It’s still early enough in the term that I’m a little bit in awe of Cambridge itself. I have to resist the urge to pull out my phone like a tourist every time I walk around town on a particularly nice morning, or visit a friend’s college, or even just during dinner in Caius’ hall. Every term is the same; for a few weeks I’m amazed by the sheer volume of beautiful things around me, art everywhere I look, from ornate libraries, to perfectly arranged gardens, to portraits seemingly everywhere. Yet the excitement gradually fades as I realise I actually have a degree to do.
The same seems to happen with aspects of the Cambridge arts scene. For a few weeks I want to do as much as possible. I’ll visit the Fitz or Kettle’s Yard every weekend or wander around the Museum of Classical Art and Archaeology whenever I have an hour between my lectures and the idea of going to the library feels a little too daunting. Then, eventually, I stop. As term goes on, deadlines pile up, I seem to become impossibly behind on my reading, societies become more active, and I become exhausted.
“Within the chaos of term, an almost oxymoronic feeling of monotony creeps in.”
Within the chaos of term, an almost oxymoronic feeling of monotony creeps in. The endless essay deadlines, lectures and supervisions force a routine that leaves little room for anything else. Anything that distracts from these core activities seems like an unnecessary piece of self indulgence. Some weeks it feels like the only places I have been are my room, the library, Mainsbury’s, and Sidge. Often an hour spent in the ARC cafe feels incompatible with my priorities, never mind a fifteen minute walk to a museum, to spend a couple more hours staring at paintings.
When I was out of Cambridge for the holidays, I would regularly spend upwards of an hour on three different methods of transport just to spend a few hours in an art gallery or museum, looking at the same exhibitions over and over again. In Cambridge the fifteen-minute walk to the Fitz feels like a burden.
There are a few reasons why I seem more motivated to seek art out when I’m away from uni. Obviously, the fact that I didn’t have rapidly approaching deadlines made it easier to justify spending the best part of a day devoted to art rather than revision, but I believe there was more to it. Firstly, the need to travel meant that I needed to plan where I would go and what I wanted to see so that I could deal with the temperamental train timings accordingly. This gave me specifically assigned time to engage with art, rather than just expecting it to happen eventually. Secondly, the fact that I wasn’t being constantly inundated with news about different events, talks, and exhibitions meant that I could see everything I wanted, without missing out on anything else. There was a small sense of the scarcity of opportunities to see new art and hear from new speakers, so when there was an event that interested me, this would become a priority.
“Something else always seems to be more important.”
Paradoxically the fact that there is so much happening all the time in Cambridge makes me more prone to skipping events at a minor inconvenience. I have fewer regrets about the things I miss when I know that something else will pop up, or that the exhibition is open for another three weeks. Ultimately, I end up desensitised to both the art of Cambridge itself, and the activity of its arts scene. Something else always seems to be more important.
In reality, that mystical time when there are no other commitments will never come. Without putting too much pressure on myself to have the perfect term and taking advantage of all that Cambridge has to offer, I will try to carve out time for the arts. If I had the motivation to put so much effort into visiting galleries a few weeks ago, I can manage an afternoon at Kettle’s Yard now. The essay can wait.
