Memories of Alnwick
Jana Otto Hiller ’90, Minneapolis, Alnwick 1987-88
I remember the walk around Alnwick Castle. When stated
like that, it sounds like such a small thing. I imagine
other students’ reminiscences, and in my head they
sound bigger and somehow more worthy. More heart-changing:
“I remember when I met my future husband on letter
Q of the A–Z pub crawl.” Or more heart-breaking:
“I remember Jodi Huisentruit and how full of life
she was.” Surely I can do better than a walk? And
yet I can’t let it go.
Perhaps it’s as simple as the scenery. The way in
late summer the clouds cast shadows as far as you can see,
shifting and moving and mesmerizing across the undulating
green hills of Northumberland. Or the way the leaves turn
gold in the fall, glinting in the precious sunlight as they
drift down and form a carpet over the sidewalk and street,
like nature’s own welcoming mat.
Or maybe it’s the connection with history I’d
feel, imagining all the others throughout the centuries
who’d lived here before me, stood in the same place,
saw what I was seeing. The walk would come to life in the
same way that Hadrian becomes a personal acquaintance when
you climb atop his wall. And how Stonehenge is more monumentally
mysterious when you measure your height against the stones
while the wind from Salisbury Plain spits rain into your
face.
Countless times I made the trip around the castle walls
while I was in Alnwick—this time a jog in the afternoon
with companions, this time a weekend picnic with friends
among the incurious sheep. But it’s the mornings when
I struck out alone that I remember most, a walk snuck in
between classes while other students attended class, prepared
for class, or read the latest letter from home, often done
surreptitiously in class.
I never saw anyone else on these morning walks. It was like
the awesome scene was a feast laid out just for me, waiting
for me to step into the room and discover it. “Where
have you been?” the sky seemed to say. “We’ve
been here, waiting for you,” said the stone walls.
Stepping outside the castle gate, I’d feel like Columbus
discovering a new world.
I see now that Alnwick and that walk has become linked with
a unique time in my life. Like a walk slipped in between
classes, my time in Alnwick was slipped in between the worlds
of childhood and adulthood. For the first time I had all
the privileges and means of adulthood, but still a childlike
freedom and wonder to enjoy it. Nothing was more pressing
or more magnificent than to discover the world and my place
in it. Even the classes in Alnwick seem an experience unto
themselves rather than a means to a degree. Suddenly all
of life’s possibilities were there before me. And
they had been there all along, just waiting for me to take
a first, magical step.
For the first time I realize why, upon my return from Alnwick,
I developed such an abiding interest in the English romantic
poets. It was because they, like me, had irrevocably linked
nature and location with their deepest internal experiences.
Wordsworth had Tintern Abbey, and I had Alnwick Castle.
I’m glad now that I’ve allowed this memory
to unfurl. Because it was more than remembering a nice walk
in the countryside. It was also about remembering an important
walk in the journey of life.
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