Those Almost-Right Moments

An unplanned Sunday morning adventure

The idea first came on an evening in February 2024, just before I left England, when my tourist permit was about to expire. My boyfriend and I were walking through Cambridge city centre when we passed in front of Great St Mary’s, the University Church.

In front, an advertisement was encouraging tourists to climb its tower. On the spur of the moment, I said we should do it once I came back for good with a long-term visa: climb up and get a view of the town from the top. Maybe it was a way to mark the achievement and feel we had finally risen above all the uncertainty. Or maybe it was just something to look for. Back then, we just said we would do it.

I secured my visa later that summer and finally moved back in September. We hadn’t forgotten our promise, but we didn’t climb the town either. We just kept on saying we would do it at some point.

Perhaps this is a typical example of how I often live: victories are celebrated only for the short time it takes my brain to normalise them, even when they have been long awaited. When new obstacles arrive (in this case, the job search), they take over. Fulfilment, happiness, and the right to rest often exist only in potential, my body and mind stretched out in the belief that I’ll grasp them someday.

Another winter, another spring, and another summer passed. It was September 2025, and we still hadn’t climbed the tower. By then, I thought we should really do it: there simply hadn’t been a moment quite right yet.

Then, one Sunday morning, something unexpected happened: one of the students we loosely knew, who was about to leave Cambridge, was bringing some friends to the top of his college’s Chapel Tower that morning. The college in question was St John’s, the second richest in Cambridge (just after Trinity College), and the one that, even though Harry Potter wasn’t filmed there, has some corners that really do give Hogwarts vibes. Its chapel is as big as a church and, with its 163 feet of height (around 50 meters), its bell tower is the highest building in Cambridge.

St John’s College. Photo by the author.

Was this an alternative ending to our tower climbing mission?

We asked to join.

The tower, like most of the colleges’ spaces, is open only to college members or to visitors accompanied by college members. We were entering a space accessible only to a few. For me, that is the main magic of Cambridge: walking through the streets and imagining what has happened — and what is still happening — behind those closed, ancient doors.

The Chapel Tower’s door. Photo by the author.

There’s this feeling of history and stories unfolding in its corners, but only its selected members can bridge imagination with reality.

While the college’s founding dates back to 1511, the chapel as we know it today was rebuilt in the late 19th century. Interestingly, I discovered on the college website that there were no original plans to build a tower. However, an alumnus, Henry Honroe, stepped in and offered to cover the cost. Tragically, Henry died in a railway accident soon after construction began, and ultimately, the college paid for the tower.

Chapel Tower. Photo by the author.

Though internationally less famous than King’s Chapel, St John’s Chapel Tower remains an essential part of the city’s skyline for those who live here.

The first staircase led us to a small balcony nestled between the chapel and the tower. We faced the first college courtyard, but beyond the main college entrance, we could already see the bustling Sunday morning town. The day was beautiful: a little windy, but the sky was clear blue. Something you never take for granted here.

Another door led us through the final narrow staircase before we reached the opening at the top.

The staircase, photographed on the way down. Photo by the author.

I often don’t fully realise how much I miss something until the moment it’s given back to me again. Humans may have evolved to walk on the ground, but as the Earth’s surface shifts and rises, we’ve always been used to seeing things from different perspectives.

Looking at a familiar place from above gives me an entirely new vision of it. And this was the first time I could truly see Cambridge from the top. I recognised the streets I walked every day, now so narrow; my fellow humans looked like pieces on a complicated chessboard; that little, cosy building I’ve always liked seemed like a doll’s house; and the part of the city that always felt so distant was now clearly connected to its centre.

View from the top of the tower. Photo by the author.

When I look at my world from above, I am reminded that I am only a part of a whole.

Like every building that has survived more than a lifetime, this tower wasn’t exempt from one of the oldest human activities to date: graffiti. I once read that on ancient Egyptian monuments, the names of Greek and Roman tourists have been found — carved there over two thousand years ago!

Here, the floor was covered in names and inscriptions. Most of them must have belonged to past or current students, wanting to leave a mark of their existence on something that would outlast them.

Graffiti on the top of the tower. Photo by the author.

We climbed down and ended the morning with a walk around the college. It was the end of summer, and green was still the dominant colour, even though the sceptre would soon be passed to red and orange. We stopped by the college coffee shop and had fresh lemon tea with cake.

Fresh tea and cake at St John’s coffee shop. Photo by the author.

I felt happy. It had taken so long to finally climb a tower and see Cambridge from the top — and I realised that I had been stuck waiting for the right moment for it to happen. I often wait and wait, life passes, and I overlook the almost-right moments, the ones where life actually happens.

In the end, that morning climb wasn’t planned at all. It was just a Sunday morning when we both woke up early enough to see a message from someone we knew and tagged along on an unexpected opportunity.

I should tag along with life a little more.