12. The Frost; "Laws"

Friday 6 December.  Thomas, Cathy and I travel to London at 11:43, from Cambridge to King's Cross, then Oxford Circus.  I pick up my glasses and we walk down Bond Street, with stops at Smythson, Asprey, Saville Row Guild (I buy a navy overcoat) and Rayne (shoes).  We try to get a drink at the Ritz, but cannot because of Thomas.  Next we visit Jermyn Street, with stops at Floris and Fortunam and Mason.  We are back by 6 (15:43 King's Cross return.)  We have a late night in town at Saffron Walden with Santa, pork sandwiches, Tombola draws and raffles.  It is lively and fun, but everyone complains of the cold (feet especially).

9:50 a.m.  First sunny day from the start in weeks, though that's not really true, we had some when mom and dad were here.  Clear and frost. 

Yesterday finished two essays on "Unreal City" and "Words" for the John Harriott Memorial Prize Contest.  I don't honestly think I will win, but I like the essays, and it was fun putting them together.  I have worked on a third called "Laws," but I'm not at all sure where I'm going with it, so I don't know if I'll send that in as well.  I much prefer to tell stories about myself and to write about less controversial subjects!

LAWS

One of the unexpected benefits of a sabbatical abroad is a better understanding of one's own country.  In choosing to live in Great Britain for the year, I well expected that there was much I would learn about Britain and the rest of Europe, but I did not expect to learn more, as I have, about my own home, the USA.

Not too long ago, I had the pleasure of attending a seminar on the impact of environmental laws on lenders; that is, what happens when a lender ends up with a mortgage on contaminated property.  The problem is a well known one back home.  Congress has enacted a substantial number of laws in this area, enough to keep lawyers and judges busy until well into the next century.  The state of environmental laws in Britain (and the EEC) has not evolved to the stage it has in the US, and when it does, it's a good bet that Europeans will look to America not only for ideas that work, but for the kinds of solutions to be avoided as well.

Although I am not a litigator, I do have to keep up with the latest court decisions.  I am not at all familiar with British law (at least since it was adopted in the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries as our common law), but I do read the newspapers  (excluding the weekly law reports, which seem to be about as dull as the advance sheets I am forced to read back home).

Having said all this, I can see striking differences between the American legal system and what I see of the British system.

In the US, if a drunk driver kills someone, it seems to be the consensus judgment that the wrongdoer should be put away for 135 years; here I have a sense that it is more like five.  It is now commonplace to observe that the British are not as litigious as Americans, but it goes beyond this, for even though the cost of living here appears to be equal to or greater than at home, damages awarded plaintiffs in personal injury actions are much lower in Britain than in the US. 

What I see, as I look back across the ocean, is not only the frequently noticed attitude that people no longer like to bear responsibility for their own mistakes or misfortune, but, more fundamentally, a belief that the aim of law should be not only to fix wrongs, but to make things right as well.  The British attitude appears to be (in the legislating area) if it works at least somewhat don't fix it, and (in the judicial system) things aren't ever perfect and we can't do too much more than we've done - how interesting that two similar systems have ended up so different!

 While there may be present in American attitudes that evidence that unmistakable American belief in the perfect society, I can't help but see something much more unhealthy, a sign of our age that seems to travel around the world and spread faster than the flu. 

That disease is the belief that we human beings have, from time to time, that we can make everything all right.  Seventy-five years ago the god was communism; today there are many who promote the god of capitalism, though the god of green (in an environmental sense) is rapidly gaining converts.  The god of law is simply another of these characters in the temple of the world, each one cloaked in an ideal, this time of justice.

When will we learn?  I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt not have false gods before thee.

12:25 p.m.  British Rail, Cambridge to King's Cross.  The day alternates between clear skies and grey clouds that darken the day.  We're now speeding along at a pretty good clip and the sun is out.  Not far back, from within the grey, the bright part of the day shone off in the distance, the color of orange/pink, like pink lemonade.  I asked Cathy if she could stand living in Seattle after the experience of the grey days here and she said, "Yes, if I had a nice house like the one we have now."

Last night and this morning I worked on my essay about laws, coming to the conclusion that the Americans have an attitude that law, like a false god, can solve all problems. Nothing, however, can work such miracles.

Now I begin to wonder if I don't see place as a bit of god myself, thinking that places, whether they be Malibu, England or Seattle, can solve all of my problems.

I realize, of course, that living in a place I love will not answer all of my needs.  I tell myself I like Las Vegas, but the truth is I have to keep reminding myself of the good parts: the easy commute, the sunshine, the job security, fairly wide open spaces and so on.  True, these are things I do like, but I think that if I lived some place that I really liked I would be happier, happier with green and water, happier with the feeling I was no longer on the island of Las Vegas.

Saturday 7 December.  Shopping in Cambridge is more crowded than usual.  I take the boys to their golf lessons.  I buy a book case, then take it easy.  We attend evening mass and have steak a poivre for dinner.

9:20 a.m., Grange Road outside of St. John's.  Clear, sunny day (with the usual haze and smoke, however).  I dropped Robert off at 8:39 (for 8:40 start) and am sitting at the table in the van.

Today is the second day of the hard frost, which is quite beautiful.  The top of the six foot hedge to my right is covered in ice, as is just about everything within ten feet of the ground.  Most of the trees are now barren.

We have frost at home and it too is lovely, but there is not much for the frost to paint!  It is the desert after all, and the absence of humidity and lack of plant life mean that frost is limited to the lawns and the cars left outdoors overnight.  Here everything that is not paved is filled with some kind of living thing, and the only things not white are the roads and the recently ploughed fields, though even they have small crests of white here and there.

We are now officially half way through the sabbatical: we left June 7, six months ago today.  I don't have any new insights into all of this other than what I mentioned yesterday: Las Vegas is a place I have to remind myself to like; it does not come naturally.

Thinking this morning that I am simply too much into myself!  I shall do some Christmas shopping and try to imagine the delight of those opening the presents. 

The American Playing Fields,
Saffron Walden

Market Square
with Christmas Decorations

The Furniture Store Sale

This sounds like a Victorian diary!  9:40 a.m.

Preface to Journal

 

In June, 1991, my wife, Cathy, and I and our four children, Robert, Mara, Jeffrey and Thomas (ages 10 to 3), left our home in Las Vegas and moved to England for a year's sabbatical.  At the time I had worked at the same law firm since graduating from law school in 1975, and Cathy and I had lived in the same house for ten years.  Why were we doing it?  What would I do?  How many times were we asked! 

The first question seems rather stupid.  What 40-year old husband and father, if he could afford it, wouldn't take a year off of work to be with his young family?  My strong sense of the shortness of our lives refused to give way to the more prevalent concern we all have about security for the length of our lives.

In my mind, the real question was not, "Why?" but, "How?": how could I afford to take a year off -- a question most people were too polite to ask.  In a nutshell, the answer is that our financial ship came in that year; and, having been educated by both my mother's mother and my father in the spirit of Horace (in my own mind the phrase was Andrew Marvell's), we seized the day, though it might also be said, we blew the wad.  I think of that, every now and then, as we suffer through our financial ups and downs.  If we had not gone off together on a lark, we might now have a nice little nest egg: a college fund, a swimming pool, the living room furniture, a savings account. 

But it wasn't a lark.  It was a dream and I don't regret it.  If I had to do it all again, there are, of course, things I would change; but we would still have gone.  Time will tell whether I'm right or not, but, when I think about what we did, it seems to me that spending that year together in England, as a family, traveling across Europe, being together every day, was more valuable to my children than a four year ticket to the private college of their choice.  I like to think of it as investing our money early in the children, rather than later.

It seems to me that a sabbatical is more of a process than an event.  Have I changed?  It seems to me I did, though the changes are subtle and may have come anyway. 

This journal tells the story of how we prepared for that year, where we went and how we spent our time.  More importantly, this is the story of how I came to believe in a dream and, in doing so, make it come true.

12. Essays; "Words"

Thursday 5 December.  8:45 a.m.  Cloudy.  Mass, then worked on essays to submit for competition.  First blue sky in several days, but we don't mind the clouds.

Last night I dreamed I finally got a job (for some reason I needed a job or was looking to get one) -- as a bus driver!  (Now that I think about it, it may have been the bus company that needed me and I volunteered.)  The day I was supposed to go to work I fiddled around and enjoyed myself with friends until way after starting time.  When I finally made it to my bus, got my equipment and picked up my passengers, hours late, no one seemed to care about how late I was, and when, busily chatting away or trying to figure out how to work all my equipment and paperwork, I missed the Motorway off ramp, it was no big deal, even though that put me even further behind schedule.  I remember that, in my dream, I drove on the right side of the road, as did all the traffic.  I had a feeling that I needed to do something (write, perhaps), but whether or not I ever got around to it people didn't really care; though they were grateful when I finally produced.  Oddly applicable to my current situation!

Off to mass.

            *  *  *  *  *

WORDS

 We have now lived in Essex for four months, a half hour's drive to pick up the children in Cambridge and an hour's train ride to London to see the sights.  I am midway in my year long sabbatical from practicing real estate law in Las Vegas, Nevada and to say that we all enjoy our surroundings is an understatement.  If we miss the blue skies, we do not miss the brown landscapes.  There are more shades of green here than any place west of the Mississippi River, and it does not take much to impress a desert rat.

We are here because, when I was eight years old and my father had an itch to change fields in medicine and a hankering to revisit his World War II London stomping grounds, we lived in England for a year.  Our home was Horley, close to the new airport, Gatwick, and I attended St. Hilda's School for Girls (which, despite its name had a number of boys).  When I was twenty-one and old enough to appreciate my good fortune at having lived overseas, I vowed I would do it again someday. 

Ironically, thirty-three years later, we happen to be close to another new airport, Stanstead; and though St. John's is five times bigger than St. Hilda's, the blazers and the ties will be something for the children to remember some day, as I did, when they are older.   

Words, however, are what finally brought us here, not the fond memories of childhood.

First and foremost were the words which kept the dream alive: the twenty years of journal writing, staying attuned to the thoughts within, from the first day, when, as an eighteen year old freshman at UCLA, I proclaimed myself a poet, to the 100,000 word autobiography I wrote for myself in 1989 and 1990 in hopes of revealing what I wanted to be when I grew up.

There were the words which paid the bills: the hundreds of contracts and mortgages I wrote and rewrote in my sixteen years as a lawyer. 

There were surprising words. The speech given at the UCLA alumni dinner by a woman who had flown around the world, and who returned to say, "Have you ever wanted to do something really crazy?  Well my advice is do it."  My wife, Cathy, beginning to waiver from disbelief to belief, thought it was a set up.

There were words of wisdom, new and old.  When I told one of my partners that if I didn't take a sabbatical this year I would probably take the same elevator to the same floor for thirty years, not sixteen.  After all that time at work, so many days away from watching my children grow up, what, I asked him, would I have to show for it?  "A good form file," he said.

The old words of wisdom were the words of Andrew Marvell which rhythmically repeated themselves as I circled the jogging track at Bob Baskin Park, and looked over my right shoulder.  More than once I thought I actually heard "Times winged Chariot" behind me.

There were good words.  After twelve years of subtle and not so subtle influence, Cathy said, "Yes," finally believing that living in England was not just a dream.  Words of my partners who, incredibly, agreed to something I did not dare ask six months before.  Words of friends and relatives who would miss us and promised to come see us.  Words of another partner who prophesied a la Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams, that the long awaited fee which would finance the trip would soon come, "If you leave it will come." 

But I never heard the words I had really wanted to hear. 

In 1986, I had walked along the beach at Del Mar every day for a week praying for guidance, a message or a sign that would reveal if I should change jobs or do something crazy like my father had in 1958.  I heard nothing but the patient rolling of the waves.

When we decided to leave, there was no way we could do it.  There were too many obstacles.  I continued to jog around the track at Bob Baskin, praying for an answer, "Tell me, Lord, how can we do this?"  How was it I had led us down a road which seemed impossible to take? 

Meanwhile, I rented a mini warehouse and started to pack things away, a little each weekend.     

In hindsight everything fits together so nicely.  The dream, the hard work, the prayers, the patience, and the promise all seem to lead inevitably to the desired end, the year abroad, the nice house in Essex, the good school, the weekends in London.  The ingredient lacking, however, is the invisible glue that kept it all together, and the only one I see is the silent answer to my prayers.  It seems silly to believe that God brought us here, that the silence which permitted only one interpretation was meaningful, but then I remember my grandmother's words many years ago: Trust God. 

And there it is. 

12. Day Commuter; "Unreal City"

Wednesday 4 December  Working at home. 9:15 mass.  I attend open house at Harts (bookstore/office supply) in Saffron Walden, and meet Rosemary Hayes and her partner (author, publisher).  I see Camilla and Leslie and buy some books.  Sunrise: 7:46; sunset: 3:54.

8:15 a.m. Yesterday I was a commuter for the day, attending a seminar on environmental impacts on lending.  It's the most I've thought about law since June.  I can see what I like: law is ordered, it solves problems and it is interesting.  Lawyers spend a lot of time trying to figure things out and make them right.  English lawyers (Scotland has different laws) seem to get to the point much quicker than Americans.  Americans tend to want to make everything perfect, so our legal solutions tend to much broader and more encompassing than over here.  Here, for example, in the environmental area, the owner and the producer are liable for polluting the environment; back at home everyone who has any remote connection with the property is liable.  As the senior partner (so glib, so smooth, so British!) remarked yesterday, Americans spend a lot of time fighting with each other over who is to blame (and paying their lawyers), rather than just cleaning up.

There seems to be a tacit acknowledgement over here that not everything is fair or completely just.  One should just look after oneself and if the laws are not completely fair, it's because things just can't be completely fair: we'll do the best we can, but we must have a workable system.

As I listened yesterday, engaged by what I heard, I saw myself falling for the attractive qualities I see in law: the intellectual pursuits, gathering the facts, solving the problems.  At the same time, I also saw the context within which we work: we serve (at least in my business) those with the money to pay us.  Our clients are not always the most noble.  I do not mean to say that I do disreputable things, only that the master that I serve could have higher ends.  This realization (and acting upon it) is what sabbaticals are all about.

Could I, would I have realized this before?  I think I did, then forgot, then tended to see things in more black and white terms (hate law, I must think of something different, etc.).  Law is not by its nature bad, it is a wonderful pursuit, but what are its ends and what should be its ends? 

I was also a real commuter for the day: taking the 7:19 train into London and returning on the 18:02 (the latter was late leaving Liverpool -- very unusual) and I hated it!

I enjoy trains very much: there is something about riding along in comfort down a certain path.  I realized, however, as I tramped up the steps at Audley End, with the other returning commuters, that the idea of becoming part of a commuter crowd, scrunched together on the morning and evening trains, is not for me.  I don't know what it is, perhaps it's just the humdrum ordinariness of it or becoming part of a crowd.  I felt like a steer on a cattle drive.  If I had to make a regular habit of the train, I would be sure to leave earlier or later to avoid the crowds.

Despite my feelings on commuting, I had a great time walking yesterday.  After grabbing a cup of cappucino at the station, I resolved to walk to the seminar at Aldergate.  The streets outside were wet under a heavy mist, but the mist seemed to quickly vanish and much of my walk was under cover, through the Barbican.

Inside the seminar I was an anonymous face and, other than a few pleasantries exchanged in passing, I spoke to no one.  Yet, there was a unity in the audience: we shared a common purpose and some common knowledge, very different from the train, where, on discharge, we all go our separate ways.  Why do I compare the dissimilar parts of the seminar (sitting in the audience) and the train ride (leaving)?  Was it the end of the day, another day lost that really bothered me? 

After the seminar, I walked in the opposite direction from someone with whom I had exchanged a few words, proceeding differently on purpose, as is my style.  I walked for quite a ways, down Charing Cross/Shaftesbury to Picadilly from High Holborn, then over to Regent Street.  As the day grew dark, I finished up at Fortunam and Mason, buying some cheese and meat, then took a cab back to the station.

As the cab passed Trafalgar Square, the Norwegian Christmas tree now in place (plain, huge, not lit, lovely shape, about 30 feet), I felt an immense surge of affection for London.  I don't know why it came at this particular time: the pleasure that suddenly came to me of being here in London with some money in my pocket.  Perhaps it was the clear night, overcast, but clear.  Perhaps it was the season.

From the top of Trafalgar, the route always taken by the taxis to Liverpool Street Station, there was a lovely view of Big Ben and Parliament, quite distinct in the clear night.  From Trafalgar, we drove down to Embankment where there was another lovely view, near Waterloo Bridge: to the east, St. Paul's, with its bright grey dome, and the City; to the west, Parliament; and, to the south, the many lights from the big buildings along the river.

So ended my day in London: a feeling of being high on the place, a feeling that I loved this city.  During my walk, everywhere just about, the streets had been crowded with people, especially on Regent, where the traffic wardens have megaphones and tell people to, "Stay off the street!" "Stay on the sidewalk!" and "Cross now!"  (It was hard to figure out where the magnified voices were coming from at first.)

My London high began to leave me as I sat down to share a small seat with a fellow passenger.  The job was complete as I got off the train, smelled urine from the shelter and joined the throng marching (yes, that's really what we do) up the steps.

Over and over again, I hear Eliot's lines, from Dante, "I had not thought death had undone so many."  Now that I have read the Inferno, I appreciate the context in which the lines are made: the hordes of people lining up, milling about, waiting for their spot in hell, yet when I hear the line, I am more likely to think of people walking across London Bridge (as I used to imagine) or (now) walking through Charing Cross or Liverpool Street stations.

What is the death, the feeling of death that TSE is talking about?  It must be the same thing I think of when I walk up the station's stairs or see all those people looking up at the TV monitors for train information.  It is silence, it is resignation, resignation to what I am not quite sure, perhaps a surrender to the daily grind, the forces of the work world, which slowly but surely grind out of us the spirit of our youth, our optimism and hope in the world, and replace it with realism and belief in nothing but the facts of work and more work.

Perhaps some of my problem is the complete lack of comradery in the commuter group: no one talks, we all just go about our duties.  The reason Dante's line works, or rather the reason Dante's line is so good is because it works; and the reason it works or the evidence that it works is that it seems such a fitting way to describe the crowds.

In the end we are really and truly alone, that's the way we came in and the way we go out, as they say, and perhaps that's another aspect of the fitting image: the crowds of people, each one alone in his or her own private thoughts, perhaps a heaven, perhaps the torment of a personal hell, but mostly just ordinariness: did I get the bread, did the door get locked, is the train on time, shall I have a drink, is my wife at the station, shall I call a cab . . ..

Perhaps there are loved ones waiting: a spouse, children, but most of us, I suspect, have little thought for that love, thinking more of relaxation and responsibility, if we think at all before the first drink.

It is a tragedy that this is how we run our lives.

Conversation is the thing that is missing, such as the lively exchanges that occur on an airplane, as people fear for their lives; or pub talk.

Despite the fact that we go it alone, we do share a common fate and a common condition.  Should we be talking about that?  That's what is so wonderful about television: its ability to portray, in an entertaining way, the common condition.

What would TSE have done with television?  I have an image, that of the daffodils, a field of them, sunning themselves in a field in April.  They all stare with their heads toward the sun.  The many faces watching their TV screens at home are much like the daffodils, though it is not natural: it is no longer a seasonal thing (except day vs. night) and it is done indoors.  Yet there is similarity: beautiful creatures enjoying themselves, gazing into a god of light and warmth.

            *  *  *  *  *

 UNREAL CITY

 Not long after I moved to Las Vegas in 1968, I made an entry in my journal referring to it as "unreal city."  At the time the words just naturally seemed to come to mind to describe my new home town, standing out like a luminous island in the middle of the desert.  One needs little imagination to see the unreal in Las Vegas: from the glaring artificial daylight of Fremont Street to the little old ladies at the supermarket who jealously guard their two or three slot machines, a strange sense of reality is apparent.   

The strangeness of Las Vegas is even greater when one lives there.  There are many people whom I have met who cannot believe that people other than showgirls and entertainment lawyers actually live in Las Vegas.  (There are now about 750,000.)  Constant media references to Las Vegas tend to build up an internal defense mechanism in its citizens, who must learn to distinguish between the place they live and the place the tourists visit.   

 The very idea of any city in the middle of the desert is itself a wonder.  To tourist and resident alike, the reality of this arid land, two hundred miles from anywhere, surrounded by rugged mountains, where temperatures can range from ten Fahrenheit to a hundred and ten Fahrenheit, present a stark truth to those who chance to think of where they actually are.

 Having become accustomed to my image of Las Vegas over the years, I was a more than a little embarrassed recently when I reread one of my favourite poems, "The Waste Land," for the umpteenth time and for the first time noticed that my own "unreal city", which had seemed so spontaneous and suitable at the time, was nothing more than my memory of one of those wonderful phrases which we all hear in our lives at one time or another and which seem to magically arise in our consciousness on other appropriate occasions, sometimes with attribution, but more often without.

 Thinking about "The Waste Land," however, always reminds me of London.  Just as Las Vegas brings to my mind the words "unreal city", the moment I hear the clatter of feet in an underground station during rush hour or see the impassive, silent faces gazing into the television monitors at Liverpool Street Station, I cannot help but think of the lines which Eliot himself borrowed from Dante and wonder at all the people death has undone.  To bring the comparison full circle again, though the sound is certainly different, it does not strain the imagination too much to see some similarities between those faces at Liverpool Street hoping for good news of the train home, and a casino full of faces hoping the video poker machines will reward them with a different kind of good news.

The truth, of course, is that whether we live in Las Vegas or London, we all live in an unreal city, a city which presses its demands and delights upon us each and every day, no matter where we work or play.  As we struggle or enjoy our daily routines of work, sleep and play, wherever we are we try hard to remember the purpose of things, to put them in their proper place and perspective, lest we too be undone by death.

Sometimes back at home, especially when I am caught in the mire and the muck of work or routine and desperately want out, I think of Las Vegas as many do: "sin city", a place which shamelessly and tastelessly panders to the pleasures of money, drink, food and entertainment.  I long for places like the English countryside or even London, wishing for any place but my own.  Yet there is a difference between sin and bad taste, and if Las Vegas is occasionally (or often, depending on one's point of view) in bad taste, it is probably no more a city of sin than anywhere else.  For if it is sin that Las Vegas is all about, it is not the sin of Las Vegas, it is the sin which forces us to make our way by the sweat of our brows, forces us to go to work and wait for trains, and creates a need for places like Las Vegas.

Each time I visit London, indeed just about anywhere I visit in England, it seems there is a nearby church to remind me not only of the presence of God in our midst, but also of the believers who have gone before me.  One might think it is a little harder finding God in Las Vegas, but if the unreal reality of London is its place in history, the unreal reality of Las Vegas is its location in a wide open country where each day sun, clouds and time create a work of heavenly art in light and shadows upon the ground.

Even in the night, there remain more stars in the heavens than light bulbs on the Strip.  And, of course, there are more chapels than any place else on earth.

12. The November 29th Birthdays

Friday 29 November.  I forget it is Jeffrey's and Cathy's birthday until it is time to go to school!  A busy week!  Mild day, hazy sunshine.  Mom, Thomas, Cathy, William and I go to Windsor—no time for anything but a quick walk around.  Then to Waterside Inn for lunch (£330)—very nice to say the least!  We have foie gras for two (could be for four) and sole with lobster mousse and a Thierney Chablis.  Back to St. John's (200 miles!)  The restaurant setting, on the Thames in a small town, is beautiful in what is obviously late fall.  On the river there are many ducks and a few swans, lots of mud hens.  Dad is well rested when we return.  We meet at the Saffron Walden Hotel at 8 for dinner and open presents—there are big hits all around—in the lounge.  Great birthday cake, good steak with stilton sauce (or should I say good sauce with OK steak—the rumps are tough).  Mary takes care of us at the hotel,  and says to make sure we remind her of who we are next time.

Birthday Dinner Pictures

Jeffrey's New Vest

Dinner at the Saffron Walden Hotel

Grandpa Bob

The Birthday Boy Endures "the Bumps"

Visiting Windsor Castle

Outside at the Waterside Inn

The Waterside Inn

Saturday 30 November.  I leave at 8 am for St. John's (Robert and Mara), then drop off my parents and William at Gatwick, and return to St. John's.  About 230 miles roundtrip.  We arrive at the airport in plenty of time (Gatwick is 1 1/2 hours from Cambridge).  Afterwards I have my first bluesy feeling since we left.  Back in Saffron Walden I take the boys to golf lessons and we relax all day.  There is a very cold spell from 2 to 4 pm, though it has been mild all week.  We get the coal fire going and watch "Jaws the Revenge" (Stupid.)

 8:45 a.m.  My aunt Ruth in hospice not eating.  What an attractive and powerful idea is the communion of saints: the "banquet table!"

Sunday 1 December.  Dad calls at 7:30.  They arrived home at 11:30 pm.  It's 28 degrees in Las Vegas!  We attend 9:15 mass—another noisy First Communion class, then have a lovely brunch at Tim and Mary Seymour's home in Littlebury Green.  They are now off to South Africa.  I meet David (a law firm administrator) and his wife.  Tim is a banker, played rugby (touch) and American football and said it was great fun.

Monday 2 December.  Another cloudy day.  Richard the gardener is here and has just about got us all weeded and trimmed over the past three weeks for about £200.

Tuesday 3 December.  To London by train for a seminar on environmental law.  I walk from Liverpool St. Station to the seminar then, afterwards, to Regent Street to get some glasses.  How much I love London on a cloudy day!

8:30 a.m.  Food Court, Liverpool Street Station, which is to be opened officially on Thursday by the Queen.  The station remodel is billed as one of the most extensive London rebuilding projects since World War II.

 I've come into London this morning with the other daily commuters.  The silence standing on the platform this morning and later within the railroad car was deafening!  Hardly a word on the platform, and no words in the car.  You would think that, after many times riding together, people would grow friendly and chat.  Next time I'll try first class and see if it is different.

 Ruth Welker, my father's younger sister, died on Sunday after a lengthy illness, battling the cancer discovered soon after she and her husband, Jules, retired.  Ruth was my godmother.  I'm sure she said a few prayers for me over the years.  I must do the same for her!

12. The Holidays: Bob & Bobbie; Thanksgiving

Friday 22 November.  10 a.m.  Low clouds.  Not as cold, no frost.  My parents in town.  I am excited to see them, though, as I spoke to Brian the other day and listened to stories of usual family bickering, the prospects dimmed a little.  The other day, Monday I think, the second reading was about the exiles' return, Jews to Israel.  My return to England is something like that.

Friday – Sunday, London.  We take the 4:06 train to London and have a grand reunion with Bob and Bobbie and nephew William Stilwell at Waldorf.  It's just like they came across town, but with lots of bags and definitely more feeling.  We see "Miss Saigon" Friday night.  FAST!  Therese is the babysitter.  Afterwards, we have an Italian dinner on Catherine St. and drinks at the Waldorf Bar—Glenmorangie, and the bartender who guarantees to drink it if you don't like it!

Family Visitors

Welcome to London!

Saturday, Bob and I are off on our own.  First to Burlington Arcade, little birthday shopping for Cathy.  We walked leisurely down Bond Street, stopping at Asprey.  Then to Oxford Street and back down Regent, with a stop at Burberry's for Michael Davitt.  Then to Ritz for a few drinks, Cordings for shirts and Hatchard's booksellers where we see Ginger Rogers signing books.  Back to Waldorf, drinks at Savoy (me: Glenmorangie, Bob: vodka and water); then Tea.  I walk around Covent Garden afterwards (Penthaligon/bottle of Glenmorangie), then the four of us go to the Savoy for a lovely dinner with Linford and Catherine Rees.  Old stories.  Nice time.  Linford is 77.

Sunday, 9:30 mass at Corpus Christi.  Church is as deserted as 11 a.m. Latin mass.  Thames boat ride from Charing Cross to Greenwich and back by 1 pm.  4:41 train (just missed 3:41) back home.  Drop Bob and Bobbie off at Saffron Walden Hotel.  We have a nice dinner at 8 Bells.

The weather is milder.  Sun and clouds.  No need for scarf and gloves.  William is very quiet!

Monday, 25 November.  Lunch at Bumbles.  Mushroom soup! I was sick later; tried to walk it off but couldn't and stayed in bed the rest of the day.  Cathy went to Nemonthron with Bob and Bobbie for dinner.

Tuesday, 26 November.  Lunch in Cambridge at Don Pasquale (I limit myself to soup and Coke).  Walking Tour at 2 pm with Marit, then to St. John's for pick-up.  Cathy makes lovely lamb dinner.  After dinner we are entertained by the children's play, which receives great reviews.  It's a cops and robber story.  William is the bad guy, Jeffrey talks on the phone.  Mara is the wife and Robert the cop.  Afterwards, Bobbie gives Jeffrey acting advice.

Wednesday, 27 November.  I travel with mom and dad on the 10:57 train into London. Light grey skies, but mild.  We take a taxi to Harrod's, where we have lunch and wine.  Dad buys a new pair of socks—he had been wearing a mixed pair; I look for a scarf for Cathy (£120!).  We take a taxi to see Dr. Roger Crane (PhD.).  We have a lovely time.  He has much of the day scripted because he cannot talk except by air through his throat—it sounds like bumps but understandable if you watch.  Looks like Buck Henry, works on his Apple.  He has pictures of the old days, copies for mom.  We see the Guinea card and make arrangements for 8 pm dinner.  The three of us adjourn to the Burlington Arcade, then Le Meridien for drinks (Dubonet), then we walk down Regent to the Guinea.  Roger smokes cigars—even though he had lost his larynx.  The two of us enjoy a Bolivar together.  Great dinner.  Roger brought lots of writing paper, but Bob hogged the pen and paper.  I just like the conversation.  10:40 return—10 to 15 minute wait at Audley End for taxi.

Thursday, 28 November.  Thanksgiving.  Cathy in kitchen all day.  I clean up, but down to Hoops for lunch with Mom and Dad.  William at school with the kids.  We've been eating Captain Crunch cereal all week.  I make it to high tea at Robert's class, where I speak with Vicky Phew and Annabelle Bruner: Robert is doing great!  Back home and lovely Thanksgiving, including a nice visit with Christo and Branwyn, our St. Johns' friends from South Africa.  My cousin Diane calls out of the blue—she knows I am in England and has misplaced her husband!  I help by explaining that she was talking to a fax machine that's why no answer in her search for Jim.  This is the last I heard from her.  Missed Jeffrey's First Communion class, but speak with Father Edmond.  I make reservations for the beautiful and expensive Waterside Inn.

Thursday 28 November.  11 p.m.  After Thanksgiving meal.  I wonder if I am the new generation: we pack up our bags and travel across the world and feel at home.  An American woman who married a British man 20 years ago spoke on the radio today of the differences between the US and the UK.  An example:  In the US women at 50 should look like Joan Collins, get a face lift, tuck, implant, etc.  In the UK a woman should follow the Queen Mum, the Queen certainly does!  What she said made sense this morning, yet this evening I remembered an earlier thought: big cities are alike.  It is different here: attitudes are different, British are restrained, Americans exuberant by nature; but how do I explain feeling so at home?  Faxes, CNN and satellite television all make us more alike.  Then again, we've been here for awhile and perhaps the strangeness is wearing off.

I notice how much easier it is to see your own country's traits when viewed from afar: exuberance, egalitarianism; these are American adjectives.

As I listened to a review of Jekyll/Hyde by the Royal Shakespeare Company now playing, I thought also of Dorian Grey: idea of thing (primitive?) hidden within (a la Darwin?).

Top: Thames Boat Cruise;
Bottom: Thanksgiving Week Breakfast

Top: William in Cambridge;
Bottom: Heading off to St. John's

11. Mozart in Cambridge; Red Berries

Monday 18 November.   12:40 p.m.

I am feeling greater and greater pressure to produce something, as my parents come and then as Cathy's parents come.  All the letters to me as well, how's the writing, etc.  I guess I will plug away at the old stuff and see what becomes of my efforts.

Finished Canto X of Purgatorio and struck by the lines:

My eyes promptly toward him, for a strong

Desire possessed them (it's the way I'm made)
To see whate'er new thing might come along.

-- sounds like my wanderings!

10:20 p.m.  Returned from Mozart's Mass by London Festival Orchestra at King's College Chapel.  We sat in the front of the church, in the choir area, in fine old wood carved seats.  The orchestra was in the back, out of sight (we had the cheap seats), though our immediate surroundings almost made up for not being able to see the orchestra.  At one point, at the end of the Gloria, I feel asleep and, as I awoke, halfway between dreaming and waking, for a moment I thought I was in a scene straight out of Dante, as Virgil and Dante pass through the gates to Purgatory and hear the angels singing! 

What a terrific contrast to last week's performance by the McCapra Quartet in the old Pembroke College library.  The surroundings in the library were intimate; indeed my view was directly to the naked back of Ms. McCapra, as I watched her muscles move with her intense involvement in her violin playing.  Tonight was intimate in a different way.  Since we couldn't see the orchestra, it was up to each person to do what he will with it.  I gazed all around at the magnificent church architecture, the wood carvings, the ceiling fans, the seats, the night-blackened stained glass windows.  In the beginning of the concert I tried to read Virgil, but after the first movement gave up totally to the music.  I found it much more engaging, emotionally, than usual for Mozart.  To make everything just right, at the beginning of the concert one of the supervising ushers announced that the hostages Terry Waite and Terry Sutherland had been freed and that the Mass was dedicated to them.  The group, not that large, gave a round of applause.  The same announcement was made by the conductor on the other side of the wood screen (on top of which is the organ), when he came on to a larger round of happy applause.

After the concert, we exited to find the streets all wet, not from a heavy rain, but from one of those (seemingly typical) light rainfalls that doesn't seem to really interfere with plans, but makes the streets so wonderfully reflective of the night lights.

Idea for essay: God in Las Vegas.

Tuesday 19 November.  9:30 a.m.  It is a cold, windy, rainy morning and the forecast is for more of the same today.

Cathy reported a bit of local wisdom the other morning after her morning coffee with Debbie: if there are a lot of red berries then the winter will be a harsh one.  There do seem to be a lot of red berries.  It is really quite lovely, all the different kinds of berries; even the rose hips outside my window, on the rose bushes, which have now lost their leaves.  In the front we have a small tree in flower!  Does the tree think it's spring?

Yesterday pushed through and read up to Canto X of Purgatorio, which I like better than Inferno.  Purgatorio seems more philosophical, more relatable to my life than hell, though I saw myself in many different levels of hell.  In any event I did not get much done yesterday besides Dante, though I did read up a little on poetic meter and scanned ten of my poems in an effort to see which of them I should pursue further.  A bit surprised yesterday to find I liked the older stuff (1986) more, but perhaps that is simply because it seems fresher.

IDEA: Without our familiarity with myths, we must turn to memory as a guide, as a teacher, as proof of our own importance.  Myths: what great stories of explanation!  So in memory we try to invent our own great stories.

The small space heater I bought now goes on and off all day to warm my feet and legs.

Wednesday 20 November.  1:10 p.m.  Purgatorio, Canto XXVII.  Dante's dream of Leah and Rachel: active vs. contemplative life.  I find myself very much involved in the contemplative life!

Thursday 21 November.  9:35 a.m.  Foggy.

Tuesday we had the heat on all day.  Daily mass a couple of times.  Picked up the children at 3 or so—school traffic!  Today, cleaning ladies first visit.  Sunrise: 7:30; sunset: 4:03.

I have been thinking lately (and before), that I don't really know how to love God.  How can I relate to a Being which is perfect, so far from me?  Yet God created each individual out of love for that individual.  He is the source of all things.  How can I fail to love such a giving Being?

Of course, I am very grateful to God, thankful to Him for all He has given to me.  But is that the same as love?  If not, do thankfulness and appreciation lead to love?  Can they ever lead to love, or is one left with appreciation?  If I were to merit Paradise, I would surely be on a very low level, never having learned to really and truly love God.

Perhaps my problem is that I do not really believe God did all this, i.e., in Dante's language, I love a tree (secondary thing) because it is a thing of natural beauty and not because it is God's creation. If I really thought that God was the artist how could I help but love the originator of such art/handiwork?

11. London: Me and My Girl

Thursday 14 November.  1:40 p.m.  Am working on my idea of place, using Flintridge as a sort of yardstick to measure other places, but not quite sure how to develop it.  Aside from the themes of east/west, society/natural world, I'm not sure what way to go;  back and forth?  First frozen windscreen (windshield).  Cathy to Debby's in the morning.  Working at my desk.

4:37.  Glancing through my notebooks for poems, I pass, unsuspectingly, through my goals for the year: a play, two books of poetry, book of essays, etc.  Lately I have been disappointed in what I have done.  Feel like Eliot's Prufrock, not daring enough, my efforts simply weak attempts which make no real effort to rock the boat.  Then I work a little, put aside what I've done before and try something new.  I now have five things going without any feeling that I'm on the right track.

Perhaps I should simply get on with things.  I can't forever put off finishing something or carrying it forward because I'm afraid I'm not on the right track.  I simply need to buckle down and workmanlike pursue the efforts I have begun.

It is true that I was impelled to work on my autobiography by a need to explore myself, but also a need to escape!  Now that I have escaped, I must be more realistic and realize that everything cannot seem divinely inspired, some must be the result of hard work.

Saturday 16 November.  8:26 a.m.

Friday morning I took a long walk through Pound Walk and back through Birdy Farm.  Reviewed my poems.  Listened to Dylan tapes.  Cleaned house.  First gardener visit?

Today, British Rail from Audley End to Liverpool Street Station.  We have lately been noting dead pheasants on the road.  To go back a bit, we began noticing a lot of pheasants in the fields in October.  At first it seemed it was only in the morning or evening.  They usually stay close to the hedges and thickets at the corners of the fields.  Then we started seeing more and more of them, often as many as ten or so, pecking the ground, eating.

It seemed that the number of pheasants diminished after our return from Ireland, back to a few in the field corners in the morning and evening as before, or so it has seemed.

 Returning home from school around 5 o'clock on our anniversary, October 14th, on the Littlebury/Audley End Road, we made our star spot: two deer bucks and a doe standing near the road across from Audley End, plainly visible in the dusk.

 Thomas now says "smoking," a recent advance over "moking."

 Anyway, over the past two weeks I have noticed several dead pheasants in the road and am curious to know why they now appear on the road, as if they had a sudden compulsion to cross to the other side.  For what?  More food?  Urge to see the other fields?  Are they children whose nature urges them to set off and find their own stomping grounds?  Very curious.

 Saturday – Sunday, 16 – 17 November.  London.  A second Saturday off for Robert.  We take the early train on Saturday, check in at the Waldorf, then joint the hour and a half double-decker bus ride of London.  It is cold on the upper level outside!  We have a lovely lunch at Bertorelli's in Covent Garden.  Cathy and I leave the children at the hotel, do a little shopping, then meet up at the National Portrait Gallery for a half an hour visit.  In the evening we all attend the 8 p.m. show of "Me and My Girl" at the Strand.  Everyone enjoys it.  On the walk from the hotel to the theatre, we notice the homeless settling in for the evening in the doorways.

 Sunday I go for a 30 minute run on the Embankment and down Whitehall.  We have breakfast at the Waldorf, then attend the 11 a.m. Latin mass at Corpus Christi on Maiden Lane.  Afterwards our day is filled with a visit to Covent Garden, Picadilly, Regent's Park and the Zoo.  We grab a cab to hotel, have dinner at the Brasserie (with Thomas asleep).  Finally, we take a taxi down Oxford and Regent streets for the Christmas lights, which after rain in the early evening are quite pretty streets.  6:41 return train.  Home by 8.