Day 25

                                                        An English Winter? No Joke.

Those who gave advice on these things told us not to worry, English winters are mild.  So we left most of the serious winter things at our home in western New York.  We live an hour from Buffalo, which has a reputation for fierce winter weather even though Syracuse regularly gets far more snow and Watertown is a virtual ice box in comparison.

So we packed light for the winter that we thought might give us a few days of cold wind and a dusting of powder.

But we suspected something more serious was up when reports of cold (-22 C) in Wales and highway-closing snow fall in Scotland and northern England began to make news as headline stories. In the aftermath of one storm after Thanksgiving, two elderly people died, having gone outside and lost their way.

As we found seats at St. Paul's Cathedral for a Christmas performance of the Messiah on 8 December, the couple sitting next to us expressed their concerns they would have to cancel their trip down from Yorkshire because of bad road conditions.

London itself seemed to have been spared.  Our day or two of snowfall left picturesque icing on buildings, as on the steeple of St. Mary's below. It was sloppy for a bit and created a few hours of inconvenience, but within days all traces were melted away and life went on without a pause.

The view from our window, pictured in early morning, was snowless again by nightfall.

I went out and took pictures of various snowy scenes involving humans, thinking they might give an idea of what that snow was like.  But I favor the bird tracks more.  These are from the pond in Clissold Park, a seven minute walk from our flat.  The coots and geese and swans were walking on ice that was so close to the freezing - melting point that they left watery imprints as they padded about.

Those of us who live in snow country joke about the havoc created by a "little snow" where it is rare.  Now, having lived in London for four months, I understand that -- all joking aside -- this is serious weather.

As I write, Heathrow has been closed for several days, stranding thousands of passangers in the airport and disrupting travel around the world.  This, from the storm that rolled in hours after we departed.

I am happy to report, to quote John Lennon, these birds have flown.  For those who were not so fortunate, I can only express sympathy. In this kind of weather it is better to find a secure spot, like these hearty souls in the bare tree, and ride it out.

Day 24

Good-Bye to All That

A few left over the weekend, but the bulk of our Houghton in London group flew out Monday.  They stole away quietly, like mice.  On Tuesday the last of our students, Mary was gone.  That last night at the Highbury Center, site of so much activity since mid-September, must have been strangely quiet and lonely.

On Tuesday we began our own packing, took our last bus rides into London center, finished our tour of the National Gallery begun some time ago, checked for left or lost items at Highbury Center, and tried to come to terms with these last hours at our English home.

I had thought I had seen every new thing I was likely to see on this trip, but I was wrong.  As we returned to our high street on the 19 bus from Foyles book store, while stopped in traffic at Highbury Barn waiting for an opening to curb the bus, I spotted this truck.

Perhaps I am still feeling the responsibilities of benign parental responsibility, but when I saw this truck I had a split second of doubt.  When I encouraged them all to leave something of themselves in Islington, I had thought in terms of positive impressions, good memories, an investment in lives.  I trust you took my meaning.

If not, if like the quiet mice you left something behind, the city workers, prepared for anything apparently, are already on it.

Good-by London.  It has been priceless.

Day 22

These Last Days Are A Blurr

One observation that old people make is that time passes faster as we get older. 

The summer that lasted forever between first and second grade now passes between nap time and dinner. How eager we were to make it last forever. How rapidly that eternal summer flew by.

The quickening passage of time applies now to these last days of our prolonged tour in London.  We are working on our last monthweeksdayshours.  Now we are packing and already the taxi is chugging up the street.

In that spirit I am sharing some photographs that embody the blur of time and the hopes of good intentions.

Ah, young love!  Remember early October in the Victoria Tower Gardens near Parliament? 

So long ago, October, when my son and his wife, Ian and Kristen, visited from Maine. The picture, taken at long distance with a zoom, captured . . . just . . . enough . . . of . . . the  . . . moment . . .

Some ideas for photographs seem better than they turn out.  See it, shoot it. I was looking for visible evidence of the past in the present, which is not all that hard to find in London.  My idea for a deeply significant shot of old pier pilings and scavangers on the Thames tidal flats looks less like London than a movie set or than nowhere in particular.  

Another good idea that I could not bring off, the image blurred, its distinctives lost. Incorrect focus or shakey hands?

Soon October ended, and November, and now the brief, dark, hurried days of winter are upon us.

On a recent walk from the Tate Modern toward the National Theatre along the South Bank, I thought to capture seasonal lights strung in the bare trees. They have a kind of mysterious beauty.  Like the season itself, which we will taste but not complete in London, the photograph is more an impression than clear rendering.

The blue blob on the left in the distance is the National Theatre. The mysterious dark figure to the right is my "other half," to quote the young woman who sells me newspapers and tops up my Oyster card, escaping from the shakey photographer into the dark night.

So has London been for us -- a blur, recognizable at times, indecipherable at others, but full of personally evocative and moving touch stones.

Such is this failed shot of St. Paul's Cathedral, using the "night" setting with its long exposure -- a memory-packed touch stone, an image that will trigger and store a dozen tellings.

A bright and vibrant time glowing in the foggy London night across the restless river.  That is London for us now.  It's not my childhood time frame, but then what do I remember of those childhood summers if not impressions blurred by distance and the vagueries of memory?

Day 21

Essential Music

iPods and ear buds are so common these days it would be fair to say that nearly everyone carries their music with them.  Those who are not wired to playlists are often on the phone. 

We used to be cautioned to step aside for someone talking loudly to himself.  Now it is common, and the only curiosity is that they speak so often in loud voices -- as if being in public did not matter.

I carry my music with me, too.  But I never bring my iPod out of the house.  When I am out on the streets, I listen like everyone else -- to the music already in my head.

On a walk in October along the 4 bus route heading toward St Paul's Cathedral and the Globe Theatre, I found myself hearing "Mr Tambourine Man." I was looking for photo opportunities and I was not terribly conscious, as I usually am, of my limitations as a photographer. I live with hope, and like everyone else I always think at any moment I will start doing serious photography.

I was looking for brick walls with stories hidden in them, for characteristically English things, for colorful or odd doors, for the sharp slant of sunlight that would give me evocative shadows -- or for anything that would surprise me visually. The white horse, for example.

Without announcing itself, "Mr Tambourine Man" started looping through my head. 

"Hey, Mister Tambourine Man, play a song for me/ I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to . . ."

Why this song when literally hundreds of songs are available in the brain wrinkles?  "Then take me disappearing/ down the smoky ruins of time/ far past the frozen leaves/ the haunted frightened tree/ far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow . . ."

This phenomenon is essentially an emotional association.  So remembering the lyrics correctly, let alone understanding them, is always not critical to the experience.

My students will often write about songs that they find meaningful.  What they assume or hope for is that  the weight of a song -- its emotional or lyrical association -- will automatically make itself apparent. That is, they hope the song will do its magic on me without additional explanation. But often this assumption is false; the meaningful association is personal.  It must be connected to time, place, circumstances, and (most importantly) frame of mind.

The fact that these musical associations are personal, private, or complicated does not change the fact that they are powerful.  I cannot hear the music to "Out Of Africa," which is known and loved by many, without thinking of my daughter's wedding in 2000.  I listened to that music repeatedly in the weeks as I worked on the poem I had been asked to write for and read at the wedding.  I cannot now dis-associate the two.

Essential music may also be the music shared by couples, who will say, "This is our song." One such song for my wife and me is "Never, My Love" from our dating days more than 40 years ago, conveniently (for this discuss) recorded by a group called The Association.

We shared an evening of essential music in late October when Van Morrison performed at the Royal Albert Hall. Like many of the writers who created my essential music, he is my age or a little older.  But the evening was not about nostalgia.  It was about the worlds that essential music brings together.  It was at once very present and timeless -- a wonderful moment evocatively anchored in the past.

Essential music is a tree with deep roots.

Twice in the few days before we leave England, we will have opportunity for more essential music.  We have tickets to experience Handel's "Messiah," first at St. Paul's Cathderal and then at the Royal Albert Hall. Despite the persistent jokey use of the "Halleluiah Chorus" in movies and advertisements, "The Messiah" has retained its power.  When we heard it performed at Carnegie Hall two years ago, I was moved nearly to tears. 

I expect no less this year.  I have come to understand,  regardless of how I first heard it, that essential music -- especially "The Messiah" -- is not about me or about my connection to it, however vital that connection. The fact that my essential music is shared with others, of course, enhances rather than diminishes its importance.  We can share essential music.

So, while I am out and about -- when I am not hearing essential music, or taking in the sounds of the street, or talking with someone, or praying -- I solve problems. Or I write.  In my head.

It is amazing how the knottiest problems will untangle themselves when the body is in motion and the mind is engaged elsewhere.  To bend a famous lyric of Paul Simon's, it's still useful after all these years. No ear buds required.

Day 20

Late Adjustments

In early September, shortly after we arrived in London, I wrote about adjustments we would face as we started life in this “alien” environment.

Jet lag, our first hurdle after customs, goes away by itself.

If jet lag is a wound, time heals it without fuss, whether or not elaborate coping strategies have been used.

English money is easy to understand because of its nearly precise correspondence to American money. Don’t let the unfamiliar terms throw you. Some, like “quid,” are just slang references to a particular unit; and other references, like “shilling” and “farthing,” are coins now relegated to museums and literature.

The tricky part of money is the exchange rate, which is only tricky if you feel you must calculate a dollar price for every purchase you make. People who do that on an item by item, transaction by transaction basis either have brains wired for those calculations or they have masochistic tendencies.

As far as I can tell there is no middle ground. Learn to see expenses in terms of pounds and save the micro-managing for other things.

The same kind of advice holds for calculating temperature.

We learned a set of formulas in grade school that were intended to bridge the expected American transition from Fahrenheit to Celsius. We also learned formulas for translating weight and volume from the familiar to the metric, because -- we were told -- that is what the rest of the world is doing.

Obviously, most of the shift to metrics never happened. My point here is, learn to understand Celsius in terms of how the air feels rather than in precise, mathematical terms. What difference does it make whether -1 C is 30 or 31 Fahrenheit ? At -1 C the wintery slop on the sidewalks has frozen and walking is no longer sloppy but treacherous.

Other calculations matter even less. Will I ever be interested in determining my weight in “stones”?

Well, eventually, if I were to stay here, knowing how to determine my weight in stones might prove useful, if only in conversation.

None of these things have proven to be major obstacles over the 12 weeks we have been here.

I have learned to navigate the maze of streets and negotiate the bus and tube lines. Even street traffic is less hazardous for us. One only has to look both ways before crossing, which is a lesson I was taught as a toddler anyway.

Practicing the sensible caution is the difficult part.  Doing what one knows is appropriate and wise is generally the issue in life anyway, isn’t it.

But there are a few things that I have not adjusted to quite so easily.

One of these is British sport. I played soccer – excuse me, football – in high school so I understand the rudiments of the game. But I have not yet made the necessary transition to professional football, which is so consuming here. I have next to no interest in rugby, except that I find the sports page photos of bloodied players astonishing. And cricket, which has frequently dominated news since we arrived in August, remains an absolute puzzle.

Reading the sports pages, which I linger over at home, takes me a matter of seconds. I actually spend more time in Business than in Sports. What is happening to me?!

The single hardest practical adjustment, however, is a fairly simple one: the time difference between London and home.

The logical adjustment in thinking would be to simply gear my day, my waking and sleeping patterns, to my present needs. Twenty-five years ago, on our first visit to England, this was an easy process. Day is day, and night is night.

Due largely to communication advances in the last 25 years, however, I find my day reshaped, and stretched. Because I CAN talk with people now, I WANT to talk with people.

At heart, the problem is “real time.” I have stretched my bedtime to accommodate people back home – my grandchildren, for example – who naturally keep American schedules. Not much wiggle room there.

A similar tension arises over emails that I send or reply to in the morning, when I am up and thinking about whatever-it-is. If I need or anticipate a reply, I have a good long wait before these people even get up, let alone read my urgent message.

Waiting, oddly, proves stressful.

All of this says very little about England in particular or about how we manage our "English" life. It does, however, say a great deal about evolving global technologies and on how those technologies have come to manage us.

And it says a great deal about those things time alone will not heal.

Day 19

A Tiny Red Dot

We stopped on a walk through Hyde Park because two geese were clearly disoriented by the huge mirror beside the pond. They were honking madly and pacing back and forth.

We were actually reflected in the mirror too. I am the little red dot at the top of the world and Donna is the little black dot next to the red dot.

The mirror is an art piece by Anish Kapoor, who has four mirror installations in Hyde Park and adjoining Kensington Gardens. I have seen all four. One is exactly like the one pictured above except that it reflects sky not ground. One is a small circular mirror that reflects with a red tint. And the most well known piece is a "C" shaped installation called Turning the World Upside Down.

The day I went to see it, the exhibit was fenced off while workers tried to repair a bit of vandalism. The mirrors are intended to raise questions about perspective. Apparently it worked better for the geese than it did for the guys with spray paint. I find that I identify more with the geese here than with the vandals, who apparently just saw it as a shiny space to scribble on.

Like many other visitors I had hoped to photograph myself upside down in the C mirror, but the fence made the effort pointless. Some weeks later I found another, smaller mirror in the Tate Britain that allowed me the upsidedown experience.




I am not sure what I learned from being stood on my head, unless it is that I hope you won't see me with my world turned upside down just yet.

Interesting and compelling, the idea of a reflected world. It is a common device for novelists, poets, painters, song writers, sermon writers, and others, for talking about how we see ourselves or for finding out how the world sees us. It presents a distance, a doubleness, that is in itself an opportunity for expression, however obscured, as in the image below.






I am just not sure, yet, what being stood on my head means. It is a dizzying change of perspective for sure.

Still, I like being in the big pie picture with the geese. I know their pain. I relate. I too, at times, have paced around honking madly, knowing something in my world is badly misplaced.

For now, however,I am where I want to be, at the top of the world. Weird, I suppose, to find myself there, but the mirror gives me a realistic view. My place at the top of the world that I see is balanced by this tiny fact: the figure reflected there is clearly and visually insignificant.

We might call this "art reflecting life." Even the geese get into it.

Day 18

Thanksgiving at St Paul’s Cathedral

This new experience, Thanksgiving away from home, gives me pause. Pause on Thanksgiving Day, I should think, is good.

We traveled to St Paul’s Cathedral at the appointed door-opening time, found our way past the security barricades despite initially being told at the first entrance we tried that this was a “ticketed event.”

The St Paul’s website had said nothing about tickets, so naturally we did not have any.

At the gate further along, where the dozen flack-jacketed security guards checked bags, we were admitted without tickets. It was not a ticketed event after all. We were among the first inside, so we sat as close to the center of things as possible, row 4, under the dome. Just behind the rows marked “Reserved.”

We went for worship as well as for the experience, although clearly for many it seemed to be mostly an opportunity to be with other Americans. I am not judging motives. I am simply referring to the level of chatter that persisted, despite the organ call to worship, and that popped up again at “slow moments” during the service itself. Ah, Americans! What are you going to do?

I am not genetically inclined to be impressed by the spiritual possibilities of ritual or necessarily by the religious symbolism of art and architecture. That is, a fancy space and a good show do not in themselves suggest, to me, intimacy with God.

I have misgivings as well about the presence of military in church. The likeness of spiritual to political and military struggle that takes the form of memorials and statues and, on Thanksgiving, a Marine Corp Color Guard makes me uncomfortable.

But this was a deeply moving, intensely Christian service of worship.

With great dignity and respect the Color Guard surrendered the American flag and then the Marine Corp flag to church leaders, who lay them across the altar for the duration of the service. I found that bit of symbolism both appropriate and moving.

The music, too, was mostly familiar and deeply touching. Perhaps, that is the homeboy in me. The choir anthem was powerful, and the hymns, though pitched too high for my vocal chords, were themselves offerings to God. “Come, ye thankful people, come,” “Fairest Lord Jesus,” “For the beauty of the Earth.” And the organ, which fills that huge space indescribably, felt indeed like the presence of God.

Most astonishing was the sermon, brought by Dr. Barry Gaeddert, Senior Pastor of The International Community Church, Surrey. It was a forceful declaration of the centrality of the Gospel, both personal and universal. For that alone, I would have given thanks.

At service end we were turned out into the brooding November weather to wait for our bus, having been blessed again by worship. I thought then that we had experienced the warm deeply assuring heart of God in this grey, forbidding world.

Day 17

Post Cards from Oxford




My Dear Dr W, Took the train from Victoria Station, London, out to Oxford today to meet a friend from home. She's in England working on her doctorate. An "English degree" in Spanish. Funny. Realized on the tube to Victoria -- forgot me camera! -- thus, just post cards. Or pictures of post cards of Oxford. Funny, yeah? I know how you love this place. Sincerely, Doc Z





Dear Stephen, The side of a round library at one of the colleges. I be the dark figure on the cobbles. Ha! Sought entry, but denied!, not being a student 'n' all. Did not see the soft romantic glow either. Maybe the great minds were giving off energy else-wheres. Maybe "romance" is just a fantasy! As you know, it's actually interesting in person, without the glow, when you can SEE the crumbling old stones. Best wishes, Jim (the Realist)





Stevie! Ooo! A student! How old do you suppose this goober is? Back of the card just says "Carved stone head." Right. Real helpful. Searched everywhere for the hardheaded kiss-up but couldn't find 'im. Lots of ordinary looking undergrads tho. Too bad they don't still wear the black robes to class. Fashion deficit here. Felt right at 'ome. Later! J--





BRO, ME BULLETIN BOARD WITH A FEW PLACES WE'VE BEEN AND MORE WE WANT TO GET TO. CONCERTS, PLAYS, MUSICALS, CASTLES, GALLERIES, CORONATIONS. THE USUAL HI-BROW STUFF. STOMP IS UP THERE TOO. THE MOUSETRAP. NO PUBLIC EXECUTIONS! EAT YER 'EART OUT. ZOLLERINO





Yo! Could not even FIND a postcard of this place, but as it is holy grail for CSLewis fans I framed the receipt. Tiny, depressing little spot. Did not have beer but did eat an outstanding shepherd's pie. Highly recommend it. What's with the name -- Eagle and Child -- anyway? Sooo-looong, dude!





Sorry, stevie, I seem to have lost the thread of the Oxford trip story. I got obsessed with the Eagle & Child thing instead. Still can't locate explanation. But I keep thinking of the Eagle & Rat over the tenement museum in Edinburgh. Is there a connection here? Sorry you can't fly in to explain.
Later, j-





Hey Stephen, Nothing much to say here that hasn't already been said. Unlike the apple face, this guy is everywhere. Student in pain. We've all been there and wept our own bitter tears, yeah? Oxford was OK for a cold, wet, windy day. Next time I will remember my camera. I think we're done here. Jim

Day 16

World's End

If my impressions are correct, everyone wants to go to Scotland. Maybe, in some mystical way, it is everyone’s ancestral home. Maybe, for one day in the year everyone feels Scottish the way everyone feels Irish on St Patrick’s Day.

I don’t know. But we got our Scotland opportunity this last week midway through our stay in London.

We left Victoria Station Thursday on the 12:00 East Coast train bound for Edinburgh and arrived at 4:45 in the dark and gloom.

I asked a station worker how to get to Cowgate Street for our hotel. He pointed to an exit and said take the stairs to the street on the top of the hill then down the other side to the next street.



Easy enough, OK. So we headed out. What he didn’t say was that the steps went on forever, through one of those dark alleys found everywhere in Edinburgh called a “close.” There were maybe a hundred stairs in all, wet from recent rain and uneven.

At the top we found a wide street, called the Royal Mile because the Edinburgh Castle sits at one end atop the highest point in the city and HolyRood Palace sits at the other, the lower, end. As the way down to Cowgate was not obvious, we asked directions of a young woman who was handing out fliers for ghost tours.

Welcome to Edinburg.

Friday morning we got on a bus for a trip into the southern Highlands and a boat ride on Loch Ness, the Loch of Monster fame. We had walked the Royal mile in the dark after finding our hotel and after eating at the Wiski Bar and Restaurant, where I would recommend the leek soup. Edinburgh is an old city in around this Royal Mile, although it is a modern city too in areas we did not see. We were enormously impressed with the old buildings, nearly all of which were stone.

The bus tour was great for the first three and a half hours. The driver kept up a running commentary of historical information and ironic invention. Heading out of Edinburg he noted that we were passing the housing project that inspired the novel Trainspotting. It was one of two government housing projects in Edinburg, he noted, the other being home to some of his wife’s family for a time. It was kept up nicely and three meals a day, complements of the Queen. Then we passed a prison.

Three and a half hours into the bus tour, as we had just entered the Highlands themselves, our bus developed problems and had to stop. We were transferred to another bus on another bus line to join a different tour also in progress. The remaining nine hours of the tour was OK, but we missed the things we had signed up to see and we missed Peter (Petah), our driver.



Saturday we started early, found the sun shining, and walked along the Royal Mile hoping the things we wanted to see would be open. A few things like the Tenement Museum had already closed for the season, a possibility we had not considered. We saw St. Giles Cathedral. We toured the Castle. We stopped into many shops looking for Scottish things. We bought a few things at Scottish Heritage and Authentic Scotland, both run by Sikhs, which I thought was pretty funny. We were waited on in both places by Chinese women, possibly students, in kilts.



After our lunch at Deacon Brodie’s Café, we discovered the sun had turned to rain, what they call Scottish mist, so our wide-eyed street wandering was curtailed.

A handful of very drunk, very loud, very rambunctious college boys on the train home turned our “Quiet Car” into bedlam for a few hours, until they de-trained at Newcastle. I have written elsewhere about the joys of public drunkenness, so I won’t add more here except to say that relief on the train was profound when they departed.

When we got back to our flat at 11:30 Saturday night, after our interesting and rewarding few days in Scotland, we were glad for our small familiar rooms. We have only been here two months and we are only staying till mid-December, but when we opened the door and turned on the lights we felt we were home again.

Day 15

Odds & Ends

One of the fun things about London, a city with a long, complicated history, is that the odd, if not normal, is at least interesting. I had gone out one sunny day in October thinking to ride my local underground train to the end of the line to investigate the market town of Walthamstowe, only to discover that the whole line was closed for refurbishing.

Refurbishing is British for "repairs," "upgrade," or "mending tracks."

As a result of the closed line, I changed plans and walked south toward St. Paul's Cathedral, the Thames, and the Globe Theatre. On the way, I saw a notice for an art gallery, so I turned in at that small street and found this horse emerging from the wall.



The horse does not belong to the art gallery, which was closed, but to a cafe next door. So who thought of this -- the art people or the restaurant-business people? Or the imaginative cook? Worth a picture, I thought.

Within the photograph, I was also drawn to the pattern of bricks around the horse, although I would not have taken this picture just for the bricks.

Well, maybe I would have. Brick walls with similar patterns are everywhere in London, some of them very old, no doubt, but many not so old. Many walls (however deteriorated, worn, broken, moss-covered the bricks) actually date from the post-war years(1945 and after) when whole neighborhoods had to be rebuilt from the devastation of German bombs. Although the photo below is much older than that, it show the rebuilding that has gone on for centuries.



I will be writing about this elsewhere, but the brickwork and stonework speaks to me of a number of things: of our desire for permanence, of the flimsy fabric of life, of decisions supplanted by new decisions, of shifts in thinking, of changes of fortune, of our need to shore up what time and weather break down.

I don't yet know how to see individuals from these walls, but they are there.

My helpful friends usually remark that there must be a poem in this somewhere. I don't think so. I just like the possibilities. A difficult interest to explain, I admit.

* * *

Also attractive to me are the odd, grotesque faces one finds on medieval castles. This one, and the next, are from Windsor. Whatever their original function, and they did apparently serve a purpose, at least symbolically, these faces now look down at the tramping of modern tourists and express their ageless emotions: fear, anger, surprise, horror, or even, I suspect, distain.




Some serve as drain spout ornaments. In the rain they will appear to spew down upon the clueless slickered or soaking masses whatever reproach might be engraved in their stone faces.



These odd creatures pay the weather tax -- unless they are removed and hauled into a protected museum space to live under sterile and controlled conditions, where they suffer the indignity of the quick glance. Here they are routinely ignored by swarms of often bored or preoccupied students, by information-saturated tourists, or by obsessive museum goers.

Not to worry, if you miss them in the galleries, you can always buy a small model of this creature with his bulging eyes in the gift shop for . . . well, for a lot. Take him home. Plant him in the garden. After a while he will hide there too.

Out of their natural environment these little creatures are no longer interesting; their faces no longer strong conveyors of fear or anger or anthing else in particular. High on the castle wall they are just oddly appealing. Better to be out in the weather, above the frey, or like this cat, all but hidden from traffic on a ceiling at Canterbury Cathedral -- overlooked but still in the game, doing whatever it was made to do.

Look up!



Gotcha!

In this respect, I think the white horse running throught the brick wall in its obscure side street must have a better life than it would as a museum piece. It is neither tamed by its isolation nor trivialized by money making replication.

* * *

Something similar might be said for this last oddity. I was intrigued to find a fighter jet hanging nose down in the Tate Brittain a scant 12 inches or so from the marble floor. People were taking turns lying down beheath the bullet shaped nose cone for pictures. As with the horse, the jet took me by surprise.



For a second life as a museum piece, this disarmed, motionless bit of war armour still carries the emotional weight of its lethal design in this most august of final hangers.

Day 14

The Wild Man of Windsor

It defies the imagination, boggles the mind, confounds the mirror, leaves me speechless.

Well, almost speechless.

No wonder I avoid being caught out in someone's photograph. Not only am I the white haired old guy in the picture, but my cover has been blown. My claim to perennial sophistication is ended. His dudeness is dude no longer.

What folks back home want, apparently, are not pictures of buildings or landscapes that can be seen in better color from the internet. They want people.

Judging from the poses of people being photographed in front of ancient, historic, significant, picturesque, or just plain famous places, the current fashion, especially among the young and beautiful (or those who want to be seen that way) is the ta-da pose. Groups hugging, laughing, signing with their hands. Groups of teenage girls jumping in unison -- the let's-appear-spontaneous pose.

I have seen the heroic pose, the mock heroic pose, the ganster-hand-sign pose, the withering glare pose, the arrogant dismissive pose, and the happy tourist pose. So many choices!

I was pondering which of these might work when this picture was taken. I will call it the moment of indecision pose. It's the tell-me-'when'-before-you-take-it pose. It's the senior moment pose. The clueless pose.

Well, in that modern all purpose phrase, it is what it is.

We are at Windsor Castle, after all, the home of kings and queens for the better part of a millenium. One ought to be dignified. Or if not dignified at least stiff, which is the American cousin of dignified.

I have come to see that I can play the role of the senior citizen. It is fairly easy. The white hair, as seen here in halo effect, and the wrinkles are pretty convincing, although one young man selling tickets for Romeo and Juliet actually carded me.

It was very considerate of him.

It doesn't matter. Here is the picture that proves I went to Windsor. I got the senior discount, too, which is no small benefit.

And in real life I play a much younger man.

Day 13

Scratching on the Walls, Or the Vandal Within


Among the things my son Ian and his wife, Kristen, wanted to see during their short visit to England was Canterbury. So we got on the bus at Victoria Station and headed out of London.

The bus was nice, the ride was smooth, the driver hollered at other drivers in a startling way at various points; but passage was otherwise unmemorable.

Canterbury, on the other hand, is memorable.

The town visually is dominated by its Cathedral, which appears above the trees before the town itself, and then as one approaches by its ancient rubble wall. It is the kind of experience that enthusiasts of the middle ages get crazy for – castles, cathedrals, ruins, cobblestone streets, knights, war horses, and lots of clanging swords and armor.

The knights and war horses have to be imagined, of course, but that is no stretch in this environment. Ruins are made to be re-imagined. For me that means, how did these men and women and children manage to live? How did they cope with the obstacles they faced every day, obstacles we have all but eliminated in modern life.

For some it means imagining the forces of history that converge here, that led to battles and high stakes intrigue, the struggles and daring that broke new ground. To the fantasy enthusiast it may mean imagining knights and kings and ladies into a “former glory” they never actually knew.

American history does not take us back to the middle ages, so we come with a kind of reverence for the “ancient.”

For us, places like Canterbury are laden with historical magic that is clearly impossible in America. So it is more than a bit disheartening to discover – after the glory of bright sunshine through stained glass windows, after the grandeur of the vaulted sanctuary, after the instructive and provocative plaques, after the stunning art gracing the stunning architecture, after the deeply sobering scars of ancient violence, after the soul stirring call to worship – it is more than a bit disheartening to find the etchings and scars of recent vandalism on the walls and pillars and woodwork.

Some of the wall scratching has historical significance. So I suppose we can forgive someone held in the Tower of London awaiting a future that might end at the executioners block from carving his name into the walls to remind posterity of his plight. But the new marks I don’t understand. Except for the very old, historically important etchings, most of the scratching and chipping is selfish, vandalism pure and simple.

I don’t think the issue is lack of reverence for the past or disrespect for religion or even a hatred for things British. Most folks who take a stone or a knife or a piece of metal and scratch something into the old stone surfaces or who cut lines and figures into the wood can’t be motivated by anything as noble as a desire to protest through vandalism.

No. I think the motive is both banal and self-centered. Look, I was here. But even that human tendency toward self assertion does not quite explain the marks that are just marks, the chips that just wear away, the gouges that resemble nothing so much as gouges.

A week after our trip to Canterbury, my wife and I went to the Victoria and Albert Museum to see the Raphael Cartoons and Tapestries. At one end of the exhibition room was an enormous altar piece, depicting many things, including St George slaying his dragon. Along the bottom is a series of paintings depicting moments in the life of Christ.

As this bottom series of paintings is roughly at eye level, I took off my glasses and examined the paintings with my face just inches from the surface. When I got to the painting depicting Judas ‘s kiss of betrayal, I was shocked to note that Judas’s face had been scratched off with a pointed object. The face of Christ was untouched. Someone got back at Judas, I thought.

As I went down the row of paintings, I discovered other figures disfigured, vandalized, scratched out. It was, uniformly, the bad guys who got hacked. I looked again at the Judas painting. It was not a recent obliteration; the gouges were old. It’s both encouraging and disheartening to conclude that the urge to this kind of destruction is not a recent acquisition. We are neither better nor worse as humans than we ever were, apparently. Still, I can’t understand why we keep doing it. My memorable trips to memorable and timeless places will always now carry the scars of this banality.
Our urge to leave our marks, even if it mars or destroys the priceless, is not the worst in us coming out. But it just may be the most pointless and shallow.

Day 12

A Night for the Ballet

Last night during the second interval at the ballet, Romeo and Juliet, I passed the time by thumbing through tickets that I keep in my small notebook from my entertainments in London. The list, which does not here include museums, art galleries, walking tours, and popular tourist sites, and time wandering about with a vacant expression, looks like this:

9 plays

2 concerts

1 foreign film

1 opera

1 ballet

I total these up, I suppose, to impress myself as much as anything else.

I have been busy during my seven weeks – to the day – in London. The last four weeks have entailed necessarily monkish living. My wife has been back in the States to oversee the arrival of my fourth granddaughter and to visit again my third granddaughter, herself a very new arrival. Tuesday next she return, and not any too soon as it is clearly time for us to end this monkish separation.

Nine plays. The drama is becoming a bit addictive. It will be a shock to leave London, with its many daily dramatic options, to return to my real life, my normal life, my previous and future lives (all of these) in the rural village I call home.

The opera, I was reminded, emphatically, is drama too. Drama with all the elements of stage plays and music. Such drama! I was encouraged to see an opera before I came to London, so I was acting partly out of that sense of directive. I chose to see Faust, mostly because I am interested in the Faust legend and in the various versions of his story that have been told through the years. This operatic Faust was a visual spectacle, including as it did, both an exploding atom bomb against the backdrop as the curtain rises and a thirty foot tall white cross blazing in the foreground at the play’s climax.

But the real drama of opera happens with the ears. Faust is an aural drama, astonishing, compelling, and moving, with a breathless, draining climax. “Intense” is the word a much younger person apply to the experience.

What drama does with spoken word and opera does with sung words, ballet does without words. Movement, primarily dance, and expression is all.

Here too I had been encouraged to attend a ballet. But I had other motivations as well. Having seen, to date, three Shakespeare plays in the last month and with plans to see Hamlet when it opens in November, I thought I ought to see what Romeo and Juliet would look like as ballet. Then, too, I have become interested in those arcane aesthetic things that are easy to dismiss or to belittle (I am guilty of both): staging, performance, use of space, gesture and expression, costuming, suggestion, lighting, projection, rapport with the audience, uses of tradition, and so forth.

It is likely I will not become a fixture at the ballet – well, my village does not have one anyway – but I came away properly chastened and humbled by the performance. True to the story I know from Shakespeare, our young lovers kill themselves, needlessly, in this rendering too. Or maybe it would be better to say convincingly. I was as entangled as intended as the story played itself out.

I am glad now that I went to the trouble of getting to the theater. I almost let it go. A mere two hours before the curtain was set to rise, having been shut out yet again from seeing another drama, I noticed that the 7:30 performance was to be the last. I went on line but found the online ticket option closed.

To add error to urgency, I left home 45 minutes before curtain trusting the bus would get me there, only to see it move away from the bus stop as I approached. The next bus was 20 minutes off.

Thirty-five minutes till curtain, I began the race walking stride I hoped would work.

I made it by the skin of me teeth.

I was at the ticket counter when “One minute till performance. Take your seats, please,” came over the PA system. It was a lie, of course, as so much in the theater is. The lights did not dim for another five minutes. And I was thoroughly put out by the people who had dallied about the lobby until the last second.

But the lie had done its job – I was seated. Hot and somewhat breathless, but seated.

And it was a fine seat too – best seat in the house for my pensioner’s discount. Unobstructed but for the man and woman in front of me who kept bobbing about, locking faces and looking gooey eyed at each other from start to finish. Has all sense of what is appropriate been lost? I went to a lot of work to see Romeo and Juliet! This is serious drama! Do you think we could just pack in the public displays and watch the ballet please?!

Day 10

An All Saints Day

Let me tell you a little about my Sunday. I went to three churches, attended two and a half services and an organ recital.

I attended my usual service at St Augustine's Church Highbury New Park from 10:30-12. Actually, I stayed until 12:30 talking. It is Anglican, but clearly a believer’s church, very friendly, informal and family friendly. Lots of kids. Great pastor about my age.

My comment, “Anglican but clearly a believer’s church” comes from my background, I am afraid. We used to say, with a large hint of incredulity in our voices, “he’s Catholic, but he’s a Christian.” We often treated main-line denominations this way, sometimes as a matter of course. Living in London and attending St. Augustine’s has been humbling for me in this respect.

Before service at St. Augustine’s, I attended Mattins at an old old church abutting Clissold Park, a 10 minute walk from our flat. We have gone many times after dinner to walk the paths. We passed this old church building many times, and I wanted to see the inside, but the gates have always been locked. So I noted the service time in case I should have opportunity in the future.

Yesterday I went.

Mattins is a service of prayer, hymns, liturgy, and Bible readings. The term as I understand it essentially refers to the time of day, morning, and indicates worship. I walked in at 9, midway into the first hymn. There were four of us in the pews, all older people, as one might expect. I was the only young person there, but my white hair helps me disguise it. Then there was a priest leading the service and directing the liturgy, and also an organist.

The interior is tiny, with latched doors on the well worn pews, cracks in the plaster on the walls, marks of use everywhere, and different building materials. Columns made of sand stone on one side, red bricks on the other; to the front, wood panels about five feet high with faded gold-painted inscriptions below the stained glass window showing Mary and the Christ child.

I sat in the last pew, trying to be inconspicuous, clumsy as I was finding my way through the book of common prayer, the hymnal, the order of service, and the liturgy pamphlet. Too many things for a plainspoken Baptist to handle; too many places to look. Five rows ahead of me, the other three congregants occupied the front row!

To my great amazement, in this tiny place, being played with great skill and sensitivity by a man with a great grey beard and a tweed jacket, was a pipe organ!

Anyway, I felt the service, strange as it was to me, was spiritually meaningful. I prayed for many people, including myself, during intercession time. The word of scripture spoke to me.

Originally built in 1563 to replace an earlier church on that site dating from 1100, St. Mary’s had taken a direct hit during the Nazi blitz, now 70 years past. The demolished brick wall was replaced with sandstone blocks. The other male congregant told me the post-war rebuilders had done a poor job, so the church was raising money to reconstruct the reconstruction.

He noted that St. Mary’s is one of very few surviving Elizabethan churches. Besides dating from Shakespeare's era (!), I found his little footnote both puzzling and humbling. Puzzling because of the destruction and rebuilding: How much need be saved to let us say the church “survives”?

Humbling because uncounted generations of believers, the Church itself, have worshiped in that place.

In the late afternoon I went to St Paul's Cathedral, which is very very high church. Huge, ornate, prosperous, well maintained, impressive and noteworthy in many respects. And clearly, too, a believer’s church, although one might miss that for all the magnificence.

What I missed was the early part of Evensong because the buses run less frequently on Sundays and I had not accounted for a travel delay.

This service, too, was without a sermon. Most of it was sung by an all male choir, professional essentially, which sounded other worldly in that huge space. After Evensong I stayed for an organ recital, which was compelling and profound. I say as much even though organ is not always my favorite instrument.

My notebook records this: The organ fills the enormous space like a deep and prolonged thunder on a hot summer afternoon. One has the feeling that a great dark bank of clouds should be rolling in. We expect the ray of sunlight to break through. I look up and the word GREATNESS on a gold background seems to jump out at me.

When it ended, I was somehow both energized and exhausted.

Then I walked several miles through center London to the spot where I often pick up the 19 bus home. I could have taken another bus from right outside St Paul's, but it had stopped raining and dusk had not descended. And I needed to walk. I needed time for my day of worship to work itself out in my heart.

Day 9

Welcome to London

My first memories of Russia include a certain unpleasantness.

We had been primed for customs when we landed in Moscow. Stand in line, papers in hand and in proper order. Keep your mouth shut. Certainly no joking or horsing around.

Border crossing in our time has become a exacting, tense experience. Even the US - Canadian border at the Peace Bridge in Buffalo, that used to be "Hi" and "U.S." to the citizenship question, now requires a passport and twenty no nonsense questions -- if you are lucky. If you very lucky, the Canadian customs agent will give you a smile too.

But in Russia it is all serious business, even though, I am told, things have lightened up considerably. Step up to the booth when the soldier inside signals. Hand him the passport, visa, and entry declarations. Know how much money you are carrying when he asks so you don't have to dig it out and count it. Smile if you can't help it -- they expect that from Americans -- but no jokes.

So we did that, one at a time, as summoned. The soldier turned out to look extremely young. He may have been a teenager, for all I know. But for any child of the cold war, as I am, the familiar Russian military uniform is sobering regardless of the person wearing it. The difference between Russian Federation and Soviet Union seems negligable as you stand there rigid with concentration. This was 2004, but it could have been 1964 for the residual fears that somehow bob to the surface. A few tense moments while he examines the paper and looks you in the face, then relief when he waves you through.

Once through, the first thing we wanted was a bathroom. Relief from all that tension comes in many forms. And we had a long ride ahead of us. We had heard the toilet stories and had been told to expect the worst.

The bathroom when we found it tucked in under a set of stairs reminded me of older sections of the New York City subway system. A whole lot better, all in all, than the-hole-in-the-floor stories we had been treated to; however dated, this was a good bathroom.

So, I had taken my turn and was waiting to wash my hands in the sink when an old man lurched through the door, staggered over to the lone sink, and vomited into it with great force and noise.

Stunned, we all stepped back as the old man, with his long white hair, long white beard, and dark clothes, layered and deeply soiled, straightened up and lurched back out the door.

So, my friends: Welcome to Russia.

I was reminded of that sobering experience Tuesday morning on the streets of London. I was returning from Heathrow, where my wife had just left for home to see a new grandchild into the world, and had decided to walk through center London to pick up a knife-sharpening steel at John Lewis.

Heading down Tottenham Court Road in the general though distant direction of Foyles, the landmark book store, I encountered twenty-five young people pulling large suitcases traveling slowly in the same direction and effectively obstructing the sidewalk. Feeling confident from my four weeks as a Londoner and, no doubt, a tad amused at that familiar initial suitcase hauling ordeal, I made my way to the front of the suitcase crowd by side-stepping and moving up into gaps.

I had just reached the front of the crowd, where an efficient sounding young woman was shouting directions toward the sluggish stragglers, when a tall young man coming toward us, suddenly bent over and vomited with great force and noise in the middle of the sidewalk.

He was almost upon us, I might add. I managed to avoid splatter by hopping to the side.

I turned quickly to gauge for myself if the young man was sick. He straightened himself, mostly, and staggered forward. I recognized on his face the same mask of drunkenness I had seen on the old drunk in Moscow, the same flushed skin, at once abnormally pink and colorless, the same concentration of the eyes that focus on nothing but the next step, the same set jaw and fixed mouth as if grim determination will get them through just this one more time. His sports jacket and slacks had the sheen and varigated staining of many nights on the ground.

Many things might be said here, but they've been said before. And those who need to hear them most aren't listening just now. The differences between the young drunk in London and the old drunk in Moscow -- or the ones I used to walk past sleeping in doorways in San Francisco -- are almost incidental compared with the damning similarities.

Oh, my young friends, no one starts out thinking he -- or she -- will end up a public drunk. But sure as you are reading this tale to its end, when you reach that point, the rest of us will have only one option -- to step aside and move away as quickly as possible.

Day 8

Villages and Cow Paths

The appeal of London is legion, varied, and personal. It is also, sometimes, self-contradictory: what draws one may also be what repels.

One aspect of the city that I have found fascinating as well as difficult is the apparently unplanned layout of roadways. A younger me might call it "random."

A few days ago, my wife and I went in search of St Martin's Theatre, hoping for a matinee of The Mouse Trap, an Agatha Christy mystery play that has been running continuously for 58 years. St. Martin's is in the heart of the theatre district, just a short walk from the National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, and Charing Cross -- landmarks I have used many times already to orient myself as I head out for other places.

We found St. Martin's without a lot of fuss -- but no matinee for The Mouse Trap. Just steps away, however, we discovered the Ambassadors Theatre with Stomp on the marquee and a matinee about to begin. As Stomp was also on our short list, we bought tickets and went inside. Our seats were perfect in every way in terms of seeing the performance, but were clearly built for people closer to my wife's height, 5'4", than to my own six foot one.

I don't know how genuinely tall people manage the short spaces between rows of seats in places like this; but once I had gotten myself wedged in and the seats next to us filled, I was locked in. I need movement to keep my joints from hurting, but there was none here. In a 100 minute performance of wordless drumming, dancing, and pantomimed vignettes I was not able to get into it with so much as a toe tap. The theatre was cramped and temporarily crippling, but the show itself was nothing short of masterful entertainment -- precise, inventive, funny, and astonishingly performed.

When we emerged from the theatre both energized and exhausted, we decided to wander around the neighborhood shops before heading home. Ambassadors Theatre is on one of seven street that converge at a roundabout, or circus, called Seven Dials. Cars zip through the intersection as though randomly syncronized. The shops, small and ecclectic, offer interesting displays.

We wandered about, ducking into a few book stores (because we are readers) and into a few toy stores (because we are grandparents). We found a store with inexpensive books, rare in central London, so we bought a few (because, in fact, you can never have enough).

Tired now both from theatre and from discovering this new, interesting neighborhood, we tried to find our way out -- but couldn't. We knew we were only a 3 or 4 minute walk from Charing Cross Road and another 3 or 4 minute walk to the bus stop we wanted, but it took us a good twenty minutes to find our way. We were thoroughly disoriented.

Initially the problem involved locating familiar street signs. That is a story in itself. Some streets are a hundred feet long. Or less. Many appear essentially unmarked. Many are bisected at odd angles by other tiny streets or alleys. I am good with maps, but the map I was carrying omitted many of the streets and alleys because there are simply too many for space. The detail is overwhelming.

Then once we managed to locate Charing Cross Road, I could not tell which direction I should head. I had gotten so thoroughly turned around, I could not make my way even though I had managed from that very spot many times. In such circumstances, I am generally able to use the sun to give me headings -- that is the country boy in me -- but here too I was lost. In late afternoon, with partial clouds, in a canyon of five or six story buildings, I could not tell with certainty where the sunlight was coming from.

Guidebooks explain the layout of London by giving capsule versions of London history, which by American standards is very long and very complicated. We don't commonly have the patience.

But I have another explanation, which if not entirely historical at least allows me to imagine how the city came by its present layout. I live in a village in western New York that owes its present shape to its geography, that is, to its many hills and to the river that runs through the valley. It also owes its shape to its main industries, namely, dairy farming, the canal and railroad that once ran through and beside the river, and education, the college and secondary school that have given the village purpose and focus for the last 125 years.

My village, Houghton, has a logical layout only in relation to its geography and its present industry. Multiply this village by one thousand, fill in the farmland and the hills between Houghton and Fillmore to the north and Belfast to the south with new villages, each with its own road-shaping industries. Then double, triple, quadruple the population of each village in the process. Build rows of houses where single houses stand and business along the central streets. Let the towns grow into one another.

Eventually, you will have a metropolitan area that resembles the labyrinth of London.
My ninety year old London neighbor explained the London tangle this way in response to my comments about London roads: "Oh, they're all paved over cow paths, you know."

I have never seen cows wandering through my home village, but I can imagine it easily enough. Our agriculatural past is still present at the edge of town. I have a harder time imagining London developing from the city planning of cows.

Still, my neighbor claims to have lived in the same flat for 69 years. That ought to be long enough to know a place. Long enough to have weighed the charms against the frustrations of London street. History may be more complicated than that but who am I to argue?

Day 7

Drive on the Left, Look Right

There are no intersection lights in the village I have lived in for a quarter century. For us, a busy intersection is hitting a stop sign before someone else has pulled away, requiring we stop twice. On the open road, we occasionally find ourselves behind a "local" driver, which you can take here as a disparaging label bordering on name calling. Such people require us to slow down to a safe speed comfortably under the speed limit. I say this despite the fact that I have been around long enough to be considered local, however much I may still fancy myself an outsider.

Or, because I live in countryside where the Amish have farms and communities, I frequently find myself slowing for little black buggies on the back roads. Well, to be honest, all the roads are "back roads," but that is my point. For a country boy like me, any real traffic requires adjustment. So, going off to London presents certain road "challenges."

Received wisdom in America is that the British practice of driving on the left creates two problems: one is learning to look right instead of left for on-coming traffic and the other is driving on what for us is the awkward side of the car. These are not unique problems for Americans; many other countries drive on the right, that is to say, correct, side of the road.

That the British drive where they do and with as much ease and instinct is, perhaps, a further reason to admire the British mind. A little voice in the head seems to say, "They are superior, you know."

In our two and a half weeks here, the traffic problem seems to me not so much that vehicles drive opposite as that drivers are always apparently in a hurry and they show up at the precise instant you step into the street. Sometimes they seem to appear out of nowhere, even after you have looked right/left/right/left/right as required by mothers everywhere. A trip anywhere with my wife involves one of us grabbing a sleeve to pull the other back from the brink of collision. We call these "near death" experiences.

One conclusion I have drawn is that the "look right" advice is essentially irrelevant. Or at least insufficient. Speed, as I have already indicated, is a bigger danger. Speed and the tendency of drivers to do the in-and-out lane change. The in-and-out combined with the out-and-around keep the stakes high. Drivers have a sense of privilege everywhere, but one senses that here maybe more than other places drivers are primitive and primal. Shut the door on that little motorized capsule and an ordinarily gentle soul turns feral.

And then there are the narrow roads. One of the strangest experiences I have had so far is to have a bus pass within inches of my arm as I walked along the sidewalk next to the curb. It is surprising at first. It has made me jump, although the jumping demonstrates just how slow reaction is to these dangers -- you jump after the bus passes. This, too, feels like a near death experience.

None of this is frightening, I have found. In fact, the sudden rush of a double-decker blowing past my shoulder is, I hesitate to suggest, exhilirating. As a parent and teacher I do not have to tell you that my reactions in themselves raise concern. Am I at risk of becoming a danger junkie? Will I find myself some weeks into this London experience daring traffic with ever more risky attempts to walk on the edge, to cross ever more daring though invisible lines? Am I the pedestrian daredevil?

To counter my little secret, I advise my charges to be cautious, to pay attention, to stay on the curb until the little green man replaces the little red man.

Be a good pedestrian and live longer.

And forget driving. I am going to do everyone a favor and ride the bus.

Day 6

Adjustments

In America, common responses to news that you are planning travel to England usually begin with "how exciting!"

If the exchange lasts long enough to require details, you have done well. Between "how exciting!" or its cousin "Are you excited?" you might encounter an array of similar questions or comments regarding nuggets of smoothed up truth about jet lag, the high cost of staying/eating/living in London, and the abnormality of driving on the left. And as the conversation ends, you might well hear, "Well, at least they speak the same language!"

I am chagrined to admit I may have uttered these sentiments myself in some earlier incarnation.

At the same time, in America, "at least they speak the same language" is a bit of a joke. Like many commonplaces it requires that we laugh together. Socially it allows us to have a conversation, getting around the inevitable foot shuffling by providing common ground, however predictable that may be.

Embedded somehow in our "common" and predictable understanding is the correct notion that English American-style and English British-style are dogs of contrasting breeds. Or at least dogs of different temperament. Whether we can name it or not we all instinctively embrace playwright Bernard Shaw's famous comment that "England and America are two countries separated by a common language."

I have thought about the language question a great deal in the week we have been in London. Language is different here -- it is pronounced differently, it is used differently, it employs a different vocabulary. But the differences in language that a rural New Yorker like me encounters in London is about the same as the differences I would face moving to Atlanta, say, or to New Orleans, where I would still sound funny speaking my English and where I would still have to listen carefully to understand what the locals are saying. These are not at all like the differences in language I encountered in Russia in 2004, where even the few phrases we had practiced beforehand did little to move barriers. For Russia our tranlator was the most important person in the world. In England, an American sometimes needs patience, imagination, and focus -- things we don't necessarily cultivate at home.

What I think is really at issue here is not so much language problems, although I have encounterd some, as it is language adjustment. In fact, the principle issue of travel would seem to be one of adjustment itself. And adjustment, it seems clear, is primarily a matter of attitude.

Think of the areas of adjustment already mentioned. Jet lag, for instance, is adjustment of the body's wake/sleeping cycle. Insignificant for some, debilitating for others, and minor discomfort for most, but temporary for all. The high cost of living requires an adjustment, or rather constant adjustments, of priorities and resources and expectations. Cost, of course, is a constant and complicated issue requiring complex responses, unless you are one for whom money is never an concern, whereas jetlag is fairly simple and of no consequence after 48 hours or so.

A short list of differences that have arisen for us that do not make the casual conversations in America might begin with the difficulty of making cookies. Yes, that's right, cookies. In short order I finished off the cookies we brought along to fuel the flight over or to fend off starvation should we get stranded in a waiting room somewhere for days on end. The flight was not good to the cookies. They had begun to crumble and were nearing their expiration date, so I had to finish them off the day after we arrived. What can I say?

Well, in order to make cookies we needed to buy ingredients, a task that required we find a grocery store and then find ingredients in the grocery store that fit the recipes my wife has used for decades. Brand, packaging, units of measure, placement in store (what logic will simplify the hunt?) all come into play on top of the questions of supply (do they have a product called shortening?) and what is in the package itself once you find it. After my wife had conducted a time consuming, diligent, but unsuccessful search for "stew beef" in one of the larger markets we have been in, I took over the hunt. Eventually I located a package well above her eye level marked "stew beef." Having never seen it uncut at the grocer's before, we had to study the package carefully before concluding that it was likely the same cut of beef we had always known.

So shopping requires a bit of detective work, considerable imagination, and not a little time and energy. At least at first. But we are managing -- even without chocolate chips as we have always known them.

Note how things are, do not assume that the familiar forms and methods are necessarily superior, experiment to see what works for you, be flexible and adaptable -- these are the stuff of adjustment. Pay attention. Above all, have a sense of humor: be able to laugh at yourself. These are the ingredients of successful adjustment.

I may have to return to the issue of driving on the wrong side -- that is, driving on the left -- but in the meantime we getting by. We are making do. One has to make the best of it, you know.

Day 5

Fear of Flying

Two nights before we are scheduled to fly to London, I wake up at 4 a.m. with a bout of nerves. At least I think it is nerves. My brain is buzzing with stuff, things to do, details, known and unnamed fears.

I have a moment like this nearly every time I have to travel, especially when the trip involves extended distance and time. Especially when I have to get up and hit the road earlier than usual. So here we are, 48 hours before our flight to London and I wake up wired.

Most of us get to this point nearly every time. What still needs to be done? What, after all, really does not require my diminishing time and attention? Have I remembered and considered everything? What will I remember when it is too late and feel sorry about?

To this, especially for air travel, some people add the flying terrors. I have them. Or perhaps it is fair to say I did have them at one point. They are less severe and less frequent now as I have flown several times a year, on average, over the last few decades. Many people, even some frequent fliers, have them constantly and severely. My oldest brother and my wife fall into this category. If you have flying terrors, it is hard to talk yourself out of them.

Fear of flying is one of several irrationalities attending the business of long distance air travel. On occasion, a Christian friend will tell me he is not afraid of flying because he knows where he is going when he dies. That is not especially helpful. It's not fear of Hell that creates fear of flying in most folks who feel panic blowing in like rain. Mostly it is the fear of crashing more than death itself that inhabits the dark corners of the heart, especially those long moments before impact when a crash appears inevitable and one is helpless. I can't imagine what passangers aboard jets hijacked or damaged in flight must go through.

To this, the rational among us will say that air travel is safer than car travel. Again, not particularly helpful. After all, there is something essentially irrational about being sealed into an aluminum canister and shot into space at hundreds of miles an hour by enormous jet engines. Note, please, that jets are large and heavy: they would not fly on their own. The fact that ocean-going ships float despite being heavier than water does not make the jet seem any more likely as a flying machine.

So the arguments run. It is no easier on the fearful to consider rational arguments before flight. What works for some are sedatives. For my many young student friends, the answer and the advice they give is sleep. Good advice, although sleep is one thing I find difficult in plane -- or cars. So, I may be beyond help for whatever the nerves are stirring up. The best I can do is finish the tasks I have left, pack what I know I will need, leave what I don't need, tell the people I love that I do love them, and get myself to the airport in time to clear the laborious security process.


Now there is nothing left but to let them seal the tin can and fire up the jets. I pray that what I leave at home will not require my attention after all. And I whatever is just ahead will be a great experience.