| I recently ran out of soap in my bathroom. So I went to the cupboard, snagged another bottle, and put it on the recently-vacated counter. It was Bath and Body Works' White Tea and Ginger. I thought nothing of it until the next time I washed my hands. The next time I washed my hands in my bathroom, the scent transported me across the ocean and back to my dorm room in England. I'd brought a bottle of the same White Tea and Ginger with me from home for the sink in my room. All of a sudden, I could close my eyes and be in Nottingham again. I could picture my sink with its two taps, myself drying my hands on the yellow hand towel (which matched my green bath towel and blue wash cloth), my ante-room, and my bedroom with a desk and a bookshelf and an armoire with only 10 days' worth of clothes in it. Some days I sit alone, close my eyes, and try to remember everything I can about England. This is not a game. I'm afraid I will forget. So I prop my pillows up behind me and read Bill Bryson. I use the bathroom down the hall and wash my hands in my room. I sit at my computer desk, googling Jonathan Tilbrook. I walk out of my room, go down the hall, and head downstairs for supper at 6 p.m., talking to Oscar about duck-egg blue on the way. I greet Colin the warden as I grab my meal card and stand in the queue. What's for dinner (and how will the potatoes be served)? Paninis, falafel, Indian food (I love those little nan), toad in the hole? None of the above; it's fish and chips. Oh, look, peas! And what's the pudding? Oh good, apple crisp — with cream, of course. And the soup is potato and leek, hurrah. Some mornings after breakfast, I have to take a pack lunch, because there's no time to come back in between classes. Like Wednesdays — "The Age of Beethoven and Schubert" was 9 – 11 a.m., and "What Is Religion?" was 11 – 1. I loved those pack lunches. They were like a feast to me: the most wonderful kind of meal. If I got all my favourites, it was the plain chicken sandwich, cheddar and onion crisps, an orange, raspberry yoghurt, hobnobs (which go well in that yoghurt), a chocolate flapjack, and a bottle of water, all neatly tied in a little plastic bag that would accompany me to lectures. In my mind's eye, I leave my room, lock my door, and turn right down the corridor. Down the stairs, out the double doors, across the courtyard, into the turning circle, and The Downs are open before me. I could take that path up the steepest hill to the Law building. That's where my "Sociology in Contemporary Society" and "American Literature Since 1900" lectures were, and when you pass Law you come to a car park and you cross the road, and you find yourself on the first floor of the old half of the Trent Building. But that path is more fun to come down than to walk up, so I pass it. I could go up the second path, not quite as steep, and walk through Hugh Stew quad to the library. Or I could just carry on this path, all the way across the Downs, go past Cripps, through that open space I liked to conduct in. Then I skip down the stairs and cross the street. I don't turn left, because that's where the Mathematics building was, and I never frequented it. Except that's where Owen taught me how to slide down banisters. Also to the left was Cripps Computing, where I went once and paid £10 to get a virus removed. No, instead I turn right, go through the Biology building, and carry on to the Music Department. I walk past the main entrance to Djanogly Hall and the music library to the circular lecture hall. It's 8:57, and there's a crowd of my classmates clustered near the entrance. Oh, surprise, our professor hasn't unlocked the door yet, because he's not there. The illustrious Philip Weller is probably making photocopies of interesting juxtapositions of piano and violin sonatas, string quartets, symphonies, and song cycles. After the lecture, I leave the department and come back up the road. Instead of going back through Biology, I turn left and walk up the hill towards the Trent Building, big and grand and masterful. I have to go up one flight of stairs (or was it down?) to get to my theology lecture hall, and since Philip always went a little bit long (music professors always do), I'm always just a little bit late. Bustling in, barely on time, sitting in the second row on the end, ready to take notes on "What Is Religion?" At break time, we all bust out our pack lunches and chuckle about how our professor says "The Buddha." I don't remember what I did after my lectures on Wednesdays. Already I've forgotten so many of the little details. But it's the little details that made the experience so enriching. So I close my eyes and walk around the campus, from building to building, trying to recall names of places and people. I take the bus into town. I walk into Beeston. I use the bathroom down the hall and wash my hands in my room with White Tea and Ginger. |
