I move a lot. As any of you who know or may have known me I move a lot. It is very adult, and very scary. As a kid we look forward to the future excited to see who we may become. But as I grow closer to being an adult I realize that the future is always glistening on the horizon but our present just never seems to get there. When I was a child, I dreamed of one day traveling the world. Now as I spend my final night in my apartment with bags that are going to be supremely overweight and really wrack up the fees. I find that my great adventure is coming to an end. I have lived abroad for six months and sadly left behind a few great souvenirs that would not fit into the strained seams of my baggage.
It seems that at every transition in our lives there is a time for self-evaluation. Moving is one such transition. I am student so I am self-reflective at least twice a year. I am sentimental and I often associate memories with certain items. This is a type of hoarding. Since I no longer keep a dairy as often as I should I rely on objects and my memory to remind me of those moments that I would otherwise forget. But then I remember that this is foolish and I purge, or try to purge all the possession that I no longer need. So moving depresses me, as I throw out all my belongings collecting all my pens and the brick brack in the bottom of drawers and behind the dresser.
I think of London. London is kitschy. I once taught one of my friends that word and he used it so often it made me rue the day I did. Every outfit was “kitsch” whether it is a black evening gown or jeans a t-shirt. Every room was “kitsch” whether it was the décor of a modern sleek P.F. Changs restaurant or country kitchen style French restaurant Café Marmalade. Kitsch is a design term it means the collection of things that are unique and unusual that don’t seem to go together but somehow they do. It is the only way that the open air market of Camden Lock with its millions of food stalls, vintage and steam punk dress shops mixed with the shoe sellers can be in the same country as the elegant British Museum. The contrast is seen in the Houses of Parliament where the powerless House of Lords has entire hallways completely gilded in millions of pounds in gold while the House of Commons the lawmaking body is covered in only brass.
London has a flavor and a style all its own, and while I am eternally grateful to be a citizen of the US of A I sometimes wonder if we are the younger niece to a odd and stately Aunt England steeped in tradition, pomp and a little bit of humor. It was an empire that thanks to military and sea-faring advantages harvested and conquered and ruled the world. The tiny island, conquered vast tracks abroad, and they hold proud to that tradition. The UK is steeped in tradition and London just bleeds history. One of the most iconic moments of my young legal career was arguing in the Royal Courts of Justice beyond the bar in the “well” or “pit” were the real barristers stood and argued before the appellate court. Or at the Winter Ball in the ancient Inn at Middle Temple where the entire wooden interior was demolished in the Blitz. While the music roared and students and facility danced, some very warm and loose from the wine sold at the bar. People brought drinks with them onto the floor and shimmed while the sticky liquor sloshed onto the floor. The glasses shatter and sprinkled on the dance floor is still in the soles of my shoes. But this does not ruin the mood. Jovial and free spirited while I danced the night away with a guy 5 years my junior, I feel as if the whole place is pumping with joy and the whole city is rejoicing.
London is a city that has scars. The great gashes in the stone on sides of the Victoria and Albert Museum are proudly left unrepaired. A brass plaque on the wall of the building explains the marred stones. These are left from when the building withstood the bombings of Hitler’s planes. The city is accented everywhere in shiny black paint. It is piled on railings, doors and street lamps, thickly over the layer beneath giving everything an aged and broken look. The Churchill rooms remain a stalwart reminder that war was not so far behind us. But it also shows how much has changed.
Over a half a century ago, I could not have traveled from Germany to London with a mere stamp in my passports, but it is with Germany that also began my journey.
My trip began, dear reader, just months ago with another trans-Atlantic flight into Munchen. Where I would take a train into Augsburg and then take a cab to my new flat. Me and my luggage. It was fairly easy wheeling the two large bags into the courtyard of my new flat. I would then go for a long walk in search of a grocery store and my university. My time in Germany flew by there were so many trips and so much sun. When I think of Augsburg I don’t think of rain. I think of sundrenched streets that are completely cobbled. The Strassbaun is 70 Euros for the season. On that train we ride to the University were we sit in lectures two days a week. But after we don our swimsuits and head to the lake. Lake Cuzi has clear water and grassy beaches. Munich is a stately and grand city the glitter star of Bavaria with its massive gothic and neo-gothic building-Augsburg is my European Colorado Springs. A town that is practically perfect in every way. The city is small. For most a car is unnecessary, it is easy to walk. The people are kind. The best Italian food is right at my doorstep. But living there was like having a great quilt of pressed against my mouth. I speak no German and the Germans speak limited English, my witty quips and clever passes fall on ears struggling to understand. So the language muffles beyond the most basic communication.
A few weeks into the term another train would take me to Dachau. Dachau was a Nazi Prison camp. Thousands of Germans died here. This is where Hitler put all his political enemies. The temporary buildings of the camp stood for years after the prison camp became a prison for those who had committed the atrocities. Then it was a home for other refugees in the war torn country. Finally the buildings where torn down to get people to move out of the building and they were never rebuilt. The camp is silent, somber with the quiet echoes of the torture and death that was brutally and efficiently exercised. It reminds me that war is not so far away. It reminds me-that man is capable of great cruelty.
Squeezed right in the middle of my travels there was were the victims of the Holocaust were. Israel. I went to Jerusalem. Were the signs were in Hebrew and Arabic and the flags wave the blue and white Star of David. The state was formed while the wounds of World War II were still fresh. Israel is heat, razor wire, glass set in cement and history. The streets are narrow and small, the shook is busy and I am hot. Always hot. I really begin to wonder about the level of faith one should have to wear all those layers of clothing. The excavations in Israel reveal stones and cities from past generations like the city of David just outside the Damascus gate of the old city walls. You descend with virtually no light into a tunnel carved into pure rock with spring water lapping gently at your ankles and then calves and then your thighs as you all but crawl hunched through those tunnels. Those are the moments when you feel like your touching history. And when you look at the Garden of Gethsemane with the twisted olive trees and the church of all nations-you feel the peace and the pain. You feel your soul burn with such power that this mortal coil seems scarcely able to hold it. At the Garden Tomb the tomb at the foot of Golgotha you feel truth. It reminds me that man is offered redemption.
London felt like coming home. I could have a house and normal classes and hear English again. I could understand announcements, tell jokes, and follow directions. I see plays-Merry Wives of Windsor at the Globe theater, see Les Miserables, Wicked, Phatom of the Opera, Chicago, We Will Rock and Mama Mia. I take a train to the temple and perform baptisms. I head to Oxford and see the colleges and the inns that remind me of Harry Potter. I make friends at church and we go dancing. I shop at Camden market. I find new favorites the best ice cream made of liquid nitrogen, the best sausage Italian pasta, the best Pad Thai. I study and I pray for patience and displine and I enjoy London. But this tiny Island was expensive, a blinding blur of shops and rent and deposits drained my strained student finances, and yet I survived I return home poor as a church mouse but full of memories and souvenirs. Ready to take my heavy load home.
It was also another adventure in idioms. In the UK when you greet some one you say “allright?” One word. It is like saying “hello, how are you?” The acceptable reply is “Yeah.” Allright?” A duffle bag is a “holdall” also one word. The British love shorting words. Maybe it is them being on an island they don’t have room for extra letters.
So as I walk through the airport and hear the staff smile and say-“Allright” my heart patters a little and I walk through the gate.
