Oh dear. Not off to a good renewed start on the writing, now am I?
My excuses are as follows:
1. I went overseas. That makes you tired. And gives you so much to write about it bogs you down. (Bogs! We saw bogs! In Ireland!)
2. I got sick! That makes you tired. And irritable. And depressed. Well, it does me anyway. I get chronic sinus infections, so whenever I'm slapped with one more, it just seems even worse. Lord, I hate sinus infections. On the upswing now, though.
You know, I thought there were going to be more excuses than that.
Anyway, the trip, of course, was wonderful. The plane over was kind of, well, crap. But that was to be expected, since it was also cheap.
At the airport, we didn't lose anyone, and we met our tour director, who helped another group of students, who had already lost their tour director. They were not faring as well as us on not losing people.
[A note here: This was a Guided sort of tour, yes. Normally, I prefer to do things on my own, but this was a trip with my mother’s class, so it was Organized. Which is of course much better if you are trying to take thirty-six people. Our tour director, Jo, turned out to be great. She is that charming combination of friendly and opinionated that British women so often are. I loved her. She was my closest contemporary in age on the trip, I guess.]
We went into London, we saw things, we went to our hotel – which was all the way out at Hangar Lane and boiling hot – except for my room. Which, because I was probably the one person in the group who actually would have enjoyed boiling hot, had no heat at all. This, if nothing else, was tangible proof that I was, in fact, back in London.
The two days in London were good. We did a couple of tourist things I’d never done before, and some I had, but in general the attraction for me was just being back. I have a sense of ownership, I suppose, about London, which is ridiculous of course. Ridiculousness, however, is one of my defining characteristics. And so the primary pleasure for me those two days was being back in a city I regard in some sense as mine.
There are, in fact, some things I very much miss about London, ways in which my life was so much bigger, and so much more detailed at the same time. Living in a large, old city is a little like having a walk-in closet: there are a lot of options stowed away in its boxes and cubbies, and it has room enough to hold a variety of surprising things you might not have known were there. My closet now is more familiar and safe, and I can treat it more casually, but there are some things I do miss about the other arrangement.
After London, on Tuesday, we went on to Oxford and Stratford-Upon-Avon, and finally ended up in Llanglothlin, Wales that night. Tuesday was my twenty-fourth birthday – which, actually, I forgot until I got on the bus that morning and my father wished me happy birthday. I spent the day feeling alternately pleased and special and frightened by that fact, in between forgetting it entirely. I suppose this is a typically adult feeling.
Oxford was pretty much as charming as I remembered, but we had very little time there. Stratford was actually better than I’d remembered – though once I again I get no sense of Shakespeare himself, only of how people have felt about him since the 18th century or so (that is, I think Stratford is a monument to Bard-Worship, really, not to the Bard himself). I was feeling a little lackluster about it until I realized that I am very likely, whatever path I take, to be devoting the rest of my life to this man. The least I can do is appreciate going and looking at the house he was born in.
(This was definitely one of the scary moments. Though mixed with a special-moment. I mean, I hadn’t thought of it that way before, but in some sense it’s true. Whether I become a scholar or an actor, there’s a very large chance I will spent a great deal of the rest of my life dedicated to the works of this one person. Good heavens. Who thought my options were so narrow after all? “Oh dear,” said Jo, when I told her this though. “Don’t dedicate your life to anyone.” I think she was really thinking “to any man,” and I admit the sound of it made me think that too, but I don’t know that it’s really quite as bad as it sounds. After all, it’s not really the man, it’s the work.)
Llanglothlin, where we were that evening only, leaving the next morning, was glorious. In fact, it was my favorite part of the whole trip. I’ve been to Wales four times now, but had never been to this particular town. It has no other attraction but beauty, but it certainly has plenty of that. The mountains and river that define it are breathtaking, and the hotel where we stayed, the Hand Hotel (I never saw any explanation for the slightly Castle of Otranto-ish name), was beyond charming.
I was assigned a tiny, single room which I absolutely loved, from its eccentrically angled ceiling, to its happily ratty flowered bedspread, to its cheerfully stocked electric kettle and tea basket, to its extravagantly broad and ancient windowsill. I was already pleased enough, having seen my room, and taken in the scenic beauty for a while, but then at dinner Jo said that the hotel had arranged for us to have some entertainment after the meal.
“They have these male voice choirs, here in Wales,” she explained apologetically.
“They used to be the mine workers, but now that mining’s gone, it’s just the old men, mostly. And this one sang a few days ago for another EF group, and they loved it so much they’ve come back for yours. So please stick around for just a little while, would you?”
Our group, to give them a great deal of credit, not only stuck around, they were most appreciative for a little while, but then of course they went off on their own. My mother, father, and I, however, stayed the whole time. It was love.
The Llanglothlin Male Voice Choir is exactly what it sounds like – it’s a bunch of old men, some closer to ancient, some closer to older middle-aged, who get together on Friday nights to sing songs from the thirties and forties and spirituals. They are accompanied by a single man – who plays by ear – on an electric organ. And they are charming.
There was one fellow with a musical dog – she barks in tune with the music – and a couple of comedy acts, and a truly ancient operatic baritone. There was a raffle run by a stout, laugh-creased lady in a flowered dress (we won a stuffed dragon). There was a wizened old man in a blue shirt who had obviously been – and was still – the ladies’ man of the group, who sang sly, comic numbers. There were deep, full, old spirituals in Welsh. Apparently, the stereotype that all Welshmen can sing is true – they all, even in their eighties, and in at least one case, nineties, had incredible, full, tuneful voices.
They asked early on whether any of us could sing – I raised my hand, so of course later I had to sing. And I sang, and sang. I ended up singing so much my voice was hoarse – mostly at the request of the accompanist, with whom I bonded. Because, see, he loved my voice. Or rather, my singing – it touched him. For real. I really touched someone with my voice. That’s about the first time I ever remember knowing that. We sang every song I knew on their songsheet – if I didn’t know the words, they asked me to improvise wordlessly above the melody, which I love to do – a sort of gospel call and response thing. “I don’t know how you do that,” the accompanist said. “It’s so.. beautiful.”
“But it’s just…” I realized I couldn’t explain how familiar this tradition is to someone from the American South. “I guess it’s gospel, and jazz” I said. Finally, after everyone else had left, we sang one more song together, quietly. “I’ll remember you,” he said and hugged me. “Me too,” I said.
I stayed up until midnight on the night of my birthday, singing with the old Welsh men. It occurred to me as I was falling asleep that on that day I’d progressed through my three passions: academia in its oldest and most prestigious form at Oxford; Shakespeare and his cult in Stratford; and singing that night in Wales. It was the singing that meant the most.
The next two days we spent in Dublin. I did not fall in love, somewhat to my surprise, though I didn’t hate it or anything. But Dublin is restless, unsatisfied. It is a place to come from, I think perhaps, not to go to. There are other restless cities I’ve been to – New York, certainly – but in Dublin, I didn’t feel it urging me to stay.
After Dublin we moved on to the west coast of Ireland, to a town called Ballybunion, which is on the sea. It’s absolutely breathtakingly beautiful. The weather, by this time, was spitting cold rain and hard, spiteful wind, but nonetheless, I was awed by the glory of the coastline and the mountains. Ireland really is that green. I don’t know how else to describe it – it just is. And the ragged coast, changing from one foot to the next, rising and falling in a mass of bunched greens and greys and blues and whites, is hauntingly ancient.
Again, though, somewhat to my disappointment, somewhat to my relief, I did not feel at home. I do not belong in Ireland, though I am in no way sorry to have visited. Its greens are brighter, its greys more ancient and craggy, its fields wilder and more filled with vicious, sharp-toothed mystery – but still all the time I was there, my mind wandered back to the softer, full-leafed glory of the American south in spring; to our Virginia Creeper and mountain laurel, to the magnolias and maples and dripping-leafed poplars, to the drowsy clover and tall grass bearing the promise of humid, languid summer already, even in April. And I realized again, as I did each time I’ve visited some different beautiful place – this, the South, is my own favorite beauty. This is home.
From there, we went home. And I caught a sinus infection, and recuperated for a while, and now, here I am.
My excuses are as follows:
1. I went overseas. That makes you tired. And gives you so much to write about it bogs you down. (Bogs! We saw bogs! In Ireland!)
2. I got sick! That makes you tired. And irritable. And depressed. Well, it does me anyway. I get chronic sinus infections, so whenever I'm slapped with one more, it just seems even worse. Lord, I hate sinus infections. On the upswing now, though.
You know, I thought there were going to be more excuses than that.
Anyway, the trip, of course, was wonderful. The plane over was kind of, well, crap. But that was to be expected, since it was also cheap.
At the airport, we didn't lose anyone, and we met our tour director, who helped another group of students, who had already lost their tour director. They were not faring as well as us on not losing people.
[A note here: This was a Guided sort of tour, yes. Normally, I prefer to do things on my own, but this was a trip with my mother’s class, so it was Organized. Which is of course much better if you are trying to take thirty-six people. Our tour director, Jo, turned out to be great. She is that charming combination of friendly and opinionated that British women so often are. I loved her. She was my closest contemporary in age on the trip, I guess.]
We went into London, we saw things, we went to our hotel – which was all the way out at Hangar Lane and boiling hot – except for my room. Which, because I was probably the one person in the group who actually would have enjoyed boiling hot, had no heat at all. This, if nothing else, was tangible proof that I was, in fact, back in London.
The two days in London were good. We did a couple of tourist things I’d never done before, and some I had, but in general the attraction for me was just being back. I have a sense of ownership, I suppose, about London, which is ridiculous of course. Ridiculousness, however, is one of my defining characteristics. And so the primary pleasure for me those two days was being back in a city I regard in some sense as mine.
There are, in fact, some things I very much miss about London, ways in which my life was so much bigger, and so much more detailed at the same time. Living in a large, old city is a little like having a walk-in closet: there are a lot of options stowed away in its boxes and cubbies, and it has room enough to hold a variety of surprising things you might not have known were there. My closet now is more familiar and safe, and I can treat it more casually, but there are some things I do miss about the other arrangement.
After London, on Tuesday, we went on to Oxford and Stratford-Upon-Avon, and finally ended up in Llanglothlin, Wales that night. Tuesday was my twenty-fourth birthday – which, actually, I forgot until I got on the bus that morning and my father wished me happy birthday. I spent the day feeling alternately pleased and special and frightened by that fact, in between forgetting it entirely. I suppose this is a typically adult feeling.
Oxford was pretty much as charming as I remembered, but we had very little time there. Stratford was actually better than I’d remembered – though once I again I get no sense of Shakespeare himself, only of how people have felt about him since the 18th century or so (that is, I think Stratford is a monument to Bard-Worship, really, not to the Bard himself). I was feeling a little lackluster about it until I realized that I am very likely, whatever path I take, to be devoting the rest of my life to this man. The least I can do is appreciate going and looking at the house he was born in.
(This was definitely one of the scary moments. Though mixed with a special-moment. I mean, I hadn’t thought of it that way before, but in some sense it’s true. Whether I become a scholar or an actor, there’s a very large chance I will spent a great deal of the rest of my life dedicated to the works of this one person. Good heavens. Who thought my options were so narrow after all? “Oh dear,” said Jo, when I told her this though. “Don’t dedicate your life to anyone.” I think she was really thinking “to any man,” and I admit the sound of it made me think that too, but I don’t know that it’s really quite as bad as it sounds. After all, it’s not really the man, it’s the work.)
Llanglothlin, where we were that evening only, leaving the next morning, was glorious. In fact, it was my favorite part of the whole trip. I’ve been to Wales four times now, but had never been to this particular town. It has no other attraction but beauty, but it certainly has plenty of that. The mountains and river that define it are breathtaking, and the hotel where we stayed, the Hand Hotel (I never saw any explanation for the slightly Castle of Otranto-ish name), was beyond charming.
I was assigned a tiny, single room which I absolutely loved, from its eccentrically angled ceiling, to its happily ratty flowered bedspread, to its cheerfully stocked electric kettle and tea basket, to its extravagantly broad and ancient windowsill. I was already pleased enough, having seen my room, and taken in the scenic beauty for a while, but then at dinner Jo said that the hotel had arranged for us to have some entertainment after the meal.
“They have these male voice choirs, here in Wales,” she explained apologetically.
“They used to be the mine workers, but now that mining’s gone, it’s just the old men, mostly. And this one sang a few days ago for another EF group, and they loved it so much they’ve come back for yours. So please stick around for just a little while, would you?”
Our group, to give them a great deal of credit, not only stuck around, they were most appreciative for a little while, but then of course they went off on their own. My mother, father, and I, however, stayed the whole time. It was love.
The Llanglothlin Male Voice Choir is exactly what it sounds like – it’s a bunch of old men, some closer to ancient, some closer to older middle-aged, who get together on Friday nights to sing songs from the thirties and forties and spirituals. They are accompanied by a single man – who plays by ear – on an electric organ. And they are charming.
There was one fellow with a musical dog – she barks in tune with the music – and a couple of comedy acts, and a truly ancient operatic baritone. There was a raffle run by a stout, laugh-creased lady in a flowered dress (we won a stuffed dragon). There was a wizened old man in a blue shirt who had obviously been – and was still – the ladies’ man of the group, who sang sly, comic numbers. There were deep, full, old spirituals in Welsh. Apparently, the stereotype that all Welshmen can sing is true – they all, even in their eighties, and in at least one case, nineties, had incredible, full, tuneful voices.
They asked early on whether any of us could sing – I raised my hand, so of course later I had to sing. And I sang, and sang. I ended up singing so much my voice was hoarse – mostly at the request of the accompanist, with whom I bonded. Because, see, he loved my voice. Or rather, my singing – it touched him. For real. I really touched someone with my voice. That’s about the first time I ever remember knowing that. We sang every song I knew on their songsheet – if I didn’t know the words, they asked me to improvise wordlessly above the melody, which I love to do – a sort of gospel call and response thing. “I don’t know how you do that,” the accompanist said. “It’s so.. beautiful.”
“But it’s just…” I realized I couldn’t explain how familiar this tradition is to someone from the American South. “I guess it’s gospel, and jazz” I said. Finally, after everyone else had left, we sang one more song together, quietly. “I’ll remember you,” he said and hugged me. “Me too,” I said.
I stayed up until midnight on the night of my birthday, singing with the old Welsh men. It occurred to me as I was falling asleep that on that day I’d progressed through my three passions: academia in its oldest and most prestigious form at Oxford; Shakespeare and his cult in Stratford; and singing that night in Wales. It was the singing that meant the most.
The next two days we spent in Dublin. I did not fall in love, somewhat to my surprise, though I didn’t hate it or anything. But Dublin is restless, unsatisfied. It is a place to come from, I think perhaps, not to go to. There are other restless cities I’ve been to – New York, certainly – but in Dublin, I didn’t feel it urging me to stay.
After Dublin we moved on to the west coast of Ireland, to a town called Ballybunion, which is on the sea. It’s absolutely breathtakingly beautiful. The weather, by this time, was spitting cold rain and hard, spiteful wind, but nonetheless, I was awed by the glory of the coastline and the mountains. Ireland really is that green. I don’t know how else to describe it – it just is. And the ragged coast, changing from one foot to the next, rising and falling in a mass of bunched greens and greys and blues and whites, is hauntingly ancient.
Again, though, somewhat to my disappointment, somewhat to my relief, I did not feel at home. I do not belong in Ireland, though I am in no way sorry to have visited. Its greens are brighter, its greys more ancient and craggy, its fields wilder and more filled with vicious, sharp-toothed mystery – but still all the time I was there, my mind wandered back to the softer, full-leafed glory of the American south in spring; to our Virginia Creeper and mountain laurel, to the magnolias and maples and dripping-leafed poplars, to the drowsy clover and tall grass bearing the promise of humid, languid summer already, even in April. And I realized again, as I did each time I’ve visited some different beautiful place – this, the South, is my own favorite beauty. This is home.
From there, we went home. And I caught a sinus infection, and recuperated for a while, and now, here I am.
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