Edinburgh II

Having moved around as much as I did growing up, most every school year is characterized by a different city and different institution. As such, each one is a distinct memory, complete with colors, smells, and emotional states. My freshman year of high school at Garfield in Central District Seattle is one of my fondest memories--its a sort of purple haze (pun intended) smelling of wet pavement and feeling beautifully lonely. I was definitely a loner that year, eating lunch in classrooms, reading voraciously, and befriending more teachers than fellow students. While I often mourned my relatively friendless state, I still felt wonderfully attached to my school and community. As previously stated, I was lonely and it was beautiful.

My time spent in Edinburgh thus far has been relatively similar. I have never had Annie's knack for making friends instantaneously--part of this is a preference for my own company over that of people I don't like and another part of it is simple fear of rejection. While I get along nicely with my flatmates, I don't feel I can be fully myself with any of them as I can be with you. I told Aunt Linda yesterday that this somewhat self-imposed isolation has me vacillating back and forth between extreme loneliness, longing for home and the familiar, and a sort of serene excitement for the unknown and its potential.

On the down days, I've nestled into the comfort of homework and the campus library--anthropology will always be a good friend. Writing letters and emails to you all back home has also helped. It reminds me that I am loved, albeit by people 5,000 miles away. On the up days, I explore. The photographs I posted last came from a wonderfully up day in which I finally began the unending process of familiarizing myself with the UE campus. Since then, up days have produced exploration farther and farther afield. I spent one afternoon on the Royal Mile (a veritable tourist trap, but charming nonetheless) where I met my first potential friend, Emma, with whom I've been attempting to plan coffee since. Never fear, persevere we shall. Today, which began up, was downish for the middle bit, and ended on an incline, I spent a few hours in the Elephant House, the café in which J. K. Rowling wrote much of Harry Potter on the corners of napkins. (It proved to be a charming environment, though fairly overpriced. Maman, Daddy, if I take you there you must request the food piping hot or else you will be sorely disappointed.) My favorite adventure of late, however, and the one which produced the pictures below, was purely an accident.

Thursday last, the liaison between USC and the UK had planned a dinner for the exchange students in Edinburgh. It so happened that the restaurant we were to meet at was only a few blocks from my bank (which, as fate would have it, I still have yet to open an account with, but more of that later) and I decided to head over a few hours early to take care of my banking issues and wander along Princes Street--shopping on one side, tourist attractions on the other. I checked the route on Google Maps, approximately two miles, and wrote down the directions in my journal for reference, but still managed to take a wrong turn before doubling back and finding the correct street. Thus, when I arrived where my bank should have been, it was about 4:30 and I had just enough time to open an account--if I could find the damn thing. As I'm sure you can guess, I could not. I knew there was supposed to be another branch a few blocks down and began the walk only to find it just as it closed. Allowing myself a few seconds to swear and stamp, I decided to spend my remaining hour and a half before the dinner exploring.

As I'm sure most of you know, my mother is, as I once heard incredibly tall women described, an Amazon Land Monster, and by the time I was three and thus too heavy to be carried, it was expected that I would keep up. Learning to walk in the wake of this beautiful giantess produced in me a generally swift gait--I walk with purpose. This tendency has only been encouraged by the fact that most people walk quite quickly here (to get out of the wind or as a remnant of their highland hill-climbing ancestors, I'm not sure). Thus, as I pondered where to begin my explorations I had to mentally retrace my steps and think about the sites I'd passed in a blur. While the shopping might prove to be slightly interesting with some imagination (another trait I can attribute to my mother, I'm not particularly keen on shopping without a purpose), I recalled a beautiful church with an adjoining cemetery that was quite picturesque.

St. John's Episcopal Church was built between 1816 and 1818 and from here on out, I will let the pictures and captions do the talking.

After walking down a long flight of stairs, I found myself in the shadow (well, there would have been a shadow had the sun been out. Which it wasn't! Boo-ya.) of the church spire, surrounded by crumbling headstones, and staring up at the ominous Edinburgh Castle.

Here, again is the castle. (This, Aunt Linda, is where I couldn't help but conjure Claire and Jamie. They lived there! In a manner of speaking.) Standing on top of what could modestly be called a mountainette in the center of the city, it dominates the skyline from most every angle. Seldom, though, does one find such an unobstructed view of it. Apparently St. John's obtained some kind of guarantee from the city that their view would never be compromised.

The graves were what I can only describe as peaceful. For those of you who interact with the spirit world, when I first entered the cemetery I offered to its inhabitants my recognition, my intent, and my respect. As I walked amongst the headstones, statues, and mausoleums, time seemed to bow to the superiority of memory. I felt privileged to be so accepted and spent much of my passage there simply communing with my surroundings. I was quite affected by the sight of this memorial and the sweater some visitor had left it.

Edinburgh Castle yet again. I'm not sure if you can feel it through the photographs, but perhaps the numerous shots I post of it here will attest to its general magnetism.

As illustrated through the Bedlam Theatre in my last post, I love the conjunction of the sacred and profane, proof positive of a born anthropologist. Here again is a prime example.

Interestingly enough, the graveyard is interrupted by train tracks which run beneath and between it, another point where the sacred and profane intersect. In an attempt to orient you, I am standing on a toppled bit of stone braced against the wall in the midst of graves and you can just see memorials at the top of the photograph where the cemetery continues on the other side of the tracks.

Here are some beautiful headstones stretching away. Most were organized into rows like this, though the natural interruption of hills and plant-life as well as unnatural interruptions as of the train tracks above produced pockets and unlikely spurts of graves throughout.

Here is the bell tower with the castle in the background. When I climbed the stairs and first saw this view, I gasped.

There were several signs warning against walking amongst the gravestones as most were nearly 200 years old and in varying states of decay. Many of the headstones had been laid flat or fallen. Those stone memorials that could not be attributed to any particular grave, however, had simply been stashed in random corners by the groundskeepers. They made a rather forlorn picture.

Again, my preoccupation with the sacred and profane--a graffitied memorial. While part of me recognizes the potential for insult here, mostly I'm struck by the beauty of this juxtaposition. Indeed, whomever lies here has now been made part of the present in a unique and irrevocable way. Were I not planning to be cremated and scattered after my passing, I think I'd hope to have my headstone recognized in such a manner.

Here ends my photographic account of the evening. I left St. John's feeling wonderfully thin, as though my thoughts didn't exist in this plane. It was a wonderful experience and one I now plan to repeat in as many of Edinburgh's cemeteries as I happen upon. I'm very thankful for this encounter, especially considering the rest of my evening, though that's a story for another time. I hope you've enjoyed my pictures and want you all to know how happy I am to be missing you here.

With much love,

MacKenzie