In Oxford

“I’m proud of you,” I heard him say. “You’re crowding me,” is what he actually said. We were in bed in our rented flat in Oxford, a bed somewhat narrower than what we’re used to, and Monte has been sick with a cough the whole time we’ve been here, and it’s cold outside. The hedges and leaves are frosted, a white cloud of fog hovers over the streets, the sidewalks are slick, and I am a clumsy assemblage of layered garments, a slow-moving animal in an alien environment, my true self hidden, my fingers stinging, my eyes in search of sunlight. 

We walk the familiar stretch to our daughter’s house and try to make ourselves useful. And now Alice the Unlikely, the Tiny Implausible Wonder, is curled up on her grandfather’s chest, the two of them asleep on the sofa, occasionally a snuffle sound comes from one or the other, and I look out the front window at people passing in silent slow motion, aware that I am squandering this unbooked bit of time in idleness, but unable to think of a pastime more worthy than sitting here.

Swaths of my homeland are burning now and we are never safe. We have long lived with go-bags and a realistic awareness of vulnerability, but until recently it was easier to believe that slowly we were going in the right direction, and now, there’s a sickening sense that our country is about to go off the rails, a feeling of free-fall. I’ve written too much about it already and I have nothing more to add. I will never understand it, as long as I live, but I hope the disillusionment will not consume me.  

Maybe what I’m doing here now is shutting down, resting, steeling myself, culling, lightening, waiting, readying for restart. I exchanged emails yesterday with an old friend who lives in Altadena. “We are surrounded by destruction,” she writes, “but our house survived, and although we live in a dystopian world and are facing many threats, we cannot do much except comfort others and contribute to positive causes. Reading about particle physics has calmed me down considerably.” I wish I knew enough about particle physics to even begin to find its calming effect, but I like her spirit.

This is a strange and puzzling time, so happy and sad, and I have not yet figured out who I am here, and sometimes it’s all very confusing, but I am so grateful to see my beautiful daughter mothering her newborn, trying to remember being that to her, but it feels like a lifetime ago. A friend sends me a picture of home, the beach at low tide, and I sigh and set out in search of beauty here. I love the bare trees and old stone cottages, the mossy gravestones in a village churchyard, tipping into one another, women briskly pedaling their bicycles, robust and rosy-cheeked, oblivious to cold. 

Consolation for loss and disappointment: a tiny little bundle, yearned for, strived for, prayed for, so fervently wanted, so almost-not, and here she is. Oh,the sweetness and promise of it, the terror, the faith, the bravery. Let me close with joy and gratitude  for the miracle of that tiny bundle I have held in my arms, and for the little boy who read to me yesterday, painstakingly sounding out each word, and for the bolts of bright sunlight through the window, and the warmth of this room right now.