My avatar is actually a kaleidoscope. Its Greek meaning is “observation of beautiful forms,” which is how I think of myself, I am an observer of beautiful forms. The photo was taken through the lens of the flower kaleidoscope at Olbrich Gardens in Madison, Wisconsin.

A New Situation

After my housemate/boyfriend arrived in Oxford, my life changed like the turn of a kaleidoscope. The pieces were all the same, but they had been rearranged into a new design. As I wrote to my mother, my housemate/boyfriend “did indeed arrive and spent a week sharing my room. Finally, the woman upstairs decided to leave Oxford early, and the Bursar said that he could rent her room until June 22. So now we both have our own rooms in college and share the same kitchen and bathroom.”

All of the students had to vacate their rooms by June 23 because Keble College was rented out for conferences over the summer. The Goldeys were going away on vacation as soon as the school holidays began, so they offered to let us stay at their house on Osney Island through August.

Certain friendships were more affected than others. Even if Victor were able to see again, there wouldn’t be any more secret meetings at my room nor any reason for me to question him about the alleged English girlfriend. However, I did see him. In the same letter to my mother, I wrote, “I will try to write more often when the term is finished. During term, everything is crazy and busy. Last week I needed to return a typewriter to my friend [Victor] and the only time that both of us were free was after 11:30 p.m.” The kaleidoscope had turned for Victor as well. In early May 1987, a coup had taken place in his native country Fiji, just as he had predicted. Because of his opposition to the new regime, he had gone from reporter to refugee and was facing a years’ long battle to gain asylum in England.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/34/Queens_Lane_just_short_of_High_Street.jpg — Queens Lane just short of High Street. Ozeye, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.

I met with K.P. for our weekly dining out. We walked down to the Bodleian and turned left onto New College Lane. The narrow lane between the colleges always felt like a secret passage to me. Somewhere along the way, probably at the college boundary, the name changes to Queen’s Lane. Where Queen’s Lane meets the High Street, there is a coffeehouse that has been around since 1654, called Queen’s Lane Coffeehouse. We took a table near the window. In some ways, I was reminded of our first meeting at the Lamb & Flag. Perhaps it was because both places felt like old rustic cottages.

“I have some big news,” said K.P.

“So do I,” I smiled.

“I am getting a divorce,” he announced triumphantly with great happiness. That erased my smile. I hoped that he was not getting a divorce on my account.

“I seem to be going in the opposite direction. I expect to be married before the end of the year.” He seemed stunned by my news. It felt like O’Henry’s story “The Gift of the Magi.”

“But why?” he asked. I had no answer that I could easily explain to him. The kaleidoscope was turning again. In the future, our positions would be reversed. I would be married and he would be single.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/The_Grapes%2C_George_Street_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1215808.jpg — Steve Daniels / The Grapes, George Street.

My housemate/boyfriend immediately took up with Moses and they got on quite well. I introduced them over a beer at The Grapes on George Street, which was Moses’s favorite pub. The Grapes, a more recent pub, was built in 1820.

Moses asked, “Do you want to see my baby picture?”

I thought it was a little odd. Who goes around carrying their baby picture and showing it to people? I looked at the two-year-old African boy and tried to see the resemblance to the grown man. But what was lost-in-translation to me was not lost on my housemate/boyfriend. This was a picture of Moses’s baby—he was married. His wife and child were still in Africa because he had not yet been able to get permission for them to join him. This was news to me! I had been going out with a married man and did not know it.

In England, I drink Bitter rather than Lager beer because it is served at room temperature. I am the type who has just one beer and sips it gradually over the entire night. So when the pub closed at 10:00 (as they were required to do by law back then), I went back to college alone. Moses and my housemate/boyfriend went to a late-night club across the street so that they could keep drinking. No doubt, they would end up at the food truck parked on St. Giles Street by the Taylorian at Martyrs Monument for a snack of chips and gyros. The kaleidoscope had turned. My friend was now my housemate/boyfriend’s drinking buddy.

Coming to an End

By the end of sixth week, there was already a feeling that things were coming to an end at Oxford. A large number of the graduate students were working on one-year diplomas or certificates and would not be returning in the fall. And for me, there would never be another year like this one in Oxford.

Spring had transitioned to summer. The Middle Common Room officers organized a picnic at University Parks, which was right across the street from Keble. One edge of the park was the river and the rest was enclosed by a tall, black iron fence with spear-headed posts. The gates were locked at sundown. We sat on blankets to eat sandwiches, grapes, and Scotch eggs. Afterwards, we went to the Cricket pavilion and watched a match. It was a preview of the slow, lazy days of summer that lay ahead of us.

One time, I went for a stroll in the park with a friend from Keble late in the afternoon. We sat down by the round pond, on the far side of the park and fell into one of those intense conversations that resemble a flow state. We realized too late that we could not make it back to the gate before sundown and would have to find another way out. We went to the banks of the river and hailed some passing punters. They had no room to take us aboard. The night was growing cooler and I had not come prepared. My friend like a true gentleman gave me his coat. We devised a plan to walk the perimeter of the fence until we found a space large enough for us to slip underneath it like Peter Rabbit and his cottontail friends. After several hours, we located a narrow gap and squeezed under the fence, emerging grass-stained and slightly muddy. Back in the Middle Common room, we had to suffer some teasing about what we had been doing in the park and some of the women said that they would not have minded being locked in the park with him all night.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c8/Gates%2C_University_Parks%2C_Oxford_-_DSC02808.jpg — University Parks gate, Oxford. Jpbowen, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.

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Elder Mentor

A Turn of the Kaleidoscope