Blessed Harlaxton, my home

By Rachel Neer - Spring 2008 Roving Reporter

From the moment I set foot onto the campus at Harlaxton College, I knew that it was going to be a very different semester from any other semester that I had ever had. On the second day here, we were told something that no college student is ever told. In his welcome speech, Dr. Kingsley told us that “this was our home” and that we needed to learn to lean on and listen to each other, because from this point until 16 April, “each other is all we’ve got.” (You see, I listened to lectures at the beginning of school.)

We were told from the very beginning of things that we were a support system. We were a family. We were to live with each other and learn to love each other. Harlaxton became our home almost overnight. Professors began to act as our parents, SAO workers took the role of friends, and friends took the roles of sister and brother. We have worked and played at Harlaxton on many more than one occasion. 

I have changed immensely in my time at Harlaxton. I am going back to the States with my hair a few inches longer and my skin a few shades lighter. My feet are several degrees tougher; my knowledge is less limited; I am more willing to laugh and take life as it comes. I am closer to people that I came with and even closer than that to those that I left behind in the States when I signed up for this whole ordeal. I have taken more public transportation than I have in my entire life; it will be strange to have to drive myself places when I get back. I learned whilst in Ireland that I don’t hold liquor well at all…but that just meant that I didn’t spend as much on it. 

I have lost one roommate, and gained another. I have learned to love chocolate on a much higher level than Hershey’s ever will be (oh, Cadbury…). I have seen tragedy and triumph on all levels of the playing field. I have watched helplessly as America struggles to repair the economy for the hundredth time, all the while in the midst of a presidential election. I’ve learned what it means to laugh and to cry.

I have learned what it is like to talk to people, and when I need to go to them for help. I see that, no matter how many times you left home before; no matter how long you were gone for…even the most seasoned travelers get homesick. It is okay to be homesick for a place that isn’t even really home. 

I have gotten confused whilst I have been abroad. Harlaxton is home during the weekends; it is always where we look forward to getting back to on Sunday nights. During the week, we talk of home as if it is where we grew up or, most likely, where we go to school. Home in the larger sense has come to mean the United States as a whole, and I’m okay with that.

Harlaxton became my home. I was only there for about five-sevenths of my time abroad, once you take weekend travel into account. It was on the weekends that I learned the most, however, just as the lessons that you learned while growing up were learned by staying out too long after curfew or manners in restaurants. I learned how to manage myself in the face of many different situations, most of which you have read about here and a few that have remained between my friends and I. 

I will no longer clutch my teddy bear at night as I look at the green wall that is beside my bed. I won’t have dinner with Ralph and Judith anymore. I won’t have British Studies lectures to go to. There will be no more games after dinner. There won’t be things said in seminar that we must explain to Dr. Owen. Papers, presentations, exams, and even the writings of Roy Strong are but a memory to us now. We will go back to the world from which we came; back to the world that we may or may not recognize.

Everything at Harlaxton was colour coded, causing everything to run much more efficiently. E-mails from Matt, Joanne, and Bronwyn reminded us not-so-gently of things that we were required to do (or invited to do) in the upcoming week. Even our luggage has been colour coded, from the moment we left the States until the time stepped off the coaches at Harlaxton. Even still the luggage sits, colour coded as always, in one of two or three different rooms in this great manor. There will be no more of that, no more of the colours. The answers to all of our problems will no longer be found in SAO. Rather, we will be expected to solve our own problems. 

Student Affairs was always the answer to our questions here, and often times, it was the bane of my existence. It was the people of SAO who helped me to feel welcome in the first week, and that welcome never ceased. On the other hand, it was the people in SAO who put the yellow departure forms in our mailboxes and told us that, no sooner had we arrived, it was time to leave. It was Matt, Bronwyn, and Joanne of SAO that I went to when I needed help in planning a game, and it was they who I went to if a personal issue arose and I didn’t want to speak to my friends about it. It was the same members of SAO that I glared at when it was time to turn in our departure forms, and it was them who got the cold shoulder when we got departure books in our mailboxes a month before it was time to leave.

British Studies, while everyone from every semester complains about it, was really not that bad at all. I learned more about this country, kingdom, or nation (depending on whom you ask and when) than I will ever learn about my own country. Thanks to all of these crazy American students, Dr. Owen now knows what a “man-whore” is and won’t be at a loss the next time they discuss “The Beggar’s Opera” in class...or will he? Dr. Snow joined us in choir and made her own jokes about British Studies with us before we performed; Dr. Green and Dr. Bujak were the two that we went to when we needed comic relief on any scale. While British Studies in and of itself took up a large chunk of our time, it was all worth it when we took the final. There was a certain sense of satisfaction there, that we had actually learned something. These welcoming faces, the ones of our professors that kept us company for a minimum of two hours a week, will be missed.

The staff in housekeeping that would see me and smile every day; the receptionist who would greet me with a peppy “good morning” on Mondays when I didn’t think the day could last much past 9:30 in the morning; the shuttle driver that was never on time; the librarian who was always willing to point us in the right direction; the professors who all had their own families and personalities; the choir director who was as eccentric as she was fun, loving, and caring; the security guard who would give me the key to the grand piano at 1:00 in the morning and never ask questions…these are the things that I will miss. Indeed, these are the things that I already miss.

The rooms that were always colder than they were warm. The air that was always filled with more raindrops than sunrays. The food that we all complained about at one point or another for no good reason. The daffodils that were in bloom for over a month. The late nights spent talking with friends. The piano in the back room that no one seemed to know about. The quiet, dark halls that somehow made the dark all worth it and much less terrifying. The walks in the gardens with close friends long after the sun had gone down. These are the things that I will miss.

The tense moments in the airport where we wondered if our flight would arrive on time. The taxis that would bring us from East Midlands Airport back to Harlaxton Manor. The drinks in pubs on Friday nights. The city buses and the tours that went outside several of the cities that we went to. The subways. The local people who knew more about me than I knew about myself. The chilly air that always sent me back to the manor with a cold. The wind that nearly blew me off of a bridge in every city. The trains that lulled us to sleep early in the morning when we were coming back from a long weekend of travel. The sound of Bronwyn’s voice as she threatened to leave that one person who still wasn’t on the coach. This is what I will miss.

I will miss my home. I will miss the people who have quickly become mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, mentors, and friends to me.

We enter the United States in the midst of turmoil. There is a president who may or may not know what to do with troops in Iraq. There are candidates for the presidency that may or may not be worthy, willing, and able to run a country in the midst of a major economic slump…whether they are or not is all a matter of opinion, which is why we have elections. We are going back to a country of revolution, even though we thought that we left revolution behind with Seminar 23. 

I was looking through one of the old yearbooks in my last days at Harlaxton when I came upon a quote by Herman Melville. It read, “It is not drawn on any map; true places never are.” I have seen this first-hand this semester. Most of the places that we ate or the shops that we saw, even a few of the museums that we visited we happened upon by pure chance. They were not on our city maps, but they were some of the best places that we frequented. On the contrary, we all had maps of Harlaxton from day one…though I am fairly certain that we gave up trying to use them after the first week here and gave in to exploring the manor like a child.

The true places were not drawn on a map. The piano I would play in the Great Hall, the cabinet that held its key that was safely kept at Reception. The mailbox key that fit into the keyhole of my mailbox and frequently greeted me with letters from home. Those things, those places, were not on any map. The House of Bols in Amsterdam, and even the punting trip we took in Cambridge…no, those were not on a map, either. There is some irony in all of this, because as I was at my meet-a-family’s house one afternoon before dinner trying to show them just where my house in Tennessee was, I had to go by the bend in the river, as the name of the town in which I live is not on the map. That is where I am now, in the house that sits on that riverbend.

As I write this, I am in a limbo position. Parts of this were written at Harlaxton; then bits in Italy and the airports at Heathrow and Gatwick, even O’Hare, as I waited for various flights and cars to take me to Gainesboro, TN…my final destination, where I sit now recovering from jet lag. 

I have spent many sleepless nights trying to decide how to pull this all together. I may have done so poorly, but so be it. I cry a little bit when I think about this entry, and how it is the last time that I will write something focused solely on Harlaxton. This is the last time that Bronwyn will get an e-mail in her inbox entitled “RR __________” (in this case, RR Harlaxton). This is the last time that I may or may not forget to title the entry. I am home now, back to a place of familiarity that I have to get used to all over again. Jet lag will eventually go away, and I will be able to lazily unpack all that came with me. 

Bronwyn told me a few weeks ago, at the end of March, that no one can leave this place without being changed just a little bit in some way. “For some people, they see the change immediately,” she said, “but for others, it may take a few hours, or days, weeks, even months.” I see the change. I see a change in me, and a change in everything around me. I have thought a lot about time since I have been at Harlaxton, and how time keeps on going. Nothing stopped whilst I was abroad. The world kept turning. I am 4 months older, my closer friends are graduating in a matter of days, and I will start my junior year of college in just 3 short months. 

Time is a delicate thing, and we mustn’t toy with it. Time is there for whatever purpose, and we must learn to take it as it comes. Time is what makes it interesting, and time is what I never had enough of while overseas. Judith, my Meet-a-Family mother, asked Crystal and I one day if we found that we were constantly in a state of tiredness now since we have been here for a few months. Yes, we are, we told her, but that we love it. As a matter of fact, I added that I would have it no other way.

I am back now, and that time keeps on moving forward. I will always cherish my time that I spent at Harlaxton. It is my prayer that I will never lose any of the things that I experienced while I was at Harlaxton. As I sit in my living room with a cat at my feet and pictures of my family on the piano to the right, I see how hard it is for me to be anywhere in this moment. I feel like this is just a long weekend; that before long I will be on a plane again, headed back to that Isle that I fell in love with. At the same time, I feel like it was all a dream. It feels like all of those people that I spent so much time with…Katie, Bronwyn, Rachealle, Sally, Alex, Matt, Guy, Jennifer, Jamie…some people that I will see again, some that I will never see again….like they are all a part of that dream.

I am back in the States, and it has only rained once. It has been beautiful and sunny and 70 degrees [Fahrenheit] nearly every day back. None of the people that I spent time with are around, but that makes it nice, to have some peace and quiet. I will start unpacking soon, and then pack again to go to Evansville for a few days. I am back to my routine that I left behind when I went to Harlaxton…a routine that is non-stop and anything but leisurely. I don’t think that I would change a thing, though.

I will close this entry with a song that the choir performed at the various closing ceremonies in early April.  I was a member of the choir at Harlaxton, and I think it was one of the best things that I could have done. This is what I leave you with. It has been my pleasure to be your Roving Reporter for the semester, and I do hope that you see things in a different sense now by walking (or flying?) just a few miles in my shoes.