot of books and wrote a lot of poems and stories. sometimes i think part of me is left there, waiting for my other half to return. while there i felt so at home, so "in my element". and yet when i stepped off the plane in the blazing Texas heat I knew Texas was home. is it possible to have two homes? I think i do. i hope someday i can have the money to go to england regularly. I would love to be super rich and have a vacation home there. if so it would be in cornwall. or maybe dover. *sigh* i miss england.

posted by Jan @ 9:43 AM