“That’s the only homesickness I’ve ever felt,” Lucy Meurer, senior English literature major, said.
My eyebrows instantly raised in surprise. Meurer admitted this homesickness came when she left Oxford, England, after living there for a year as a study abroad experience during her junior year of college. It didn’t happen when she left St. Louis, Missouri — where she is originally from — or Jackson, Tennessee.
Her very first dose of homesickness came from leaving a foreign place.
Meurer expressed that during her beginning transition to Oxford, she had no concerns about the distance. However, she still had to adjust.
“I think that it was definitely strange to come from, you know, a small, fairly-uniform-in-worldview campus to a larger and very diverse campus,” Meurer said.
Despite the new experience and transition, she did not hesitate to voice her special love for Oxford. Meurer found that special care for the university and city through the ways she was challenged, the ways she was taught and even the different ways that the English people functioned inside and outside the classroom.
“In England, especially in the Oxford system, we’re just kind of talking to a tutor,” Meurer explained. “For the most part, you might just be hanging out with a tutor, having conversations for an hour once a week or less. You’re probably calling them by their first name. You feel much more, just, kind of on board with the conversation that’s happening.”
Most importantly, though, Meurer loves the emphasis and value that Oxford puts on the idea of learning itself. Because she loves learning, too.
“I ran into a porter. Those are the guys who hold open the doors for the colleges,” Meurer said. “I’d have weird conversations with him. He was like, ‘You know this obscure theory about there being two King Arthurs in Welsh?’ I was like, ‘No, I didn’t know that, but thanks for that because that’s really epic that you know that!'”
While acknowledging the vein of curiosity that runs within the university, it is easy to see that it has begun to run within Meurer as well. To an extent, that wonder followed her back to Union University.
The profound love of the new perspective of learning taught in such a unique way made her begin to feel like Oxford was the place of all places for her. It was almost as if she had been waiting her whole life for it.
Meurer’s roommate, Alex Reeder, a senior double major in psychology and criminal justice, can attest to Meurer finding her place at Oxford.
“Oxford, I think, was maybe, probably, the biggest part of her college experience because of how much happened and how much she did find her place there,” Reeder said.
Reeder also had the opportunity to study abroad in Oxford, but for much less time, only staying there for a month. In that month, she was able to visit Meurer a few times.
Despite the distance that the two faced during Meurer’s year abroad, their friendship never burned out or lost its connection. Intentional efforts to stay in touch and support each other from afar increased the value of their friendship.
Reeder now understands that Oxford is the place that feeds her roommate’s needs for critical and higher thinking, and she got to watch the discovery unfold so closely, yet from a distance.
“I think she feels like she found her place there, more so than here, because of the nature of the culture and the level of academia … that is how she’s built,” Reeder said.
What it truly made Oxford Meurer’s home away from home wasn’t the aesthetic nature and romanticization of the place that we see in films and shows; it was the complexity and just the right amount of difficulty that drew her in and continues to do so.
Meurer mentioned looking to go back, and I would not be surprised if she found her way back to what has become her roots.
Finding a place, no matter where you are, is establishing a home and community of some kind. You are planting and growing roots in a place that feeds into your wonder, curiosity and self-growth.
It was through learning about and becoming a part of the culture of Oxford that Meurer gained the clarity to find her roots. It was not just studying abroad.
