In June I decided to write a series of blogs about my experiences as a college student in a study abroad program with the University of Liverpool. This is the second installment, you will probably want to read the previous blog first.
It’s long enough ago that I
really cannot remember the names of any of the students I met in Liverpool.
What lasts firmly are more sensory; I
remember the damp chill of the spring air that gave way to summer warmth, but
always the scent of diesel fuel and fresh asphalt. I remember the gentle and
rhythmic repeating pattern of hill and dale giving way to the sites we visited.
Learning the cadence and deciphering the local dialect. One of my greatest
appreciations became the clear delineation of leaving a town and ending up in
the country; no sprawling mass of humanity. Even the light… when most of the
landscape includes deciduous low growing trees, the sky stretches so far that
pure clear sunlight can be seen shining far, far off on the horizon, and
overhead the clouds can be soggy with unshed rain. When I think of this
specifically, I think of Wylfa Nuclear Power Station
on the northern coast of Wales, its towers drenched in sunlight as we drove in a
charter bus along a far and distant hill.
There are many experiences I
miss; living in
a world where there is the dense core of the city center, where bustling seas of
bodies weave in and out of each other after work and on the weekends; stopping
in at Tesco’s (grocery chain), Boots (pharmacy), the myriad of clothing stores
looking at what was fashionable and different, very basic living. As students of
Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning, we trolled the streets of these towns to
absorb the beauty of the old adjacent to the new, to travel by foot the worn
paving of many generations and to literally feel
what people have always travelled, the path that was most direct.
In school we had been taught to
observe the paths that people wore out in the landscape, because they were the
paths we needed to design into a space. There should no “left over space” in
design. Grass does not exist as filler, it is planned; you do not plant shrubs
around a foundation to hide where the building erupts from the earth, you plan
the transition so that it is discreet or celebrated. It turned out these simple
lessons became the foundation for our academic experiences at school in
Liverpool.
As mentioned in the previous
blog, the school didn’t really know what to do with Landscape Architecture
students, so “they” sat us down and asked us what we’d like to do. In the end we
served as critics to graduate architecture students, and helped them work on the
relationship between their buildings and the environment. One of my favorite
projects was a Breast Cancer treatment center that had been designed for below
ground, the concept was that the building represented the womb; not only to
represent another part of a woman’s body, but to represent growth and
nurturing. When the young male student
and I visited the site it turned out to be on the edge of town, the old building
recently demolished, the rubble still lying on the ground. The buildings
surrounding it were industrial, and there wasn’t a living plant in sight. It was
the least nurturing location one could imagine. Do I remember the 24 year old
fellow’s name? No. What I remember were many conversations about whether to
leave the site in its raw and brutal state to express the devastation of cancer,
or whether the site should be enclosed by plants; a sensory garden, to help
bring the patients and their families back to the basic elements of life, a
place to reflect, and possibly, heal.
It’s interesting when you pose
these thoughts as design exercises versus real life experiences. Fundamentally
both are great design concepts, but with seventeen years of life passing and many dear to me
having suffered the pain of breast cancer, I can artistically perceive both as
viable, but as a woman I can feel only one. It would be interesting to know what
this student, now 41, would design.
At the same time there was a
request made to the college by a local elementary school for assistance in
designing a playground. What makes me laugh about this now is that I have
children and everything those parents ended up asking us for are the same things
parents still ask for now. I love it! To be honest I think the staff was a bit
overwhelmed by how involved we got. We had children give us wish lists and
drawings, we asked parents for input, we asked the staff to help us refine the
needs. We took thousands of pictures, we drew thousands of drawings, and in the
end we wrote a book which included not only the designs, but how to fundraise
and implement the project. The only downside is that we never learned whether
any of it happened.
So, back to the beginning of this
adventure; on day one of trudging around Liverpool and getting our bearings in
terms of food, shelter, and provisions, it started to snow. It was March! So,
with as many layers on as we could put, we trolled looking like bag ladies (and
gents), and tried to appear appreciative of our tour guides efforts. Every pub,
tea shop, or restaurant was a sought after haven. Students disappeared into
them, and by the end of the day, there were only a handful of us left, at which
point we disappeared into the pub with Steve, the Professor who had picked us up
from the bus station the night before.
I have shared on a number of
occasions, I’m sure, that my mother is from England. I think unconsciously,
until we sat in that pub, part of what I was trying to understand was what life
for me would have been like had my family never moved from England to the U.S.
When I had previously been in England, it was mostly under the kind guardianship
of relatives. I just wanted to feel all by myself what daily life might have
been like. To look left then right when driving or crossing the road, to stand
next to a building built five hundred years ago and not think it odd or
tremendous, to understand the responsibility of the daily grind of living life
there. I spent many hours driving the roads of the U.K. not only admiring the
sites, but contemplating what life would have been like to live there, with
extended family, with different expectations.
There is a phrase that goes
something like this, “You cannot know where you are going if you do not know
where you’ve been.” So, this trip became the spur, became the beginning point
that was plunked down into the present (or past present as is now the case).
Again, back to the agenda: We
arrived in Liverpool while most of the students were on some form of a break,
only a handful of students and faculty were around. They quickly suggested a Pub
Crawl; sounding like great fun, off we went, twenty two Americans and half a
dozen Brits.
If you don’t know what a Pub
Crawl is, the very short version is that you go from one pub to the next, the
end goal being that you only go home, when crawling is the only form of
transportation your body allows you. Most of my memories from that night, I must
admit, are diminished by vast amounts of lager that I consumed, not the passage
of time. Two highlights from that night… I was in a Mexican Restaurant and
needed fresh air and privacy desperately. So I did in fact crawl up the stairs
to the street level. I was sitting on the curb, head between my knees,
investigating the installation of cobbles, when I heard shouting.
It became quite clear that the
shouting was being directed at me, and though not at full capacity, I could
recognize anger. Just as I was coming to this realization a lovely man emerged
from the Mexican Restaurant, shouted back at the woman, yes by now I was
focusing enough to determine gender. She stalked off, looking “quite put out!”
The fellow who came to my rescue helped me to my feet and it turned out that I
was about six inches taller, fifty pounds heavier, and the street lights glowing
around us, illuminated his red hair and freckles. Seriously, and with no
intention of offending my Irish friends, he could have jumped right off the
Lucky Charms box.
The conversation went something
like this:
Me: “Thanks! What was that all
about?”
Him: “She heard your accent and
knows you're American.”
Me: “Oh! Does she dislike all
Americans or just me?”
Him: “She doesn’t like Bill
Clinton.”
Me: “I’m pretty sure I’m not
him.”
Him: “Yeah, well, Clinton met
with Gerry Adams today.”
Me: “Sorry, who’s that?”
Him: “Who’s Gerry Adams? He’s the
leader of the Sinn Fein.”
Me: (Knowing who the Sinn Fein
are) “Oh, my apologies. If it helps, I think Bill
Clinton is a bit of an ass.”
Him: “It helps a bit. Let’s get
you home.”
Me: “Gotta get my friends.”
(Still had the presence of mind to not let myself wander off with strange men,
even if they were diminutive.)
Him: “I’ll go get them; you sit here with
your head between your knees.”
Soon we all departed, stumbling
in relatively the correct direction, when there was a sudden request by my Irish
defender to stop in a pub. I think I had a glass of water, but I distinctly
remember singing a rousing rendition of “My Girl” while my cohorts, primarily
the Leprechaun, sang back up. Needless to say, it was a painful day that
followed.
Part of the next day’s pain was a
minor flirtation on my part with a lovely twenty two year old student whilst pub
crawling. When we clambered onto the tour bus the next day, he had saved me a
seat. We’d only been in town for forty eight hours and I was already in trouble.
We’ll shorten the story and say that he and I spent an awkward day playing
“Dodge the Dude” and I oohed and ah’ed as we drove the highways and byways of
Merseyside; taking in the Strawberry
Fields (Beatles), Tudor Architecture
(Speke Hall, built in 1490), Toxteth (where the riots
had been held and where I lived), the shipyards of Liverpool, Penny Lane, and
finally, back to the University, from where I trudged back to Toxteth and got ready for our second night of Pub
Crawling.
I will only say about the second
night of Pub Crawling… it was shorter, less
enthusiastic and much more innocuous than the previous night.
So, the next
installment in The Adventures of Celia in Liverpool
will include: Phantom of the Opera, a ride in a cop car, and driving in the
Cotswolds.
As for gardening tips: Well, having skipped writing
all summer, you probably think that there isn’t much to say. But there is!! With
perennials dying back and the fall clean-up getting under way, it is an
excellent time to divide and move perennials around (share with friends), dig up
shrubs that outgrew and out-competed other plants, oh, also, trim all your
ornamental grasses back, so that next year you have all fresh growth and no
winter burn. It is a fabulous time to go to nurseries and look for discounted
plants, but much more importantly – plants that bloom in the winter, or have
spectacular bark or texture. Some of my favorites are Hellebores (many varieties
bloom from October through May) and Witch Hazel (have delicate and fragrant
flowers in the winter).
Thanks for reading!
