A Cycle Ride from Cherry Hinton

My first open Sunday in a month or so turned out to be a perfect, sun-touched spring day. On the 3-mile cycle ride to church in the morning I knew I would be taking my time on the way home—I’ve long been itching to properly soak up the green corners I whiz past on my bike every week, catching them only in my peripheral vision. A full schedule, bad weather, and bike-sapped energy have kept me from deviating much from that route until today.

The Cambridge meetinghouse of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is in Cherry Hinton, one of those outlying suburbs of Cambridge. Few members with cars live near me, and the bus requires an extra 20 minutes of walking, so most weeks I put on leggings and cycle to church. The route from my flat in Newnham (the neighborhood surrounding Newnham College, which is also considered a Cambridge suburb) to the church takes me through several parks and fenland, over the Cam, for a stint on a tree-lined cycle path, and finally down a long commercial road. The green space makes the ride worth it, even when I’m only glancing. Today was even better.

Here’s a tour of the ride I went on today, in church-to-home order.

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King’s College Chapel

Last Sunday, I watched the sun set through the West Window of King’s College Chapel. I saw the massive arc of flaming primary colors cool into sultry shades, then disintegrate into dim fragments and black bars, then shadowed chaos, until finally only the hulking dark-veiled window was left, and the cavernous stone.


King’s College Chapel

When my friend asked me if I could step in last minute on the cello for a weekend concert gig for the King’s College Music Society, rehearsal and performance in the chapel, I wasn’t going to say no. I’d been inside the famous chapel to attend a few other performances, giving me a chance to stare at the fan-vaulted ceiling from the audience, but the opportunity to play in there, even just to claim the right to spend more than an hour or two in there, was one of those Cambridge pinch-myself phenomena. Tourists travel hundreds of miles (and pay £9 on top of that) for a few minutes craning their necks in the chapel, and here I have a nonchalant invitation to spend hours under that 500-year-old ceiling, participating in its soundscape.

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Notes and Noticing

But we are and always have been name-callers, christeners.


Robert Macfarlane, Landmarks

After a roughly two-decade lifelong stint in the Western US, I’ve moved to Cambridge, England, and I want a record of the place. I want to name its multitudes of places. Presumptuous of me, maybe; people have been recording and naming this place for dizzying centuries, and I’ve been here for six months. But I want my turn anyway. You’re welcome to flip through this placebook, if you can’t come see and be here yourself.

King’s College, Cambridge

For some thoughts and lots of mixed metaphors in which I try to untangle my motivations for creating this blog, read on.

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