“Walls came tumbling down in the city that we loved” this is what I was singing to myself on the train journey back home from university a few weeks ago. I have to say I wasn’t particularly looking forward to my first trip home; not because of home but because of the city and the people and the places that had become my new home. The Christmas holidays meant no more wandering down the corridor and instantly finding friends; no more staying up till ridiculous hours in the morning discussing everything from etymology to politics; no more being able to get everywhere I needed by walking; and of course most importantly, no more being able to clean my teeth without leaving the comfort of my bedroom.
Having said all that, how could I not enjoy four weeks off work, properly cooked broccoli (as opposed to the mushy school-dinner-esque kind served in the university canteen), and seeing muchly missed friends? Nonetheless being back home after 76 days away was strange to say the least!
People I saw over Christmas would ask me how Uni was going and I’d grin at them and say “great” because it was, but what I found more interesting was how being back home was going. In a constant state of shock about home still being home, I was surprised by everything: the fact that my muscle memory was still there, that I could still operate the lock on my bathroom door without thinking about it, and navigate my house with my eyes closed, that I still knew my way around my home town despite the fact that as I have mentioned before, I do not know my way around my home town.
It was a very sad day when I realised what that at least one thing has changed: my local Waterstones has close down.
I was so shocked I couldn’t say much other than “what even what?” for a full two minutes.
So many of the books that have shaped my teenage reading habits have come from that shop; when Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released my family and I went at midnight to buy copies dressed as characters, I was Moaning Myrtle it was great fun; later on in life my friends and I used to leave notes in the front pages of books we particularly liked as if we were on some sort of reading evangelism mission; every time my parents used to take me and my brothers into town we’d pop by the Waterstones to have a browse and now, just like free eye tests and a life of not being in mountains of debt, that time is over.
Anyway, at university there are two fairly large Waterstones stores all in one fairly small city, so I can’t complain – that is where I’m currently heading after all.
Yes, I’m on the train again and although it seems like no time at all has passed, I’m sure it’s going to be just as odd being back as it was being home. The thing about university, as I’ve learned, is that you lead a sort of double life, and it’s brilliant, but it’s quite unlike anything I’ve ever done before.
The Elephant in the Room 