I was enchanted to meet you.

A recent romantic comedy reminded me of a very special day that I spent in Oxford. Since I’ve been on a bit of a story kick lately, I thought I would share it with you. 

It was the beginning of December, and I was entering into the last couple of weeks of my London sabbatical. There was a list of things that I had yet to do, and one of them was visiting Oxford. So, I booked a ticket, packed my bag, and made my way that morning from Lewisham, where I was living, to Paddington Station, and then hopped on a train for a cozy hour-and-a-half ride to the city of Oxford.

I was completely enchanted by my surroundings as soon as I stepped out of the train station. The whole town was magical, like entering a new world where you might casually brush elbows with Harry Potter and his friends while scurrying down the street. I popped into the Missing Bean for tea and a pastry before spending the first few hours of my day aimlessly exploring ancient buildings and streets. 

Around noon, I sat down on a park bench to eat lunch and journal. I wrote at the time that I was “completely overwhelmed by the number of hot, smart men with Edward Cullen-like messy hair emerging from every corner.” Following it up with, “It appears that Oxford is composed of a bunch of smart people with good senses of humor who dress well and drink too much.” 

Campus was quiet that day, but evidently not that quiet. 

I sat on that bench a little while longer, reflecting on loves held and lost, before getting up and continuing on my way. I felt the cold air on my skin as I popped into churches illuminated by light streaming through stained glass windows and passed libraries stuffed to the brim with books. 

Later in the day, after the sun had set, I arrived at the meeting point for my walking tour. I was surprised to learn during my time in England that I actually love learning about history; you just have to woo me with a fun fact. Thus, the lure of a good walking tour became my kryptonite. I had booked the last tour of the day on purpose, hoping to maximize my unscheduled hours, but I didn’t realize that in doing so, I would be the only one on the tour. I was informed of this when my tour guide, Adam, finally arrived. 

At first, I felt panic. I am not often one to choose situations where I am alone with strange men in the dark. I worried that my conversational skills would cease to exist in response to this perceived threat, making for a supremely awkward evening. But it didn’t take me long to switch gears and embrace the moment. 

Adam and I shared a couple of hours together that were supposed to be spent discussing the history of Oxford and its campus. Instead, we spent two hours unpacking shared and unique traumas, dissecting societal power structures, and acknowledging our own faults within those systems of power. Occasionally, he would woo me with a fun fact.

In fact, the whole scene felt a bit like a romantic comedy of its own – two twenty-somethings wandering through an old campus just before Christmas, the streets lit only by the moon and the warm glow of lamps pouring through exposed windows. I didn’t take a single picture during our time together; I was too present to even think of it. 

At one point, we bumped into Adam’s friends and he introduced me to them. We swapped stories and joked together before saying goodbye and moving on to the rest of what had become less of a tour and more of an unexpected bonding.

Later, as we passed the famed Radcliffe Camera, Adam confided in me that he had grown up in working-class London, but started attending boarding schools when he was young and felt the pressure to conform to high society. As a result, he began adopting the same lifestyle, accent, and sense of superiority as his classmates. He had been convicted of this two years before our conversation while making the same walk past the Radcliffe Camera, when he suddenly realized that one thousand years ago, students, just like him, had been walking the same paths and navigating the same struggles, and that maybe he wasn’t so special. That moment woke him up to how ridiculous his posturing had been and made him realize that his pursuit of Oxford had been his pursuit of being the best. He shared with me that if he could do it over, he would have stayed in London and completed his university studies there instead. He paused for a beat after exposing this truth, shook his head, and said, “Sorry. This is meant to be a tour of the university, not about me.” 

His apologies, however, were unnecessary. I loved every minute of our time together and appreciated the depth of conversation far more than knowing the date each building was built. 

Not long after this moment, we parted ways somewhat awkwardly, I think both of us understanding that our time together had begun to stray outside the realm of professional. There was another pause in our exit, a moment of eye contact to decide if we head our separate directions or continue on together. We opted for what we had always planned to do, turning down opposite streets as we journeyed into the night. 

I spent another hour or two traversing cobblestone paths around castle-like structures before heading back to the train station and, eventually, home. 

I can’t say that day changed me, but I also can’t say that it didn’t. There is something about this glitter-coated memory that I will hold with me for a very long time. 

xx

Abbey

Titular Song: Enchanted by Taylor Swift