Thoughts | I feel so like myself right now...

 

My birthday was a pretty good day... 

In the morning, I watched to "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's stone one more time. When it comes to Harry Potter, I'm primarily a fan of the books - not that I dislike the movies, but I don't rewatch them nearly as often as I reread the books, so I hadn't seen this one in a real long time. It was fun. Familiar. Then I started rereading the first book again, and it felt like putting on a favorite sweater on a crisp, winter day. Then I did some laundry. Stopped by the college library. Went to hall for brunch. Normal, mundane things...

A typical Sunday Brunch at Jesus College. Apart from the soft drink, which I decided on because it was a special day :)

 In the afternoon, I visited the Divinity School for the first time. The divinity school is a part of the Old Bodleian Library, placed just under the Duke Humphrey room. It used to be where examinations were held in the old days, and it happens to be where they recorded the infirmary scene at the end of the first Harry Potter Movie. It's beautiful, in that medieval way that has so much to do with why I became so enamored with this town. And after that I went across the street to the Weston Library, to see the items on display for the last day of their exhibition on books and gifts.  

The beautiful vaulted ceiling of the Divinity School... I wish this room was still used for the discussions that happened here when it was first built. But then I wish for so many things to be different in this town...

 The exhibition was full of interesting little things, like a guitar gifted by Percy Bysshe Shelley to a friend alongside a handwritten poem in which he imagined that the guitar sounded like Ariel in The Tempest.  There was also a little book of psalms with an illustration of a man literally ripping he heart out of his chest and offering the bloody thing to a nun, as a love thing, and clay tablet with Gilgamesh and Huwawa, which invariably reminded me of Picard and Dathon in Darmok. I learned quite a bit, and made notes about things to read about further, including the poems of one Christina Rossetti, who among other things wrote some so intense it may have been written by me: "Come back to me in dreams, that I may give / Pulse for pulse, breath for breath..." 

"Gifts speak the giver" Atrr. George Herbert

 

When the day was spent, I sang evensong, and joined the choir for dinner before retreating to my new room... All in all, a pretty good day. Different from what I expected. Quieter than I would have expected. Not the best birthday I ever had. But not the worst... Just a little different. 

I feel so like myself right now...