Space Enough, and Time

It’s a strange thing, traveling through the land that has informed so much of your imagination.  The castles and keeps, the unending hills, the barrows (the barrows!), the city streets that wend and wind and turn in on themselves: it was all there.  And that’s just the literary stuff.

I tried to talk British pop culture every chance I got.  It wasn’t often, but it was good.  King Arthur? Myth.  Robin Hood?  Myth.  Douglas Adams? Who? Broadchurch? State of Play? Catherine Tate? Martin Freeman? Simon Pegg? I asked it all.  The tour guide seemed impressed with my knowledge of Brit-pop, and that was nice.  But it always came back to Doctor Who for me.  “Oh yes.  That scared me to death as a child.”  And then: “my daughter is terrified of the Weeping Angels.  She just can’t go to bed after seeing them.”  Ah.  Very nice.

It really is amazing to me how much quality work comes from England.  They produce great stuff.  They tap into something good and deep that lies just beyond the Wild West of the American imagination.  And while it was great to hear about Wordsworth and the Bronte sisters and Shakespeare, it was of great comfort to find that some of the things that had made their ways across the Atlantic were important to both shores.

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In my list of favorite moments yesterday, I forgot to mention another great moment in Oxford.  While visiting the university, we got to step into an exhibit of artwork as it related to magic in English literature.  On display?  At least two of Tolkien’s original covers to The Lord of the Rings as well as on of Lewis’ original Narnia maps.  There was, alas, no photography allowed.  Great moment, though.  Made me love Oxford all the more.

It’s a strange thing, going “there and back again.”  Travel can be a kind of parenthetical experience, one that should bring many new experiences but ought not (some might say) create any real change.  A kind of existential gap can form, like the space between the car and the platform on the London Underground.  If you’re not careful, you stumble as you move from one space to the next.  “Mind the gap,” they say.

England was good, and it was good for me.  I am often unsure of what to say when people ask if it met my expectations or what I liked best.  And so through jet lag and a nasty cold, I’ve slowly been able to process some highlights, a list I’ll simplify here but would tell you more about in a heartbeat.  And so, my greatest England moments:

• eating my first (and only) Cornetto
• reciting the Saint Crispin’s Day speech in Shakespeare’s home
• rowing (and being rowed) down the River Avon
• treating my students to tea in the Eagle and Child
• early morning walks and breakfasts in each town we stayed in
• walking a long way and stumbling upon The World’s End

Almost too short and simple, I know.  There was more than that.  So much more, really.  It was a wonderfully balanced, almost mellow, trip.  It was walking and singing and learning and writing and all kinds of things you have to work hard to capture well.  I’ll mention a few more things over this week in an attempt to “mind the gap” and make some kind of transition back to life here and now.  I’m glad to be back, but I’m more than glad to have gone.