April Showers Bring May Flowers

It's been a long while since I last posted here. Unfortunately, the end of a semester is always the most tense, wound up period of days, no matter which university I am at. Not only is the workload greater than at any other period of time, but everyone has a mad rush to have the last great party of the semester.

Here in St. Andrews May has brought an assortment of things: beautiful sunny days (I spent two hours today reading on the lawn), barbeques, and the realization that I am going home in about a month. The previous sentence can be interpreted like this: I am trying to do as much as possible right now.

On May 1st, I jumped into the North Sea at dawn. St. Andrews has a lot of 'traditions', ones that no one is quite sure where they originated, or they were actually started about five years ago. The May Dip is one of the traditions like Raisin Weekend, that no one is quite sure where it started. Yet no one really cares. The student body traditionally jumps into the North Sea at dawn on May 1st.

I knew there was no way I would actually wake up at 4am and walk down to the beach in the rain, so my two friends named Chris and I sat around drinking wine until the early hours. Then Scottish Chris and I walked down to the beach in the dark during a torrent of rain and hovered around the few bonfires. It was so dark that we could not recognize anyone, but we didn't much care. We were just waiting for enough daylight to be present for us to run into the sea. We also decided that we did not want anyone to steal our clothes, so we hovered around a nearby group and when we undressed put our clothes next to theirs. Meanwhile hoards of people ran around in the dark with swimsuits or clothes, a group of guys dragging a plastic raft into the sea. People shrieked everytime a downpour of rain fell unexpected from above.

Having been out in the rain for an hour already and having had enough wine to keep the blood circulating, I did not feel that cold walking around in just a swimsuit at dawn in Scotland. Perhaps this goes to my water polo days - although many have kindly pointed out that that was only winter evenings in Southern California, not mid-spring at the North Sea. Chris and I eventually ran in, although I was only able to go up to my waist before deciding this was good enough.

We marched out, got dressed, and took a taxi home in the wee hours of the morning. I had enough sand in my shoes to last for all the other years of May Dips I will miss.

The Watergaw, or My Last Wild Look

Ae weet forenicht i' the yow-trummel
I saw yon antrin thing,
A watergaw wi' its chitterin' licht
Ayong the on-ding;
An' I thocht o' the last wild look ye gied
Afore ye deed!

There was nae reek i' the laverock's hoose
That nicht - an' nane i' mine;
But I hae thocht o' that foolish licht
Ever sin' syne;
An' I think that mebbe at last I ken
What your look meant then.
-Hugh MacDiarmid

This morning I arose at 6am, after a mere two and a half hours of sleep, and caught the bus to the train to the airport in Amsterdam. When I landed, I took another bus to the train station, caught a train, and then took a bus back to St. Andrews. That took approximately 5 hours. The flight was an hour and a half.

Despite my near deathly state of fatigue, it was nice to walk around the streets of Utrecht, a few other scattered early risers joining my morning, but equally ready to keep it a solitary experience. I saw the sun rise, red lines stretching among the clouds and scattering into faded pink blurs. It was surprisingly not cold and fairly sunny.

A more delightful moment of being so fatigued was the sheer surprise when I handed the conductor my ticket on ScotsRail and learned I'd accidentally bought a first class ticket. He promptly helped me move my stuff, had the tea trolley man pour me a cup of tea and give me some shortbread, and settled me into the 1st class compartment. There was one man there, in his middle ages, reading a variety of local papers, as all Scots of a certain age are prone to do. And once again, I found myself in the strangely comforting and solitare world of the landscape. (Even better, the 1st class ticket equalled the price of a 2nd class ticket and a cup of tea from the trolley.)

Last week I realized that I have seen the more sunrises this year alone than in any other part of my life. The fate of the poor traveller is one of odd hours and odder company. Just the week before I arose at 5:30am in order to catch my 10:30am flight in Edinburgh. I was going to take the bus that stopped in front of my building at 6:30am, but after a serious debate I decided it was more important to eat my still cooking fried egg and walk the mile to the bus station. Although exhausted and nearly shattered, the walk was incredible. For as much as I normally hate the long walk between fields, with nothing to greet you but crows and North Sea winds, those few isolated moments are perhaps some of the most momentously beautiful. I walked dragging my suitcase in the cold pre-dawn air, while rabbits hopped around nibbling grass and looking at this strange intruder. The birds whistled and chirped, all varieties I had never seen before, and grouse flocked among the fields trying to find a seed here or there.

Then the sun rose, slowly waking people and cars and the isolated townie walking a dog. Correction, not walked, but let run among the fields and grass, and with a well pursed whistle, the dog would immediately come running. Then as I stepped into town, I could feel the gray cobblestones dissolving their frost and the tendrils of sun creep along even the darkest Medieval alleys.

These are the moments I love Scotland. I love its grand gestures and its outwardly harsh landscapes. Even the clouds are violent, moving against a timid sky. One evening I was walking home, once again among the fields, and found the world falling asleep. The rabbits once again nuzzled the grass and the light quickly withdrew itself, pushing the trees and the distant ocean into darkness. In an instant, the stars were visible, point upon point of distant sky revealing itself. I had thought the stars in the remotes of the United States were magnificent, but nothing compares to a fierce evening wind revealing a fragile night sky.

They say if you hate something, you had to have loved it. I am starting to believe Scotland is just as fierce in its love as in its hate. The earth has some magnetic force driving you towards it and the harder you try to pull away, the stronger the grasp. I escape every time, falling in love with a new place, only to be driven back with an even fiercer longing for this strange home.