What I Would Have You Be

I do not know precisely when I realized that I am being inexplicably pulled toward England. I do not know why, in recent years, the thought of going there persists. I’ve not gone to England for several reasons. Money is one; school was an obstacle and now work is. A plane will be involved in my travel, and that is daunting.

But perhaps there’s another reason. The England I will encounter can in no possible way live up to the England of my imagination—the England that melds fact and fiction. I am quite certain that upon arrival I will meet talking beasts and hobbits. In this perfect world, precise gardens of hedgerows and rose bushes create charming utopias where private parties gather to gossip and while away the hours. Stately women—myself included, of course—wander the grounds in Victorian dress. Elegant men in topper and tails bring me glasses of champagne and offer me their arms for a turn around the garden. We shimmer in the beauty of an English country evening.

Time is not a limitation in this wonderland. And so it is that Elizabeth I mingles with Eliot, he charming her with love songs and quartets. Tolkien finds another world in Bloomsbury. Shakespeare and Holmes study each other warily. Lewis, Austin, and the Brontes banter most civilly about women in literature; their bone-china teacups clatter gently against saucers in the silences of a proper English stoicism. The Stones and the Who occasionally grace us with their presence with a concert on the lawn.

On a whim I’ll leave this idyllic setting and take a train to London to investigate teahouses and bookshops, boutiques and museums. Here, fog, like a cat, curls about the buildings, adding mystery and softness to the old streets. The city is overwhelmingly large and surprisingly quaint. Helen Mirren and I have a lovely chat while King Arthur passes us on horseback. Elizabeth II invites me to her castle for tea, and Jeanette Winterson autographs my books.

It is, as I’ve said, quite impossible.

One day I will go there, and although I’ll not find Narnia or Lothlorien, Austin or Holmes, I’ll find an England that is charming simply because it exists. And perhaps that’s the point of travel: we build it up so that we are reminded that places are real, that we are real.

Fish

Theme for this week: Travel.

I love sea creatures. I have loved fish, certainly, since I was a child--the result of spending summers on a lake. They provided my first lessons in ecology, biology, cooking, and perhaps strangely, reproduction. As I grew older, I became more fascinated by deep-sea fish, the cruel mechanics of their evolution, the desire simply to survive. In high school, I had the opportunity to study oceanography, and I fell in love with sea turtles and sea anemones. My parents once took me snorkling in the Caribbean where I looked a brain coral and eels up close. My greatest desire is to go down in a deep-sea submersible and see some of these amazing animals in their natural habitats.

On Tuesday, my last day in Seattle, my friend Rich had to work. I popped in my headphones and walked down to the Seattle Aquarium. It is the first time I have been to an aquarium since I was very small, and my parents took me to the one in Chicago. I don't remember very much about that one, except eating some fishsticks and walking into the building. I haven't been back as an adult, so I was pretty excited about getting to spend an entire day wandering around looking at fish.

(Domed Tank, Seattle Aquarium)

It was marvelous. I had been traveling for about a week at this point, staying first with friends in Portland and then with Richard in Seattle, so I had very little time to myself. I was feeling a little out-of-sorts (as will happen to an introvert who doesn't get any time to herself) and the opportunity to wander around a new city without any demands on my time or attention was a beautiful experience. Add to that the opportunity to see starfish, sea horses, fish-eating aneomones, sea urchins, seals, otters, pelicans, clownfish, giant prawns, jellyfish, and octopi, and I was (pardon the colloquialism) happier than a pig in shit.

What fascinates me most about marine life is its combination of easy gracefulness and its strength and--frankly--terror. I love that it many species manage to be both beautiful and resilient. Adaptable. Even those species of fish that are most grotesque, the ones that live below the photic zone in the ocean and the sort of things that exist only in your nightmares--all sharp teeth and blind eyes--amaze me in their brute strength, their ability to survive despite all odds. I am captivated and stunned by the ocean. In its beauty and grace. Its adaptations and grotesqueness.

***

Starfish

With one tentative finger I reach into the cool water

and gently prod its bony ridges. The animal--

or maybe fish?--does not move, but accepts my poke.

It is the first starfish I have seen in many years,

since my parents took me to the aquarium

as a curly-haired, serious little girl, Or, perhaps,

it was before that. My grandmother brought back

one that washed up on the shore.

She kept it on a shelf in a curio cabinet,

along with a small Irish prayerbook,

some pictures of Ellis Island,

and an icon of Saint Christopher,

with a small votive candle burning before it.