An American Abroad

"In a funny way nothing makes you feel more like a native of your own country than to live where nearly everyone is not. For twenty years, being an American was my defining quality. It was how I was identified, differentiated." - Bill Bryson, I'm a Stranger Here Myself

Leaving and Leaving You

And just like that, a year has gone by. It's officially been one year since I've moved to London. A year that's been undoubtedly exciting: exploring a new city, reconnecting with old friends, making new ones. But also a year of longing: missing New York (which feels more like 'home' now that I'm 3000 miles away) and missing loved ones.

I spent part of last weekend at the Southbank Centre, which is hosting the Festival of Britain. As part of the Festival, there are some Scottish poems exhibited, including the following poem by Sophie Hannah. It's perhaps a little maudlin, but it seems especially fitting today.

Leaving and Leaving You

When I leave your postcode and your commuting station,
When I leave undone the things that we planned to do,
You may feel you have been left by association,
But there is leaving and there is leaving you.

When I leave your town and the club that you belong to,
When I leave without much warning or much regret,
Remember, there’s doing wrong and there’s doing wrong to
You, which I’ll never do and I haven’t yet,

And when I have gone, remember that in weighing
Everything up, from love to a cheaper rent,
You were all the reasons I thought of staying
And you were none of the reasons why I went

And although I leave your sight and I leave your setting
And our separation is soon to be a fact,
Though you stand beside what I’m leaving and forgetting,
I’m not leaving you, not if motive makes the act.

Travel in London

Five months in, and despite the occasional mishap, I feel like I finally have the hang of London's beloved Tube. One of the best descriptions I've read comes from Bill Bryson's Notes From a Small Island:

"The best part of Underground travel is that you never actually see the places above you. You have to imagine them. In other cities, station names are drearily mundane: Lexington Avenue, Potsdamer Platz, Third Street South. In London, by contrast, the names nearly always sound sylvan and beckoning: Stamford Brook, Turnham Green, Bromley-by-Bow, Maide Vale, Drayton Park. That isn't a city up there, it's a Jane Austen novel."

(Although, if we're going to be fair, Bryson also points out that: "The problem with losing yourself in these little reveries is that when you surface things are apt to be disappointing. I came up now at Tower Hill, and there wasn't a tower and there wasn't a hill.")