Britical

London, England

 

I thought about going back last night.

Standing high on Primrose Hill, I’d just returned from a ludicrously, marvellously Gosford Park type country weekend of wellies, guns, puppies, horses and getting to fly a plane. And as if that weren’t enough damage to my New York sensibilities, I’d just now taken a scenic route motorbike ride through a Sunday night London. For some reason the sky, instead of reflecting back the usual scrubby orange glare of thousands of streetlights, was clear enough to see stars. Church bells nearby tolled in the desolate way they do to at these times. Midnight, naturally. Then quiet.

Then came the thought: “H’mm, I wonder if I could live here now…?”, immediately chased by a slightly gobsmacked, “Where the hell did that come from??” You don’t expect your own brain to blindside you quite so cunningly. Even more confusing (not to mention pretentious), that wretched T.S. Elliot line from Little Gidding came into my head. You know the one I mean.

A couple of days before I had been surprised to see a dog on the underground. He was neither a guide dog nor, as far as I could tell, an “emotional support animal”. His owner appeared clear of sight and emotionally unperturbed and indeed the animal plonked itself on the floor, an expression of faint boredom on its intelligent Border Collie face. Ignored by by everyone except me, I stared fascinated, like some sort of creepy dog version of a paedophile (canisphile?). Manhattan dogs are verboten on the subway unless they’re small enough to carry (and what’s the point of a dog like that?). They don’t get around too much there.

English dogs In Dodie Smith’s 101 Dalmations bark important bits of news to each other not from underground but from the vantage point of the various famous old hills of London: Primrose … Parliament … Hampstead … Highgate (where I was born). In its much stranger sequel, the Starlight Barking, Sirius, the apparently needy Dog Star, wants all dogs to live with him. He’s lonely. But after not a little doggy anguish, most of them decide not to. I can’t remember why - something all very earnest and Moral Struggle; safety versus risk, and staying to take care of their owners (or as they refer to them in Smith’s books, their “pets”). But we’re approaching tricky symbolic territory for me here, aren’t we? Perhaps for now it’s best to say that as I stood on bloody Primrose Hill, I realised that in England there were, and are, a few lovely things not found if you were to go live in the new place:

Dogs on the underground
People saying “Fuck” on TV and no one batting an eyelash
English swearing in general (different)
The English countryside
Marmite soldiers
Wit (sorry, but it’s true)
Chocolate
Real profiteroles (made properly with cream, not ice-cream)
Things that should seem smaller are smaller
Boxing Day

(Of course I realise many dogs don’t much care about dry witticisms; however they did watch an awful lot of television in 101 Dalmations.)

I think I want to want to come back. (Read that sentence again, please, and very, very carefully or you will misunderstand it.) I spent most of my life here after all and my Mother, over seventy now, lives here still.
The day after tomorrow I shall fly back to New York and see what happens as soon as I see that skyline again. Perhaps you can go home again after all. We shall see.

 

 

Copyright Britical 2006

It’s late now in my apartment - well past midnight, and seventeen years later. I want to say something about today. Not about my self-dramatizing attempts to insert myself into world history with the fall of the Wall, but rather about now, this evening when I gathered seventy-two cupcakes and forty friends at a favourite bar to celebrate. Afterwards, I realised I had learned something both valuable and pretty obvious perhaps to anyone but me.

I feel obliged to say here that I felt slightly fraudulent about dragging people out on a school night (yes, we have these even in New York) to celebrate something that might strike someone as a bit random, a lame bid for centre stage. But I didn’t, even when, at one point during the evening, someone wandered into the bar and asked whose Birthday it was. God, I’m an awful girl, I thought: I might as well celebrate the first anniversary (next month. Pathetic.) of learning to cut & paste! But November 9th feels important to me. I had decided that this was the year, after sixteen years of vaguely meaning to, that I would actually make my anniversary of moving to New York an Occasion.

Later now, quiet outside (yes, again, yes, even this city sleeps). There is an astonishing amount of wrapping paper and it is strewn, in that lovely Christmas morning way, all across the floor…little boxes of chocolates tied up with gorgeous ribbon… two dozen yellow roses….champagne! It feels so decadent, slightly undeserved - as if I’m in a movie, rolling naked, post-heist, atop someone else’s $100 bills on a huge, tacky bed.

Here and there, among the calories, froth and petals, are little items of, not Americana, but lovingly wrapped I LOVE NY kitsch. There are cards galore with wishes, words from people I know well and less well, but all of these words - pithy, silly, all of them charming - are thought out so very carefully and written so exquisitely that I know immediately, and with shame, that I would be not half as generous were it me doing the writing.

Earlier, looking around the room at my friends, they’re all dressed up a little more, laughing and smiling a little more, generous with their good cheer. But only one of them is steaming drunk. Huh. Apparently I have the November 9th occasion I always wanted. Everyone has imbued the day with the same importance as I have. How delightful, this seems - it’s good to be the King…. But now, alone, comes the “ah ha!” moment, or more fittingly, the “Duh!” moment. Because, like me, most New Yorkers and most of my friends, are from somewhere else! Few were born here in the city. This evening we were all from Canada, India, Ireland, China, England, Italy, Scotland, Slovenia, Iran, New Zealand…and on and on… and so, I realised, no wonder they get it. Of course they do. That the city and our continuing presence in it, so hard won for many of us, is precious and special.

It is still magical to be here, for me, even seventeen years later. And although there were no Berliners there tonight to steal away my dubious glory, the thought occurs that, to paraphrase John F. Kennedy, “Ich bin New Yorker”. We have all adopted this island and made it home. Wir sind New Yorkers, but Americans? Nuh-uh. 

 

 

Copyright Britical 2006