It is two minutes to nine and my train leaves at the top of the hour. I can see the Cambridge Heath Station overpass two blocks ahead and with my long gate, I feel assured that I am on time. Before I could fully inhale my assurance; however, a train slowly pulls away from the station. !@£$ Did I miscalculate? Is my watch incorrect? With half an hour until the next train, missing one would be slightly more irritation than I had planned on acquiring today. Three stops ahead, lying dormant in Ben’s Internet connection, is a slumbering map of Cambridge, my seemingly unplanned destination for this afternoon.
Up until now, events had so clearly lead me to this situation. With our draft project proposals just handed in and today being our first day off after a long weekend spent in their studious preparation, Oliver and I had tentatively planned on visiting the Samuel Palmer exhibition at the British Museum.
Except Oliver canceled.
With my Wednesday now free, I was available to take full advantage of a free student ticket to a Film and Digital Media Exchange seminar from 2 until 5 at the Cambridge Arts Theatre. I was first informed of the event from a course organizer at the University last week and I happily registered without the faintest regard to either my, at that time, still scheduled day with Oliver or the event’s location in London.
Except the event was in Cambridge.
Oh, how I didn’t know what to do! Looking back, my hesitation betrays my detrimental frugality, my decisive ability for indecision and a general lack of willingness to accept a direct kick in the butt! An hour and twenty minutes on a train, a whopping £17.50 for the return ticket and I’d probably have to travel halfway across London to get to the departure station anyways.
Except the train to Cambridge leaves from Liverpool Street, only ten minutes away from my tiny kitchen.
I soon realized that this nagging feeling of obligation to attend the seminar, was in truth a secret desire to attend that I hadn’t quite accepted. As so often is the case, a pressure from the outside (projected shadow) is really a desire not integrated into the whole (persona). With that astounding realization of Freudian psychology at its most relevant, the excitement of a day in Cambridge awaited me after a short trip to Ben’s for the necessary directions.
With the doubt of my trip successfully started and kindly begotten by a slowly passing train, I checked the schedule at the bottom of the flight of stairs at the station. It maybe took me 10 seconds to confirm that indeed the train did leave at 9:00 and no earlier. Furthermore, the incessant beeping of the train doors faintly heard indicated that my train was ready for departure. !@£$. Running…jumping two stairs at a time…platform…yes, it’s still here…two doors were within reach, one closed and one open. Alas, Murphy prevailed and I selected the one still shut – it refused to open while the other was obliged to close. I missed the 9:00 by ten seconds.
Maybe, I’m not meant to go to Cambridge!
” Shut up!” I said to myself: the reading of divine purpose is so much a projection of the want for it. I shut up and took the bus, woke the dreaming map of Cambridge and caught the 11:40 train that would take me to it.
Cambridge is trendy: cute stores, expensive stores, cute girls, and expensive girls! More bicycles than you can count on a Sunday after a picnic. Pleasant streets and a cold wind were all there to greet me upon my arrival. But surely there is something awaiting me that would provide such a clear impetus for its witnessing? With the latter thought and after my arrival, I was given an ease and a confidence that no slowly passing train could negate. Happy to spread the vegetarian cause, I donated my bus change in exchange for some incense and a small book on Krishna to someone fundraising for disseminating veg free meals.
After wandering the market and turning a corner, I bumped into Heather, a mature student taking a sister MA to mine. She commutes into class when she’s not taking care of her ailing parents, retired husband and two boys or attending free seminars in Cambridge. We sat in the lecture together, enjoyed an expensive orange juice afterwards and said goodbye at the train station, happy to have so accidentally met. Suffice to say that it was enough purpose to solidify another friend among the anonymity of the extended city. We all need each other.
Another hour and a half on the train back to Liverpool Street…then the next to Cambridge Heath…Walking toward the stairwell, the incessant beeping of the closing doors reminded me of this morning’s missed connection at that very spot. A young woman rushes up the stairs, taking two at a time, obviously intent on the train about to depart. Seeing me, she yells, “Help!” and I attempt to open the nearest shut door. It refuses to open while the others were obliged to close. She missed the 8:00 by ten seconds.
Obviously distressed, she hovers a moment to consider her options. Laughing at the play of a divine purpose, I realize my desire for it didn’t make much difference. I found a bus ticket made redundant by my student travelcard and gave it to a needing stranger, made myself some welcome dinner and went to bed.
Tags: London, serendipity