Closing the Door

There are any number of quotes about London that come to mind as we leave.  But this best represents the sentiment:

"If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast."--Hemingway

London is the new Paris.

It was before seven in the morning a few weeks ago and the captain said we were landing at Heathrow. He said it in the way they say it, two words, Heath--Row. And my stomach was excited in a new way, all the thrill of going home coupled with the anticipation of being away.

We would only be in London for 10 days, some final clean up at the office, pack up the apartment, attend the Olympics.  And ten days later the call from the stewardess was "We are arriving in Dulles Washington" as she called it.  It didn't have the same appeal.

I’ve tried to identify the emotion we are experiencing.  Why can't I put my finger on what it was that I felt when I closed the door on that house and this year?

It is an ending.  It’s not a movie or a vacation or a restaurant we can return to.  It's most akin to the end of college.  

I can go back to Ann Arbor, but not as an 18 year old. I can walk down State Street but the bars are filled with different students making their own memories.  There isn't a Sammy house full of brothers, those aren't my books, my beer, my teachers or my first taste of freedom. They now belong to someone else.  Only the memories are mine.

So yes, we’ll go back to London.  And we'll even return to 9 Abbey Gardens, but not as a resident.  We'll never stay in that neighborhood as a neighbor.  And in the end that's what makes me long for it, as I did when I left anything for the last time and it was termed a Commencement:  Because you can go home again, but sometimes the home isn't there, just the house is.

Thoreau said when he left his cabin on the shores of Walden Pond: “I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."

And so we return to the common hours.

Small Town, London Town

The town is festooned in a pinky-red color that is officially magenta-pink or Olympink as they call it.

"It's a great time to be British" screamed the newspaper headline, "The Greatest Show on Earth" another shouted.

The world is coming to London and what they will find is a small town.  The little island that it is.

When Bradley Wiggins won the Tour de France there was discussion of him being Knighted, how much he should make and the pride of the country.  A cabbie remarked to me the other night on a ride home:  "You know Wiggo is from around here.  Just over by Maida Vale."  The Queen wrote him a note.  He is part of the family.

The context for the Olympic newscasts is based around the weather and the UK medal count.  There are countdowns and medal watches as the Brits claim their first medal, or the heroes that are born:  "This is the first gymnastics medal since Stockholm 1912."

It is all about Team GB.

There is pride at the Summer they have had with the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, The Premier League finish, a good run at the Euro Cup, and now the Summer Olympics.

After the opening ceremony all the Brits wanted to know what the visitors thought.  And inevitably non-Brits expressed their enjoyment of it, but questioned certain parts:  The bouncy hospital beds?  An ode to the NHS? The Arctic Monkeys?

The Brits enjoyed the confusion.  When you express your skepticism they smile and say, "Yes, it was all very British."

They are very pleased that London is the center of the universe.  Again.

The Warmth of the Crowd

What if they held an Olympics and nobody showed?

Earlier this week I switched tube lines because they threatened mass chaos.  They were on time and lightly traveled.

Sunday at Camden Market one of the merchants asked another: "This is the week of the Olympics, right?"


And then the real controversy erupted over empty seats that weren't dotting the venues, but covering vast swaths from football to fencing because "corporates" didn't show up.

Finally last night we got on a packed tube, crushed between the unwashed masses who crammed the train, walked among stumbling people who didn't know where they were going.  Finally, the Olympics were in full swing.

First Timers

You know it's the Olympics when you're late for dinner because watching the gold medal round of Men's Archery is more important.

You know it's the Olympics when you stand shivering in the cold at 11:30 at night watching bikini clad women play beach volleyball in the shadow of 10 Downing Street.  


Since there are no sandy beaches nearby, the Olympic Committee shipped in tons of sand and dumped them in a parking lot behind the home of the Prime Minister where we wrapped ourselves in American flags and screamed for Misty May to bring home the gold.


The location for the beach volleyball is the equivalent of playing on the South Lawn of the White House.


In the shadows of the evening we could see people walking on the roof of the Prime Minister's house.  This didn't seem odd to us, we'd watched for years as the White House was defended from above.  However, the announcer of the beach volleyball game asked all of us to wave at the man on the roof, because instead of carrying a gun he held a brush.  He was commissioned by the Mayor of London to paint the scene of the different venues and tonight it was us.

The Big O

In London there is great concern over their future.  But they love their history.

Throughout the opening ceremonies every quirky reference, every Royal mention, every obscure rugby scene was met with hoots and howls of recognition and appreciation.

Living in London you respect the quirkiness of their cleverness, even if at times you feel you aren't quite in on the joke. Watching the opening ceremonies with 30,000 people in Hyde Park was like sitting with a host of interpreters as they laughed and loathed each reference.  And if you eavesdropped just a bit, most of it made sense.

But this is modern day Britannia, not the place of Shakespeare or even Dickens.  So when Kenneth Branagh read an extended quote from The Tempest, finishing Caliban's speech:  "Ready to drop upon me/that when I waked/I cried to dream again."  The guy next to me yelled:  "F*ck Yea Bill!"

The town is bathed in sunlight and awash in pride over the Olympics. The media is caught up in the Team GB spirit which is why Mitt Romney got pummelled for even suggesting they weren't up to the task.  The country is in a double dip recession, the city is reeling from banking crisis to banking scandal and they want something to cheer about.  And right now there is no place more cheerful than London.

At Home...Temporarily

We are pattern-seekers.

I woke up on a Monday and walked Abbey Gardens to Abbey Road, to Langford to Loudoun to Grove End to St. John's Wood tube which took me to London Bridge.to King William Street, to Eastcheap to Philpot Lane to Lime Street.

I woke up the following Monday and took Burning Tree Court to Burning Tree Road, to GreenTree to Fernwood to Democracy, to Old Georgetown Road, to Edson to Rockville Pike.

They are both commutes.  One is faster than the other.  One involves a car, the other my legs and a Tube.

We had spent the previous weeks and months preparing the children for their re-entry.  Only in the wee hours of the night was there time to imagine what life back home would be for us.  All our friends implored, "nothing changed."  And on a grand scale nothing did.  But we changed, didn't we?

In a few days you are back in a rhythm, a routine of work, letters to camp, weekends, workouts, lunches, and meetings.

But as the days inch along the notion that nothing changed was a realization, not a warning.  Part of why we left was the change, we were eager to come back as changed people, do things differently, not as the same lemmings who left.


There was no comfort in "no change."  There was disappointment.

And then after a particularly industrious week of meetings downtown, up and back on the Metro, instead of the car.  After drinks with friends.  After a business trip and some meals at familiar places, the comforts of home.  You realize the phrases you'd been repeating to the kids, the concepts of resilience, challenges, mountains and molehills may have actually been a mantra for ourselves.

You are resilient.  Life back home was pretty good.  You're gonna be OK.

Penultimate

We left London in stages, the final one yet to come.  But for the last 10 days in June it was just me and the youngest.  A gift really.  We had 10 breakfasts and 10 swim practices and 10 nights of homework and 10 walks home and 20 play dates and a weekend.

There were tears when Mommy and the others left.  But then there was the build up to the end of school, the final projects, the last dance.

A couple nights after the others left as I was putting her to bed it started to sink in:  "So Josh and Jessie will never sleep in their beds again will they?"  No they won't.  "They'll never be in this house again?"  I closed the door to the two empty rooms and didn't open them again.

Midway through the final stretch she and I were home from swimming, having dinner and doing homework and I said something to the effect of how nice it was, getting all this done, nobody else around.  But she gave me a look.  She knew.  It was weird to be in a half empty house.

And as the final days ticked down each night she put up a brave face, kissed me goodnight.  But I could hear the tears through her pillow.

One night around eleven I went into her room.  Even two floors away I could hear her sadness.  And I stood by her bed and she looked up with red cheeks and in her eyes she was asking me what had she done wrong?  And I had no answer to the question of why it hurt so much when she did everything right.  She embraced it from the start, did everything we asked and yet, it hurt the most.

And then there were going away parties and the last everything: Last swim practice, last bus ride to Queen's Grove, last dinner with Olivia, Maddy, Darcy, Georgia, Franny, Lior.  And the last trip to Westfields.

And then the last day of school.  And she sat on the steps waiting for her bus and drinking Perfectly Clear, her fave morning beverage.  And she looked up at me and said:  "Daddy, I wish I could just bottle the air."

On the final night she wanted to go to the High Street and get Gelato Mio.  Her wish was my command.  And then we walked home and watched the tourists stop traffic as they tried to get their pictures on the Abbey Road cross walk.  And then, just like a tourists, she borrowed a pen and wrote on the wall, thanking this place for the best year of her life.