A new season

And here I am on the Magdalen Bridge. I had to stop, its October, and it is fall. For the first time here, despite the rain we have suffered through intermittently in the past week or so, I finally felt the season tick over and begin. There is something about being in a place at that moment, feeling the wind with winter on the way, of knowing that you are, like the city, within time and season and spin. And just having thought about dissertations and academics and change, this is all so new and so old, so familiar. The knowledge that wherever I go the seasons will turn and leaves will fall and that smell in the air of wet leaves and time will fill my nose. And cars and people pass me by, all souls knowing the same as me, their internal rhythms pulled inside by the wind. All the world turns.

And I think of how different things are here, and wonder why, because as people we are all the same. Some have no open minds about anything, and I wonder how they can possibly come to such a place as Oxford with closed eyes, with closed hearts, and not revel in the differences, instead just wondering where their wireless internet or warm showers are. Yes my kneeling shower is strange and uncomfortable, and perhaps I would like some peanut butter, but the novelty, the difference, makes it so much better than anything I have ever had before. And as a wasted Friday turns towards the weekend, I cannot help but think how much has been created here in three weeks, and wonder what this next season will bring.