"Do you go to the country? It isn't very far." -"Coffee & TV", Blur Graham Coxon is a liar.
The country is very far. At least, the country of the country I've longed to inhabit for years. Since studying abroad in London I've known I would have to go back, this time for good. It's the place I make the most sense to myself, where I feel naturally right. I am not moving to London. I'm moving to the country. I am moving to a town of roughly 7,000 people, a town six hours outside of London, a town I've never visited. I am moving there alone, to this town where I know no one, to this town that is, in fact, very far. Far from London, far from the US, far from the expectation I've had of my life for as long as I can remember. I could say it all started when I applied to graduate programs last winter, but that would be wrong. I could say it started last fall when I visited England for the first time since studying there in 2014, but that's not right either. It started in a classroom at NYU in December of 2015. I watched a video of a Britpop band singing an anthem I'd never heard. Hours later I heard Graham Coxon sing those words that seem like such a lie now (though maybe he was always teasing). Months later I booked a trip to camp by myself on a farm in the English countryside because a member of that Britpop band owned the farm. In August on that farm I slept outside for the first time in my life but I had trouble sleeping because I could hear festival go-ers in the distance singing that anthem I'd never heard until December. I returned to America, to New York, but I didn't feel like I was going home. I knew I wanted to get back to England and stay for good. A presidential election happened and suddenly that wanting turned to a needing. So I applied to two graduate school programs. One application to Goldsmiths College (where Graham Coxon met that farmer) in London and, because on that farmer's farm I found a part of me that was drawn towards a simpler country life, one application to Falmouth University in Cornwall. I got into both. I picked the country life. It isn't all that far. Now I will move. On Wednesday, August 23rd I will get on a plane and return to that farm and sing that anthem and sleep in a tent and know that when it's over this time I get to stay. I'll get on a train and head west, almost as far west as you can go in England before drowning in the Celtic Sea, and I will move into a country house and start a degree. After a year's time the program will be over and I'll start my life there - maybe in countryside, maybe in London, definitely in England - and I'll stay. For good.
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AuthorMadeleine Saaf is an expat in Cornwall and is pursuing a masters in Professional Writing at Falmouth University. ArchivesCategories |