Nonsensically Beautiful

There is nothing I can add to what people have been writing about since the beginning of time: “friendships,” “relationships,” “love,” “community,” “affection,” “like,” “adoration,” or whatever else word(s) appropriately describe this odd creature that I cannot make sense of. It has been a freefalling journey that has rushed up against my daily life and has seeped into every part it, asserting itself upon my every thought. I suppose that the more one tries to figure these things out or control them, the stranger they become, and the less likely it might be to truly grasp events. I have been struck by the very virus of all that is nonsensically beautiful, and I don’t want to forget.

Every day I wake up, and every night before I go to bed, I thank whatever deity is out there, if not the universe, for my truly good fortune to be here in Oxford and the greater U.K. I couldn’t have asked for more – this is my magical spring and summer – of 2009, and I suspect it will be awhile before I see or experience something similar in the future. I take snapshots of all that has become familiar so that later on, I can conjure the images and memories in the vacuum of California. I have to remember I am a student on a mission, and being here has brought me down to a crazy new reality that makes me forget; I have partaken in the elixir of traveling and meeting new friends in ways I could never have imagined prior to coming to Oxford.

Overall, Oxford has been a life-altering experience from which everything in my life has shifted in its definition. Sometimes, I think, “Why does life demand we ‘return’ to something or head towards something else? Why can’t people find their Zen in other ways outside of the parameters of ‘normal’? That would be ‘unrealistic’ to say the least by common standards. If one can provide for one’s self and is responsible, then why can’t he or she decide how that will unfold?” Instead, there seem to be a series of hoops through which I know I have to jump just so that another party will get to give its “acceptance” or “declination” notice. But then, pipe dreams are what keep us going.

Starting this fall, I’ll have to start applying for different universities. It is a nerve-wracking process designed to maximize neurosis and minimize chances, and I will have to jump into the deep end of that pool of water sooner than I wished. I wish I could make sense of that process as well, but that is not mine to question. My task is to simply stay on task. I have decided to apply to the Oxford Brookes campus just to see if I have a chance, since I have taken to this place like none other. People I’ve spoken to have told me that my grades and studies should carry me without a problem and I’m going to visit their office soon. I’ll still apply to Cal Berkeley, Stanford, Cornell, and other similar schools in the States because I have to, and because I can’t put all my eggs in one basket. For once in my life, I feel like I belong some place.