Georgia On My Mind

May I first apologize for my overly long delay in new thoughts. Apparently, moving across the Atlantic is a bit more time consuming than I had originally anticipated. But now, five days after our arrival in Oxford, my wife and I have found a sufficient new coffee shop with internet, and I am appropriately high strung on a double espresso (after a monster latté this morning) to write again. We are yet to establish internet in our flat, so posts may be slightly sporadic for the next week or two until we have steady web access. But thank you, dear reader, for coming back despite the wait. I am much obliged.

Today my wife and I were tourists. After a few preliminary errands, we visited the Ashmolean Museum. This lovely little institution is a microcosm of England. First of all, it encases the peculiarity of English names in eternity. Elias Ashmole was the patron of the museum. His name conjures up all sorts of hideousness to my mind. Some old chap, sitting around in a parlor sipping tea with a gigantic mole on his face, the colour of ash - that is Mr. Ashmole to me. To top it off, the collection that he donated to found the museum was not actually his. He merely inherited it. But of course, that is most appropriate for this land, where inheritance has been an important segregator for centuries. I'm sure he was an excellent man, though, having donated everything to the public. And I did rather enjoy the museum, which, much to my happiness, was completely free.

Although inheritance may have served an unjust purpose for some time here, shutting worthy people out of public positions and the like, it also served admirable purposes. This town, Oxford, has inherited so much history and lore that one can hardly escape it at any turn. Even the cookers (ovens) are ancient. My wife and I have discovered that to live in Oxford is to trade history for amenities. After all, it would be rather difficult for everyone to live in houses cut from single slabs of ancient stone (well, maybe) and have central heating. I can't imagine how hard it would be to cut through all that rock and leave the buildings intact. So although the "furnished to a high standard" flat may not have met our American expectations, it is housed in a wonderfully picturesque building. In my opinion, all the history makes up for the unfortunate cooker and heating.

But to live anywhere, one must have friends. We have realized this to an absurd degree this week. Having arrived earlier than most students, we have hardly met anyone this entire week and feel the dearth of society keenly. Hopefully this will change as the term starts and we get more involved with my college. And we can tell that the people are friendly - café owners and store clerks have all been most eager to help. But it is nonetheless lonely.

I imagine that this feeling would accompany anyone moving to an unknown city, even within their native land. But to cross an ocean and enter a completely different land is slightly more daunting, I believe. Travel writers seem to have neglected these feelings, perhaps because they never intend to stay. At times it feels like we are visitors, but we have no homey hearth awaiting us after checking out from the local hotel. We actually go home to that old victorian building that looked so nice for our pictures. What was so lovely and romantic suddenly becomes a bit less than accomodating. The culture that was so quaint and historic, the same one we would marvel at as a short-term traveler, suddenly becomes a wall setting us apart as outsiders.

A year ago, my then fiancée and I had lunch with a couple who had lived in Budapest for four years and then come back to the states permanently. One thing they said is that if we lived in a foreign land, no matter how long, we would never quite fit in as locals. There would always be something setting us apart and keeping us from completely assimilating into the local life. But then, on returning to our native land, we would find that something was different. Our perspective was changed so that we could not lead the same life we had before. We would be people without a country - always endeared to our homeland, but feeling a bit of nostalgia for our adoptive country elsewhere. I don't know if that will be quite the same for us as it was for them, as Britain and Hungary are rather different places, but the idea of home is certainly a tough one, and I imagine it will become more complicated when we grow more comfortable here.

I have always been enamored with terms often used by Europeans like homeland, heartland, fatherland, motherland, native country, etc. Americans don't seem to use them as often for some reason, perhaps because it is so easy to never leave America. It would be difficult to be born in Slovakia and never leave, and upon leaving, the nostalgia of the homeland is quickly noticeable. Particularly among Eastern Europeans, the idea of a homeland seems especially powerful, producing such famous pieces of music like Finlandia (Sibelius), Ma Vlast (Smetena), Romanian Rhapsody (Enescu), and many others. And now I begin to feel the emotion that runs through all these pieces, of nationalistic pride and the glory of the native country. To leave your country, especially knowing you will not be back any time soon, is to understand how deeply you love your country. No matter how much I grow to love Oxford, Georgia will always be my homeland. Nothing could ever destroy my affection for the brief drive to Athens from Atlanta, of the beauty of Savannah, of the North Georgia mountains. So from Oxford to Budapest, from Oslo to Istanbul, wherever I go on this adventure, Georgia will be on my mind.