Day Seventeen: London (My Birthday)

It’s a quarter past six and I am back at my dining room table, resurrecting my ritual of waking early to write (easily abetted by the fact my body is still registering Greenwich Mean Time).  I am about to confront the worst part of vacation – the point when it officially ends and one has to go back to work.

But before I do that and to clear out the queue of my writing, I do have a couple more blog posts to write about my trip.  

Day Seventeen: London.  My Birthday

As reluctant as I am to go back to work today, I confess that I was ready to go home.  The timing of this trip and the group with whom I wanted to travel meant we had to be in Ireland that last week of July… but it meant a long time living out of a suitcase if I wanted to be away on my birthday.  Actually, it wasn’t the suitcase that bothered me so much.  I lived in London, I know how to find a laundromat.  Mostly the fatigue came from the need to make something of every day.  Isn’t that something?  It’s an enormous opportunity to wake up each day and choose an adventure and say let’s do this with the moments granted.  How can I absorb what the world has to offer me?  I think that is a healthy chance – and one, certainly, that is not afforded every day of the year.  It can’t be.  Because it’s exhausting… and there comes a point where the absorption doesn’t go very deep.

So it is a little disappointing that the last day I had a chance to do this was my birthday.  The day of all days to get up and celebrate moments.  Never mind the fact it was my 40^th birthday.  I had given some thought for quite a while how I would spend the day.  London was such a special part of my life 14 years ago.  I had a lot of places (off the beaten path places) to which I liked to go.  Of course, I found a lot of those places in the dreary rainy cold of November when the tourist population was much less and there were fewer people about.  I had a mind to go back to Hampstead Heath and visit Highgate Cemetery again.  I really like London cemeteries.  But I had walked so much green in Ireland.  My feet were starting to hate me and it was quite hot in London.

I saw somewhere  - on a bus or in another museum or online – a reminder that the Magna Carta was on display at the British Library.  So I thought, okay, this is a year about writing.  Let’s go visit some books.

I deliberately made a later start, intending not to return to the hotel until after I went to the show for which I already had a ticket.  So I tidied up my suitcase to fit all my clothes and souvenirs and gifts.  I found the shortcut to the train station and set off on my day in London.

I got off in Leicester Square.  I worked in Soho when I lived there, a short walk from Leicester Square.  It took me a few weeks of living by the underground map before I realized how very easy it is to walk from Leicester Square to Picadilly to Soho to Trafalgar to Oxford Street.  I used to walk a lot back then in any case.  But as much as I love the ghostliness of the underground, walking is the only way to appreciate the coexisting ghostliness and vibrance of the city of London.

So I got off in Leicester Square intending to walk to Piccadilly where I would get coffee every morning before work and watch the business owners mop their sidewalks and the dust settle around the theaters that shut off their lights only a few hours before and the prostitutes made their morning walks back to wherever around the edges of the red light district.  I was there too late in the day for these observations and found that my favorite Starbucks was replaced by something… else.  There was another coffee shop, but it was too crowded to sit and people watch.

So I kept on going to Soho to find my other favorite place to sit – in Golden Square.  It is so named because of a small park of trees that change to a golden hue in the autumn.  This is somewhat unique in England, where the plentiful oaks mean that fall is mostly an ugly

brown and not the rainbow we have in New England.  That is a hub for video game manufacturing.  And I think ITV was there.  But there were a bunch of other production offices that meant sitting for coffee allowed me to eavesdrop on meetings about productions or pitches.  It also allowed me (who was obsessed with Gladiator in 2001) to walk by Ridley Scott’s office when I made my way to work.  I stumbled upon that office as some streets looked familiar in the haze of memory, but my coffee station was gone completely.  

I guess it just wasn’t meant to be.

There is a lot of construction happening in London.  A LOT.  Everywhere there were sidewalks with covered scaffolding.  Old buildings were coming down to give way to newer buildings.  It made me sad as I passed a series of historic buildings that were clearly being demolished to make way for something new.  It made me sad.  I recognize that sometimes old buildings just have to go – they aren’t efficient or safe or easy to navigate for people of certain abilities (especially in an old city like London).  But when the replacements aren’t built with materials that will endure that much time or lack the artistry of what came before, it is a loss.

I will say this for London and construction, though.  There is a requirement for an archeological survey when these things happen.  It is an opportunity to find more history from a city that has built on top of itself so many times.  That’s how they found the Globe theater.  It’s how they found an undetonated bomb from WWII and had to evacuate Bethnal Green the morning I had to leave London.  

I will also say, though, that it wasn’t just a grieving for architecture and history that gave me pause with all the construction.  I only know a little of what’s going on in Great Britain, but enough to know that David Cameron is a champion of austerity – at the cost to young adults and working classes.  There is a lot of seething economic turmoil happening there.  And while on the surface, it might be encouraging to see that new buildings are taking shape, it was not just a little startling to see so much of it… and wonder who has the money to do such things and who gets the money when they are done.

Anyway…

I guess that is a rather good segue to the Magna Carta.

I’d actually never been to the British Library.  I stayed near King’s Cross on my last visit and just managed to walk by it a few times.  This year – well this summer – they have a very detailed exhibition about the Magna Carta, which turns 800 this year.  An 800^th anniversary was a good perspective on 40.

It was very well done.  A lot of context that wasn’t supplied by the American history class reference that used the Magna Carta as the precursor to the Declaration of Independence.  Although, major props to them that they included the Declaration of Independence in the exhibit, a curious thing when you think it was Great Britain from whom that independence was declared.   

It’s funny, though, how King John is so integrated into the narrative of stories with which I am quite familiar.   I’m a huge fan of Robin Hood.  At some point in my Higgins learning I made the connection that a cartoon with foxes didn’t really supply – that the whiny lion was actually the reason we have a framework for democracy.  Or maybe it was at some point in my fascination with Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry II that I realized what a douche their son turned out to be.  And then of course, there is Shakespeare which was the only one of these referenced in the exhibit, who not surprisingly manipulated history to his story.  But there was no reference to the Magna Carta.  In 16^th century England, I wonder why that was the case.

I did hit that saturation level though.  I bought the audio tour that I appreciated a great deal, but by the time I got to Thomas Jefferson my mind was fading.  I did appreciate seeing the actual document.  They had two copies on display.  One that was in pretty good condition for an 800 year old document.  And then one that had a seal, but had met with a water spill or some heat or… well, anyone who has ever damaged an important document with a coffee spill can probably relate.  Only, this was not from the era of print another copy.  And it was the Magna Carta.  Whoever did that must have had a very bad day indeed.

I lingered at the library for a little bit longer.  I got some tea and checked my Facebook birthday wishes… because why not?  Then I went into their main exhibit to look at some of the other manuscripts.  There was a first folio of course (but at the risk of inciting the wrath of my fellow Shakespeare fans, I really don’t give a crap about the significance of the first folio.  I might care more if people weren’t so biblically worshipy about it.)  My favorite was, of course, a manuscript of Jane Eyre.  It was cool… but sterile.  I think there were too many people in that room and everything was (understandably) behind glass and in low lighting.  The soul of the writer was scrubbed out of it by careful presentation and scholarly placards.  Writing is messy.  The mess was so invisible to the eye that I couldn’t embrace the beauty of being so close to the ink that set the first thoughts or edits to the page.  Maybe I was just tired and need to go back when there are less people.  Although, I did appreciate the birthday card to Julian Lennon on the back of which was written the lyrics to A Hard Day’s Night.

I left the Library and headed back to the train.  I had a few hours before I could claim my seat at the theater, but I decided to head to Covent Garden anyway.  I figured I could find a place for a cup of tea or coffee and enjoy some music.  It was so crowded there.  Duh.  But I did find a nice little café where I could enjoy some tea and people watch.  There was some music and a man on a unicycle juggling plastic daggers.  The street performers there are really something.  It was a little (LOT) disheartening, though, to see a Disney store next to a Build a Bear workshop right next to the Opera House.  Guess Eliza Doolittle doesn’t sell flowers any longer.

I ended the day at the Donmar Warehouse.  I’ve read about and watched filmed versions of plays that have been staged there for years.  It isn’t a huge theater and they often put on plays featuring a major star that sell out quickly.  Part of the appeal is the star.  The other appeal is that it is an intimate theater and allows a way of staging plays so the audience can be part of the world.  It must have been very interesting to be in that space for the very bloody Coriolanus last year.

The play I saw was Splendour.  I chose it first because of the theater.  I chose it second because it featured four women, was written by a woman, and directed by a woman.  It wasn’t exactly subject matter one would think to enjoy on her birthday.  Everyone said go see a musical or Shakespeare while you’re in London.  Obviously I adore one of those.  I enjoy the other.  But I really wanted to see theater I probably wouldn’t see on the other side of the pond.  And that’s what I did.  The premise is a photojournalist has come to an unnamed (but resembling an Eastern European) country to take a portrait of a dictator.  He is not at home, but his wife is.  She invites her best friend for support.  The journalist has an interpreter who is from the ‘North,’ a place typically at odds with the regime of the dictator.  They all speak in English, but they don’t all speak English.  It was a fascinating story told in clever sequencing and establishing how a difference of light changes the scene.  The set was amazing – a circle within a pool of broken glass.  I heard the house manager comment to someone in front of me (who clearly was familiar to the theater) how expensive the (actually soft) glass was and the concern that audience members would take some home as a souvenir.

The cast featured Sinead Cusack, whom I know best from my favorite North and South.  Though I know she is an esteemed actress in the UK.  (She is also married to Jeremy Irons).  I was so close, I could see the pores and wrinkles of her skin.  But her presence was admirable.  I recognized the woman who played her friend, but couldn’t figure out how.  It wasn’t until I looked up the playbill online (opting not to buy one that I would end up tossing in a recycling bin) that I realized she was Catelyn Stark from Game of Thrones – something that obviously slipped my brain because I’ve seen two episodes.

Anyway, they were all great.  The show was fantastic.  I was so glad to have been there, but ready to get to the hotel.  I walked to the train station, only to discover the Covent Garden station was shut down.  There is a lot of construction on the tube as well.  I got turned about trying to remember my compass from years ago and eventually found my way back to Leicester Square and then the hotel and then sleep.

I left at the beginning of the next day.  I was ready to go home.  Sad to leave and not really delighted by the extra hour we spent waiting for the plane to take off, but I did get to catch up on some movies on the plane and really appreciated coming home to my own bed and shower and laundry.