Without Reservations_ The Travels of an Independent Woman - Alice Steinbach [61]
I do not remember when I wised up to the fact that my only musical talent lay in listening, not singing. Still, for the year or so that I sang Rodgers and Hart and the occasional Cole Porter tune in Miss Henrietta’s living room, my adolescent optimism made the illusion of a career in jazz singing seem possible. Other illusions followed and, adolescence being what it is, they all seemed possible.
That’s it, I thought, driving up to Oxford. That’s exactly what I’m feeling: the return of adolescent optimism.
I don’t know why I felt this way. Perhaps my excitement had to do with driving alone in a foreign country, where every road is an unknown one and every turn holds out the promise of an adventure. Perhaps it was the idea of returning briefly to the academic life; I was going up to Oxford to take a course in the history of the English village. Or perhaps it had to do with something I was learning about myself: that I was a naturally optimistic and curious person.
The funny thing is, I knew, that most of my friends would describe me in just such a way. But, to be honest, I’d never been sure it wasn’t an act I was putting on—not to fool other people, but to fool myself. The world, I’d always thought, was much more welcoming and much less threatening if a person approached it with curiosity and optimism. It was an approach that had worked well for me, in both my personal and professional life. But sometimes I wondered if this really reflected my true nature, or whether I’d shaped my personality to fit some perceived notion of what it required to successfully navigate life.
But there was no one to please or not please on this trip. I could be as inward or as outward as I felt; I could be an observing person or an experiencing person; I could be optimistic or skeptical. And I was learning each day that, depending on the occasion and my mood, I had in my arsenal of feelings all of these responses.
Still, the dominant person I saw emerging was genuinely optimistic and curious. She really did love to meet people and explore new places. And, best of all, when things didn’t work out, she moved on.
What can I say? She was plucky and, most of the time, not a whiner. Except for the occasional and sometimes expensive preoccupation about what to do with her not-so-manageable hair, I found her quite an agreeable traveling companion.
Friends in London had told me the drive to Oxford was an easy one, and they were right. What was not easy, however, was finding my way, once in Oxford, to Brasenose College, where those enrolled in the course were to stay.
I had been given a map of Oxford and directions to Brasenose, which was located in historic Radcliffe Square. I was also given instructions on how to gain access for my car into the gated and locked square: I was to leave the car at the entrance to Radcliffe Square, walk to the porter’s lodge at Brasenose, pick up the key to unlock the gate to the square, walk back to my car, unlock the gate, drive into the square, park my car, and then get out and relock the gate before proceeding to the heavy, wooden doors of Brasenose. There, theoretically, a college porter would allow me to enter the college’s interior courtyard and give me further instructions as to where to go.
What followed was a two-hour fiasco. To begin with, nothing on the Oxford street map I had corresponded with reality. Most of the streets, it turned out, were one-way and to my annoyance always seemed to go the way I didn’t want to go. For the next hour I found myself driving around the center of town in ever-widening circles. At one point I wound up on a road out in the Oxfordshire countryside.
The narrow, cobblestoned, tourist-filled streets were