Street Chats
Conversations with a stranger on the streets of Oxford
December 2014
In every city I find that there is a certain street which acts as the main artery of the circulatory system. Eventually, if you wait long enough, every blood cell will pass by you. In New York, this is fifth avenue. In San Francisco this is market street. In oxford, this is cornmarket street.
The other night, I found that I had an hour to spare before my next engagement. This is rare for me. Free time is not something really worked into my schedule these days as. My average week here in Oxford consists of writing ~5000 words, reading 5-6 books, trying to maintain a semblance of a healthy lifestyle, and occasionally doing something social. This day, a Wednesday I think, I had finished my reading for the day and grabbed my small box of sushi and 2£ miso soup from itsu, a really neat Asian chain restaurant (owned by the owners of Pret a Manger). Not wanting to pay the tax to eat in, and as it wasn't too cold of an evening, I sat on a bench on Cornmarket to enjoy my meal and a healthy dose of people watching. Trying to balance my miso on my knees while digging in my bag for a spoon, a woman walked by me eating a sandwich. She passed me and then doubled back.
"Mind if I share my meal with you?"
"Not at all! Come join me", I replied, gesturing to the empty bench next to me.
She was dressed in all black, very stylish and classic. She walked with dignity and grace, with a certain confidence that I associate with the very rich, very beautiful, and very famous. She ate her ham sandwich with all the manners required of a 5 course formal dinner. Even though I was sitting on a cold bench on Cornmarket street at 7 pm surrounded by tourists, shoppers, and students returning from lecture, I suddenly became very aware of my poor posture and the slurping sounds my soup was making. This woman had about her a feel of royalty. We started up a conversation about Itsu and sushi, and in the way that conversations usually do, we ended up talking about San Francisco and California. From there this woman began to tell me her entire life story. She was born and raised on a sugar plantation in Hawaii, her mother ran the place while her father flew for PanAm. When she was fifteen she moved to Malibu and at nineteen she moved by herself to San Francisco. This was in the late 1960s. She opened up a small registry shop in the Pacific Heights and soon obtained the regular patronage of some of the richest people in San Francisco, probably all of America. To give you some perspective, an average price for a china tea set was about $17,000. That's $17,000 in the late 60s, a time when a buck could buy three gallons of gas and dozen eggs cost 53 cents. She kept her shop open from 12-5, by appointment only. When a customer would come in, she would feed them the finest cheeses and caviar, supply them with ample wine, and then sell them a couple more beautiful one-of-a-kind vases, only for them to come back a few days later looking for more identical such articles. She lived in a beautiful apartment in the Pacific Heights and from her back window she could watch the young Sophia Copolla play in her sand box.
While recalling her life, a life that seems so strange and foreign to me, she seems not to be looking at me. Her eyes glaze over, she is unfocused. her stories get jumbled, she forgets names and details. It is almost as if she is looking back over her life, trying to keep touch with a young, skinny, pigtailed girl, dating movie stars, wearing kick pants, and living the dream.
“I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends.”
— Joan Didion
After reliving a weekend of parties in Beverley Hills where everyone spent days drinking and smoking, and doing all kinds of unmentionable deeds, she turned to me and said, "You see, the problem was i was too young. It all happened to me when I was too young. I saw the whole world but was too young to understand it."
She had quite literally seen the whole world. Her father had worked for Pan Am and had flown her all over the world by the time she was ten. Her mother owned a sugar plantation and she had worked in the clinic, helping with the sick and wounded. She had seen Europe, Asia, and Australia, wealth and poverty, sickness, hurt, pain, love, and happiness...all those things that make up the entirety of life. But she didn't know what to do with it. At the end of the 1990s, what all the posh, elite people were doing was "down sizing", what ever that meant. So she sold her registry, sold her beautiful home in San Francisco, left all of her friends and "downsized" to Oxford. So now here she is, an old woman, living in Oxford with her third husband, with not much to do but tell her stories.
"Never downsize, dear, never downsize. You see, when you downsize, you can never go back."
It was then just about 8pm and I needed to get to chapel. I thanked her for sharing her meal and story with me. She looked me in the eye and smiled. A genuine smile of warmth and caring.
"It's important to share your stories, dear, remember that. That is your legacy, so hold onto these years and hold on to who you are, you will want to share all of this someday."
Her name was Patricia.
The other night, I found that I had an hour to spare before my next engagement. This is rare for me. Free time is not something really worked into my schedule these days as. My average week here in Oxford consists of writing ~5000 words, reading 5-6 books, trying to maintain a semblance of a healthy lifestyle, and occasionally doing something social. This day, a Wednesday I think, I had finished my reading for the day and grabbed my small box of sushi and 2£ miso soup from itsu, a really neat Asian chain restaurant (owned by the owners of Pret a Manger). Not wanting to pay the tax to eat in, and as it wasn't too cold of an evening, I sat on a bench on Cornmarket to enjoy my meal and a healthy dose of people watching. Trying to balance my miso on my knees while digging in my bag for a spoon, a woman walked by me eating a sandwich. She passed me and then doubled back.
"Mind if I share my meal with you?"
"Not at all! Come join me", I replied, gesturing to the empty bench next to me.
She was dressed in all black, very stylish and classic. She walked with dignity and grace, with a certain confidence that I associate with the very rich, very beautiful, and very famous. She ate her ham sandwich with all the manners required of a 5 course formal dinner. Even though I was sitting on a cold bench on Cornmarket street at 7 pm surrounded by tourists, shoppers, and students returning from lecture, I suddenly became very aware of my poor posture and the slurping sounds my soup was making. This woman had about her a feel of royalty. We started up a conversation about Itsu and sushi, and in the way that conversations usually do, we ended up talking about San Francisco and California. From there this woman began to tell me her entire life story. She was born and raised on a sugar plantation in Hawaii, her mother ran the place while her father flew for PanAm. When she was fifteen she moved to Malibu and at nineteen she moved by herself to San Francisco. This was in the late 1960s. She opened up a small registry shop in the Pacific Heights and soon obtained the regular patronage of some of the richest people in San Francisco, probably all of America. To give you some perspective, an average price for a china tea set was about $17,000. That's $17,000 in the late 60s, a time when a buck could buy three gallons of gas and dozen eggs cost 53 cents. She kept her shop open from 12-5, by appointment only. When a customer would come in, she would feed them the finest cheeses and caviar, supply them with ample wine, and then sell them a couple more beautiful one-of-a-kind vases, only for them to come back a few days later looking for more identical such articles. She lived in a beautiful apartment in the Pacific Heights and from her back window she could watch the young Sophia Copolla play in her sand box.
While recalling her life, a life that seems so strange and foreign to me, she seems not to be looking at me. Her eyes glaze over, she is unfocused. her stories get jumbled, she forgets names and details. It is almost as if she is looking back over her life, trying to keep touch with a young, skinny, pigtailed girl, dating movie stars, wearing kick pants, and living the dream.
“I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends.”
— Joan Didion
After reliving a weekend of parties in Beverley Hills where everyone spent days drinking and smoking, and doing all kinds of unmentionable deeds, she turned to me and said, "You see, the problem was i was too young. It all happened to me when I was too young. I saw the whole world but was too young to understand it."
She had quite literally seen the whole world. Her father had worked for Pan Am and had flown her all over the world by the time she was ten. Her mother owned a sugar plantation and she had worked in the clinic, helping with the sick and wounded. She had seen Europe, Asia, and Australia, wealth and poverty, sickness, hurt, pain, love, and happiness...all those things that make up the entirety of life. But she didn't know what to do with it. At the end of the 1990s, what all the posh, elite people were doing was "down sizing", what ever that meant. So she sold her registry, sold her beautiful home in San Francisco, left all of her friends and "downsized" to Oxford. So now here she is, an old woman, living in Oxford with her third husband, with not much to do but tell her stories.
"Never downsize, dear, never downsize. You see, when you downsize, you can never go back."
It was then just about 8pm and I needed to get to chapel. I thanked her for sharing her meal and story with me. She looked me in the eye and smiled. A genuine smile of warmth and caring.
"It's important to share your stories, dear, remember that. That is your legacy, so hold onto these years and hold on to who you are, you will want to share all of this someday."
Her name was Patricia.