Small Feet

The thing about Glasgow is that it has nine -- nine -- free museums . On a Sunday afternoon or a Tuesday morning, people spill in and out of tall doors to examine paintings, stone arrowheads and wall fragments, faded gowns from the nineteenth century, sculpture, books with indecipherable handwriting opened to the middle of their spines, taxidermies from around the globe, and artifacts both from colonized jungles and from Glaswegian houses down the street.   Museums are a beloved pastime of mine, a superb shelter from rain and wind and indeterminate precipitation of all seasons. In my opinion, the people in the museums are as much an object of fascination as the objects numbered and held behind glass. The small families, scattering themselves sometimes across the wide galleries as they seek something of interest; the chattering tour groups on a determined yet careless scavenger hunt that they will likely repeat in a similar location tomorrow; the elderly couples who walk slo...

Oxford is sort of the be-all end-all of college towns -- it is literally a town made up of colleges. It was home to a few of my most favorite writers and thinkers: J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. It's a mecca for academics, museum-lovers, and Harry Potter fans. In some ways, visiting Oxford was like coming home.  Stone buildings like churches and castles and the different parts of Hogwarts, are scattered throughout the town. So are museums -- I visited the Pitt Rivers Museum of anthropology, and the Museum of Natural History .  There's also Magdalen College, academic home of Lewis, Tolkien, and many others.  And of course, the Eagle and Child, affectionately known as the 'Bird and Baby' by its frequent customers, the Inklings.  The literary magic and academic development of Oxford oozes out of the very stones. You can hardly help wanting to pour yourself out into a novel or play, history or theorem. Visiting it was a sort of pilgrima...

The idea of falling in love with oneself is typically reserved for inspirational quotes on Pinterest and self-help blurbs everywhere, but after spending a month in this city I'm beginning to understand what it means. Here in Glasgow, I have more free time than I've had in probably ten years, and one constant companion: myself. I have no choice but to like myself, but not in the self-absorbed way that I've been proud of myself for being kind or having a high GPA or being on the side of all that is right and good. I have to really like myself, get to know myself, be okay with being anxious and insecure and irrationally excited about old buildings and unpackaged food. I'm not really on a vacation: it feels a little more like a honeymoon, even though I've never been on one of those, but for just one person. For eight hours every week, I am scheduled to be in the classroom -- the remaining time is mine to do with as I please. This is a daunting prospect for someone wh...

I've been here for a month now, give or take, and I feel like I've been here forever. Several people have asked me for directions, but the minute I open my mouth it's evident that's not a very good idea since I got a bit lost on Friday. Who knows if I look like a local since I wear a lot of black or if they're just really desperate. I say 'cheers' a lot to demonstrate my grasp of the dialect here, but I also have to ask people to repeat things three times because the Glasgwegian accent is a bit like a foreign language. I've started asking the whereabouts of the toilet rather than the bathroom, because it makes me feel British despite my American accent and because I get a bit of a thrill out of saying something that would make a twelve-year-old giggle. I wrote a paper for a history course about class in Glasgow, and have gotten into the odd habit of sharing facts about the city's expansion with anyone I happen to be walking with. I'm learning to...

I've never been one for solitude. It's not that I don't like myself -- on the contrary, spending time alone isn't distasteful to me at all. Rather (and this is in no way a complaint), I have been blessed with abundant family, friends and loved ones whose company often seems more exciting to a lone stroll or foray into a cafe. Coming to Glasgow alone has changed this. The only person I know in this whole city is with me constantly -- I can't avoid spending time alone. In the week I've been here, I have walked miles on cobbled streets and sidewalks that are cracked patchworks of pavements, wandered into charity shops, cafes, pubs, museums, bookshops, grocery stores.... As someone who talks a lot, days spent by myself are vaguely jarring. Words that would generally spill out into the chilly air have no ear to catch them, and so they remain to bounce around as unarticulated thoughts and observations in my mind. My solitude makes every exchange an important par...