Landing London Among Friends

Today is May 29, a bank holiday, and I am sitting at a small table in my room at the Highridge B&B in Farmborough, taking the first opportunity to plug into keyboard and mouse since I arrived in the UK. The tablecloth is one of those vinyl jobs, printed in an orange weave pattern made to look like fabric. Its slick surface works great for the mouse.

Let me back up a bit. It's been nearly 15 days since I landed in London and spent my first day with Norman and Jean, friends of my mom's who live in Islington, a part of north London, and with Sara, a colleague from Seattle who lives in Maryleborne, in the heart of London.

Norman graciously picked me up at the airport for my morning flight, and I experienced the heartening comfort of coming out of Customs to spot, among a phalanx of strangers lining the roped corridor of arrivals, a photo-familiar face holding up a sheet of paper with my name on it. A hug and a double-check of my identity against a photo I'd sent Norman ("Right, then, it's you") we drove the hour or so to their home, where Norman fed me tea, helped review my general London plan and lodging options, and gave me the chance to shower after the trip in from Boston.

While Jean was at work, Norman and I walked Parliament Hill, which offers one of the best viewpoints over London, as well as a refreshment break at the cafe next to Kenwood Estate at the top of the hill. Norman later drove me to Sara's,who lives just north of the Marble Arch tube stop. I stayed at her gorgeous flat that evening, and the next morning found a bedsit (hotel) just a few blocks down the road on Great Cumberland.


It's the Glynne Court Hotel, with a single room on the third floor, the stairs barely wide enough for me and my pack to be lugged up beside me. At only £35 per night, this was a bargain.

Boston and Newark Airport Revisited

Have tucked myself into one of the granite-countered, linen-lined cubbyholes of the Continental Airlines President's Club awaiting the final leg of my flight--Newark to London at 8:30p. Right now it's 4:30p and I'm feeling irritated that even though I'm connected to wifi, I can't seem to get to the internet or check my email. I'm going to let this one go for now and hope for the best once I get to the UK and try out things there. Meanwhile, I've helped myself to a granny smith apple and cheddar cheese for a snack before the--get this--seven-course meal that awaits me on the plane. Flying Business Elite clearly has more perks than extra leg room.

My sidetour visit with Robert and Ginger (former brother-in-law and wife) was relaxing and easy. They live outside of Boston in Lexington, and Ginger and I did a few local touristy things while Robert worked during the day. I never got to Boston proper, which is OK with me. I'll have plenty of city time in London.

On Monday morning, I spent an hour or so sitting cross-legged on the purple-blue, pileless carpet of Chester Hill Hair Co. while Ginger got her hair done by the same gal she's used for twenty years. (Never give up a good hairstylist once you find one.)

I dinked around on my little computer and keyboard to the roar of a blow dryer fluffing another customer, the Beatles crooning "Let It Be" on the radio, and the hairdresser chattering with her clients in that litany of topics that hairdressers discuss the world over--wild-son escapades, sibling troubles, romantic dramas, health complaints, car mishaps, unfulfilled or upcoming life plans, how to raise children without killing either them or yourself, etc. Hairstylists seem very much like bartenders: service-provider-slash-therapist-slash-sounding-board-slash-occasional-dumping-ground to their clientele.

In the afternoon, Ginger and I walked part of the Battle Road, which has an access point near their house. It's thinly wooded with maples, pines, and other trees on both sides. Unlike in PacNW woods, the woods here have little undergrowth beyond fallen leaves, granite stones, partially overgrown stone walls, pocket marshes, and an occasional spot of just-blooming lily of the valley. A week of hard rain had left lots of puddles on the gravel road to walk around and created a sand-clay-mixed mud that was a pretty shade of creamy brown orange, like the old Crayola Flesh crayon. It rained a little while we walked.

At this point along Battle Road, we were walking the same route that Paul Revere, Richard Dawes, and his cohorts had ridden on April 19, 1775, to alert Concord that the British Regulars (redcoats) were coming. The road still has some of the original mile markers of the time.

It’s called Battle Road because the British marched it from Boston to Concord, but the Minutemen also used it to chase the British all the way back from Concord to Boston, fighting them the whole 17 miles. Both ways of the two-day trip was trudging and bloody and full of ambushes for the British.

The Minuteman Interpretive Center for the trail is very good. We watched a multimedia audio-visual show that depicts the events using lighted maps and sound effects and cabin settings that bring the whole event to life. (And yes, Tom and Mimi, I even got the passport stamp from the park site to add to my National Parks Passport book--yay!)

That night we went to dinner with Anthony and Claudia, Robert's aunt and uncle, at a restaurant in Lexington. I didn't catch the name of it, but we had a wonderful supper full of laughter and reminiscing. I ordered a spicy roast pork that was so tender that it fell off the bone. We went back to the house to enjoy homemade maple crème custard that Ginger had made from a recipe she and Robert had gotten from a chef they'd met on a local daytrip during the sap-running days last autumn. Very yummy.

On Tuesday, Ginger and I headed out to spend the day at Harvard Square, home of Harvard, MIT, and a couple of other colleges. I like university towns. They're full of youthful energy and funky clothing shops and local artisan craft boutiques and unique restaurants. Harvard Square is also full of high prices, like most of the Boston area.


Our first stop was the MIT region, which is steeped in high-tech references and in unabashed high-tech pride. We lunched at the Miracle of Science Bar+Grill, where the menu is a clever knockoff of the periodic table and their business card boasts the phone number 617 868 ATOM. Their specialty is the skewered meats, and the marinated beef version that I had--element B2 on the menu--was proof of the reputation. It came with apricot chutney, mint slaw, and black beans to build your own tapas/burrito/absolute-mess.

Fortified with food, we were ready for the MIT Museum down the street. This place is a tribute to the beginnings, the mystique, the technological feats, the famous sons, and the (sometimes debatable) world-enhancing inventiveness that continues to come out of MIT.

The room on robotics would have been more interesting if the parts actually moved, but we got treated to that on a small scale in a room of mechanical artworks that were made of gears and levers and cams and motors and chains. Ginger found the floor switch to activate the ones that moved. One weird little contraption dipped a container into a pool of motor oil that it stood in, lifted the oil via a chain conveyor, and poured the oil over itself in an endless loop of self-lubrication and refilling.

Another mechanism had a wishbone "walking" along a track and pulling a lightweight wire framework that looked like an inverted penny-farthing bicycle, big wheel spinning slowly on the top, and riding along two smaller wheels at the side. When the harnessed wishbone reached the end of the track, a portion of the track slowly swiveled like a train trestle to send the wishbone and its burden the other way.

Another room had lots of holograms. One image seemed so real that when I turned to face it, I automatically stepped back to avoid bumping into the scenery that extended two feet from the frame. One hologram has a telescope that you can lean down to look through--the image extends a good foot from the holographic plate, so you really have to step back and lean down to get your eye in front of it. You get to see a celestial image magnified at the other end.

The other part of the museum that I found interesting was a section dedicated to a fella named Harold Edgerton, the guy who did the famous experiments with strobe photography--balloons being popped by bullets, milk splashing up in droplets, etc. He invented/discovered strobe flash, assisted the defense department in more accurate aerial bombings during the war, and helped Cousteau (also MIT, I think) create the sonar equipment he needed for his underwater explorations.

After strolling around Harvard Square shops for a bit and picking up her repaired clock from the shop, Ginger went home and I wandered around Harvard Yard (the school grounds), took tea at Dado Tea shop, and enjoyed dinner and catching up at The Red House restaurant with Ann, my former boss from Aldus and fellow self-employed wordsmith who moved a few years ago to Boston. Her fella joined us at the end of the evening, which rounded out a very full day in the area. I was happy to take the redline train home and see Robert zipping up in his little Miata to collect me at the depot.

SeaTac and Beyond (All Right, to Newark)

I left SeaTac this morning in brilliant sunshine--the second day of warmth after what seems like months of gray, rain-filled winter and spring. It seems unfair--this is the first time we’ve had sunny days and 60+ temps for weeks, and I’m heading for a stopover in Boston where they’ve been deluged with rain for days.

The cloudless sky affords a rare glimpse of Washington's varied topography and farmlands. Green, brown, and yellow crop circles are laid out side by side, row by row like some oversized board game involving disks that must always touch, and then give way to miles of folded land in ameoba-like patches of brown, forest greens, and grass greens. A few minutes later, sunlight illuminates snow-dusted mountains that are almost black with trees. Debussy's Clare De Lune plays through the earphones of my laptop-sized “digiEmedia” player that Alaska Airlines now rents to its passengers, instead of the old-fashioned drop-down movie screens that everybody shares. I'm feeling content.

I cried a little to say goodbye to Patchouli. He represents the last of all that came before--no more house, horse, yard, rooms of furniture to take care of. Not even a cat for a while. No one except myself, and nothing more than a backpack's worth of goods, to be responsible for over the next three months. Glorious. Scary. Happy. Light. Dvorak's Adagio Ma Non Troppo is playing in my ears now--happier than Dubussy.

We've climbed to 30,000 feet or more. Somewhere below the cloud batting is Montana, the Dakotas, the rest of the U.S., the rest of the planet. Up here, the view is only white, white, white, pillowed and billowed for ever, a field of spun sugar beneath a pale blue sky. I want to reach out and scoop it all up in my arms like a bouquet of cotton balls.

Three tiny dots speed by--red balloons let loose into the atmosphere--followed by three more red balloons still tethered together. I think about the twenty-foot long ribbon of rainbow balloons that Richard and I sent off on our wedding day. I'd attached a laminated label, “Audrey and Richard, San Diego, April 6, 1986,” and we and the guests released it with all the loose balloons that had decorated the reception tables. I wonder if anyone from an airplane spotted them twisting and turning their way up. I wonder, sometimes, where the ribbon landed after the balloons had all popped. Had someone found the strand of broken colors and pondered over who Audrey and Richard were, how far from San Diego their balloons had traveled? Perhaps life, like marriage, is something you release into the air without ever knowing where it’ll land.

* * *

I’m almost to Boston and sitting through a two-and-a-half hour wait in Newark--first because the aircraft that we needed has been delayed from some place like Copenhagen, and then because of fog and bad weather in Boston. What should have been a 6:30p departure is turning into a 9:00p possible takeoff—we need to wait for Boston ATC to OK landings. Spending the interim time eating a banana and a hot Uno sausage pizza out of a cardboard box on my lap, following it later with a TCBY frozen yogurt, chocolate, medium size. Always sit next to a trashcan at an airport--makes lap dining much tidier.

Airports are amazing places, a sort of Wood Between the Worlds like in the Magician's Nephew—a place where everyone passes through, but no one stays. Planes sit on the tarmac like fat bugs just flown in from Italy, Portugal, Sweden, France, each waiting to whisk millions of travelers to the next private world of their choosing.

People all around the lobby are on cell phones making calls to moms and grandmas--it’s Mother’s Day, the busiest phone day of the year. What must be the entire women’s La Crosse team from Northeastern University sprawls out in a circle eating salads and pizza, sharing gummy life savers, and reading books or doing crossword puzzles as they wait the same flight to Boston. They’re dressed in their team attire--black sweats with red lettering, tall socks, sports shoes. Most have their hair in a ponytail. One paces with her cell phone, making one call after another, “Hi Grandma, it’s Liz. I’m at the airport.” Ten minutes later, she comes back to announce, “It’s so cool—I just called all my grandmothers.” Time was when we each had only two grandmas to call. How many mom-dad remarriages has this 19-year-old been through, that she can refer to “all” her grandmas?

An offering of candied ginger, although declined, makes a great icebreaker to the baseball-capped gal who sits next to me, an American born of Guatemalan immigrants, Cecilia Morales. We talked and talked. She's spent much of her time traveling--every summer in Guatemala since she was a child, where her parents still have a home. She's in IT support for ADP, and was on her way to Boston for some IT training dovetailed with her passion for photography--an evening workshop with a friend in the Boston area.

Cecilia has been a delight to talk with, and we spent easily over an hour swapping dreams (photojournalism for her, more travel for me), travel stories, and general amazement at how much traveling expands one’s world view.

The countries of Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Peru have crossed my radar more often of late, and I quizzed Cecilia about traveling in Guatemala. She shared many of her photos from her laptop--astonishing pics of Lake Atitlan, Mayan temples in the mist, sunsets over hillsides, market stalls ripe with rainbow fabrics and quilts, and Guatemalan children and natives. She arranges tours for friends, having been to Guatemala many times, and offered her parents' home to me if I decide to visit. She's celebrating her 30th birthday soon (happy birthday, Cecilia!) and we felt like old friends in a very short time. Keep an eye on National Geographic for a photo story about Guatemala in the years ahead...Cecilia Morales is definitely an up-and-coming talent.

In Grandma's Kitchen

Ask almost anyone to finish a sentence that starts, “In my Grandma’s kitchen,” and you’ll get a litany of memories that come forth in a rush. Making gingerbread men out of chocolate-chip dough, or basting the Thanksgiving turkey with Grandma’s secret brandy recipe. Mastering the art of whipping mashed potatoes and still keeping them lumpy. Feeling the coolness of linoleum under bare feet on the morning after a sleepover, or tugging on the pantry door that was just a little bit sticky to open.

Of my grandmother’s kitchen I remember the countertops. They were tile—pale, sunny yellow squares with aqua rectangles that rolled over the front edges. I liked that tile, its tidy geometry joined by creamy lines that darkened over time.

Next favorite was a knife—the one Grandma used to make ham and egg salad. Lots of mayonnaise. Some mustard. Celery and onion. Salt and pepper. And ham carved right off the five-pound roast that we’d had the night before—the flat, egg-shaped kind that somehow fit perfectly into a flat, egg-shaped tin that we had to open with a key that unwound a strip of metal all the way around the tin. It was like unwrapping an oversized cigarette or gum package, only I had to be careful not to cut my fingers on the metal and not to spill the ham juice all over the table.

Grandma would cube the cold, leftover ham on the counter and slice the hard-boiled eggs in her palm. The knife sliced easily through the ham slabs—click click click on the tiles. Soundlessly through the eggs. Scrape the side of the blade on the edge of the Pyrex bowl—the green one from the nested set. A lovely sliding chime of metal on glass to move all the smooshed egg yolk into the bowl.

After she was done, we’d wash the knife and dry it—“Blade side out from the sponge and towel,” said Grandma, “so you don’t cut your hand”—and then hang it on its metal rack of two magnetic strips. Mosu had screwed the rack to the side of the cabinet that held their Franciscan ware—dinner plates and bowls and cups in the Apple Blossom pattern. Service for 12. The cabinet had been painted off-white several times over.

The knives would stand at attention on the magnetic strip, handles up, cutting edges toward the window, backs flat, slapped against the magnet above the kitchen sink. I would hang a dried knife into its empty spot on the strip. Click-snap it would go into place like some kind of sucking magic was at work. I was always careful when I let the handle go, afraid that if I jerked it in my sometimes clumsy way that the knife would drop down like a guillotine and clatter into the sink and everyone would come running to see what the matter was.

That knife rack always gave me the willies. We’d do the dishes left-sink to right-sink, and I’d have to pass my hands under the rack to put the dishes in the strainer. I always did it fast, as if the strip would somehow lose its grip just at the moment I passed under its weaponry. But it always held, and the knives never fell.

I have that knife now. Its blade is no longer exceptionally sharp; its edge is scratched and slightly pitted from many inexperienced sharpenings (mine). The point is blunt. My palm curls easily around its wooden handle, around corners that are no longer corners but rounded and smooth and hand-oiled. The wood has lost its stain, bleached with detergent and washings to a natural gray-brown. Two brass rivets, gleaming golden, run through the sandwich of stainless-steel tang and wood. Their flat, embedded buttons feel cool to my thumb and forefinger. The rivets hold the blade true and firm. No hint of wobble in this knife.

Sometimes I still make ham and egg salad using this knife and the green Pyrex bowl. I’m usually halfway into the process before I realize why I’m doing it—because my spirit hankers for a connection to the childhood hours that I spent with my grandparents in the two-bedroom home that they’d had made specially for them in an assembly-line factory. (Grandma had even been able to choose the tile colors she wanted.)

The knife nestles into my adult palm, but it is Grandma’s hands that I see. Capable, thick-knuckled, manicured with false fingernails painted in the dark coral-red polish that was her best color. Grandma’s hands on the same knife, making the same motions of cutting ham and eggs, chopping onions and celery, scraping again and again onto the sides of Pyrex bowls, creating a tasty vat of nourishing, silent love.

Travel Dream Step 1: Sell House. Step 2: Gulp.

This past month, I’ve been busy. Busy making decisions. Busy crying. Busy letting go. Busy contacting realtors, friends, and others in the know about making big life changes. Busy realizing the amazing ease of becoming unencumbered, the astonishing strength of a support network that I’ve built while I wasn’t really watching.

I’ve decided to sell Whimsor. I feel sad and relieved and excited at the prospect. Sad to let go of this beautiful home that I put so much creativity and heart and self-expression into. Sad to turn away from the many wonderful projects I’d planned for the yard and interior. Sad to know that I have no control over what the next owner will do to the decor (so colorful and warm), to the surrounding woods and trees and stones (so sacred and shadowed), to the deer and racoons, hawks and owls that visit the property every day and night (so little space remaining for them already).

I feel relieved that soon I will no longer need to worry over the expense of the mortgage and the upkeep of roof, walls, and grounds. Relieved to let go of the myriad unstarted or semi-begun projects whose in-progress parts—purchases, sketches, scribbles of notes—have cluttered drawers, file folders, garage shelves, and a large part of the back of my mind for the past five years. Relieved to know that I can walk away from this custom home—a full, unique expression of my Self—without leaving my Self behind.

It’s that last prospect that holds the excitement of this choice. The awareness that my identity is no longer tied to Whimsor. I am not my home. My truest Self—joyful, creative, whimsical, laughing, adventurous—is with me wherever I go. Has, indeed, been calling me to my highest purpose, which has nothing to do with home ownership at this time.

This next phase of my life is about connection. About acknowledging the connection I have, always, with all others and all things as the God that we all are. This trip to Britain—closer than ever now that the house will be sold before I go—is my chance to experience that which I already know but have rarely practiced: how to lean upon a network of like-minded people (fellow TTouch practitioners, travelers, trekkers), upon the kindness of strangers, and upon the grace of a universe that always says “Yes” to any dream, to any hope, to any request. I get to practice asking others for help, for support, for directions, for lodging, for information, and for whatever else I’ll need as I travel day to day.

A Native American quote I once heard on NPR: “When you come to a chasm in life, jump. It’s not as far as you think.”

So here I am. At the chasm between home ownership and less encumbered living. Pause. Gulp. Take a deep breath. Jump. I’ll meet you at the other side.

Tangerine Teachings

I remember the trees of my childhood, five of them already planted as part of the San Diego tract home my Mom and step-dad bought in the mid ’60s.

The dwarf tangerine is the one I loved most. It stood alone near the northeast corner of our postage-stamp-sized backyard amid an expanse of scruffy, usually sun-dried grass. I grew up with that tree. Our black collie, Duffy, and I would chase each other around it when I was five.

At age six or seven, I learned the tree held an amazing secret: the seasonal transformation of tiny, hard, green balls into pliable orange fruits big enough to get my fist around. The flowers, white and fragrant, would crumple to a creamy brown and drop to darken into the earth. Then this little green ball would start up where each flower had been. The size of a pea, the color of the leaves. Sometimes I could find only a few, unless I looked really, really hard. In just a few weeks, I would spot them in all kinds of sizes.

I’d study them in all their stages of change. First green as Mexican limes, they’d blush to half-orange, half-green, then one sunny day there’d be nothing but bright orange rounds in the heart of the branches. The tree never looked like those pictures we all drew as kids—a big green circle with orange dots all over it. Instead, the fruit nestled in among the branches, hid under the leaves, hugged the trunk. Even though the orange was so bright, I was often surprised at how many I missed from one day to the next.

I remember being afraid to pick and eat the fruit at first. Was it OK to do? Was it safe? Could I really eat these pretty mini-orange sections? Mom said yes. The tangerines had lots of seeds. I didn’t like that. They weren’t always sweet or juicy, either. We didn’t water the tree much. Like the kids and the pets, the tree was left pretty much to fend for itself with whatever the elements would give it. Benign neglect was big in those days.

Picking the tangerines was easy. The tree was a dwarf variety, and even I could reach up into its middle with my little-kid height. Sometimes I’d get so many tangerines I couldn’t hold them all. Then I’d fold up the front of my T-shirt and carry them in a stretchy basket.

I learned they were ripe when just a nudge would drop them into my hand. If I had to pull too hard, the rind would rip, and the fruit wouldn’t be as tasty because it hadn’t been ready to come away from the tree.

Life can be a lot like that—push it, struggle to pluck its goodness, and you never end up with the best that it could have been. But let it ripen on its own, give it the least little prod, and all that we need falls into our hands in its own perfect time. No struggle. No coaxing. Just life at its best—ripe, ready, full of juice. For me, that tree was abundance.

At ten, I remember reading that you can splice trees together—graft them—so that one kind of tree could be made to grow from another. I once took a knife to the side of the trunk and tried to graft a lemon branch to it, but the add-on died. A botanical Dr. Frankenstein I was not.

The tangerine tree is gone now—cut down two or three years ago to convert the always-scraggly yard into a lovely sanctuary of rose bushes, white rock, curvy tiled benches, and stepping stones studded with butterflies and frogs. While the yard makeover is beautiful, I do still miss that friendly tangerine tree and its sweet little surprises hidden in the branches.

Giving the Trip Shape

I talked with Mom a few months ago about my idea for this 3-month walking trip in Britain and realized I could give it more shape.

As I see it, I’m traveling mostly by foot, sometimes by train to get to new areas to walk. Perhaps taking a horseback tour, catching a natural history expedition, joining a literary walk, or taking a painting course along the way.

I have a smart phone for e-mail and phone access in towns that are connected, so I can check in every few days with stateside folks so they know where I am and how I’m doing.

I see myself staying overnight with friends of friends in each new town, or at places the locals recommend. Though I travel alone, I connect with people every day. Maybe Mom or others meet up with me on parts of the trip.

I am doing TTouch on my hosts’ animals, and more animal work comes to me while I’m there. This is one way I earn my room and board; I may do other odd jobs as well. I may stay in a place for a few days or only one.

I’d like to do the sea-to-sea walk across England that’s described in the Sept 2003 issue of Smithsonian. I’d like to return to the Cotswolds and the Lake District. York, too. I’ve never seen Cornwall or Canterbury. I’d like to go north into Scotland and the Hebrides. West into the wilds of Wales. Perhaps walk the Thames or Hadrian’s wall.

So much to see!

It’s like the ultimate Serendipity Drive. Following my nose and my heart and my feet, and giving in to wanderlust and to whatever happens next.