Everything is beautiful because it will end
I've spent the last three weeks studying environmental design in Oxford. Here's a look into the gardens of my mind.
I often find myself thinking of the end of a chapter when I’m only halfway through it.
Which is why, only a week into my time in Oxford, I cried at my conference with my teachers Dr. Barbara Mossberg [Dr. B as everyone calls her] and Professor Julie Voelker-Morris.
“I don’t know why I’m crying when we just got here,” I blubbered into my matcha, the Radcliffe Camera towering over me.
“It’s because you are a writer,” they said. “Writers see things as beautiful because they are conscious of an expiration date.”
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As I scribbled notes in my journal, remembering how I’ve written stories similar to this before—stories steeling myself for the ends of things before they actually end—Dr. B continued.
“There are certain times in life when light mixes with darkness. These are called ‘threshold moments.’ Think of sunset or dawn,” she instructs me while smearing raspberry jam on a scone.
I considered. One of my earliest memories in life was a winter night in Poipu, Kauai, where I watched people crawl onto lava rocks to watch the sun dip below where the Pacific met the horizon. There’s something in sunsets that reflect the assembly of light and darkness that makes us so deeply human.
Many years later, I can see that endings are threshold moments, too.
Now, my chapter in Oxford is actually coming to a close, and most days I wish I could just reread the pages instead of reaching the end. I still don’t know which side of the sidewalk I’m supposed to walk down and I wish I had more time for afternoon tea. It’s been difficult for me to write poetry and I never bought those running shoes or made it to the piano bar the journalist I met in Lyon told me to visit.
But I have met a deeper part of myself, a part I must care for because she is easily moved by the people and things around her. I cried during the intermission of Phantom of the Opera; everyone had finished singing and dancing but tears rolled down my face like sheets of rain. I decided to drop my advertising major and decided that I need my life to revolve around creative writing, in whatever form that may take.
On a rainy Thursday, Jackson and I walked to Magdalen College’s deer park and told each other everything we’ve been too busy to tell each other. Kaydyn and I have dropped into a routine of reading our books in every green space we can find.
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I smile every time I open the door to my room because Rachel is often strumming her guitar and dreaming up songs. Ladybugs keep landing on us, and now we know that according to Swedish tradition, if a ladybug lands on you, put it on your nose and good luck will follow you wherever you go.
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When it feels like everything is getting too much, like there are too many roads to walk down and not enough time, Dean catches my hand which tells me I’m exactly where I’m meant to be.
Last night, I watched the sun set outside the kitchen window, just as I had done the first night I spent in Oxford. The sky held a strange orange glow and we all took turns at the counter, watching the sun set beneath steeples and the world blooming in color.
Last night, the sky was a mirror looking back at us—as if to say, you and I will not last forever, so let’s burn brightly while we can.
Maya I just started BAWLING. you are so amazing
amayazing!!!!!!