I have mixed feelings about who I am but that is OK, I’m a little bit of everything.
Paddington Bear
Sunday, June 8
L and I have arrived in London. We were in the United Kingdom last year and got engaged; this year we are back for someone else’s wedding.
I am exhausted by the time we check in to the Z Hotel Soho. The room is cramped. Your arms can almost stretch from one side of the room to the other. Most of the floor space has already been claimed by our limited luggage. The small room does not bother me though. Sleeping on planes is impossible for me, and the ten-hour flight from Phoenix has sapped all my energy. I take a quick nap while L goes to look around the nearby Uniqlo.
Eventually, I am able to drag myself out of bed. Soho is even busier than the next-door neighborhood of Covent Garden where we stayed last year. Our hotel is right next to the Palace Theatre where Harry Potter and the Cursed Child plays most afternoons and evenings. The crowds are thick but never unmanageable.
We grab dinner at Rock and Sole Plaice, one of the city’s best chippies. Unlike many fish and chip spots, RSP has an extensive variety beyond just the standard cod or haddock.
I decide on skate for dinner, a rare find on most menus. This was always my granddad’s favorite type of fish. Unlike most fried fish, the skate is served on the bone. Pulling the meat from these bones which resemble the strings of a harp is a bit of a faff. The extra effort though is worth it for the strong, yet still clean, flavor of the meat. My granddad had good taste.
Monday, June 9
Our London trip last year hit virtually all of the tourist highlights: Big Ben, the London Eye, Tower Bridge, and, of course, Warner Bros. Studio Tour London – The Making of Harry Potter. This year we can take it slower and go further afield while still being complete tourists.
In the morning, we check out Liberty department store. While Harrod’s and Fortnum & Mason are more popular, Liberty and its Tudor revival architecture is the most attractive building. The prices, however, are astonishing. A room filled with £10,000 rugs makes me gasp. Liberty’s tailors can make beautiful custom clothes, but at £12 for a single button, I will never be able to afford this. L and I are usually suckers for buying souvenirs, but this is one of the few stores in London where we buy nothing.
In the afternoon, we take a District line train to its end in Richmond, the setting for Ted Lasso and the fictional AFC Richmond team.
Ted Lasso is a show I adore. The first two seasons are near perfect television. The third season, while still good, was a major letdown though. I am still upset though that they showed who won the Premier League between AFC Richmond and Manchester City in the epilogue of season 3. Knowing who won goes against Ted’s quote from season 1, “Success is not about the wins and losses. It’s about helping these young fellas be the best versions of themselves, on and off the field.” Sometimes writers lay all the groundwork for a thematically resonant ending, only to drop the ball at the end (e.g. Lost). Nonetheless, I still love Ted Lasso.
We head straight over to Richmond Green and grab a pint at The Prince’s Head, known as The Crown & Anchor in the show. Next, we visit the Ted Lasso shop, right where Ted’s flat is supposed to be. I walk away with an AFC Richmond jersey.
Afterwards though, L and I just explore Richmond. While Richmond Green feels like the heart of the town, it is easy to escape from everything by going to the much larger Old Deer Park. Despite still being in zone 3 of metropolitan London, Richmond feels almost like a countryside escape from the hectic city. L would rather stay in the heart of London, but I could definitely see myself living here.
Tuesday, June 10
After yesterday’s success with Richmond, we take a different train to its terminus: the Victoria line to Brixton. I can definitely not see myself living there.
We go to the Jellycat Fish & Chip Experience at Selfridges department store. We are the only adults here without kids. L is more excited about this than anything else on the trip. She debates which of the four exclusive Jellycat stuffies to get: Lily Fish, Cozy Chips, Dot & Peg Mushy Peas, or Amuseables Sausage. We end up buying all of them.
The clerk at the counter puts on a good show. We play hot potato with Cozy Chips, add imaginary salt and vinegar to Amuseables Sausage, pull Lily Fish out of the fryer, and watch Dot & Peg bristle with excitement. He wraps up each plush in Jellycat-themed newspaper. At the end, the clerk thanks us for genuinely participating. Most adult-only groups that come here probably want to get out as soon as possible to scalp these exclusive toys, but our excitement is real. We would never sell our new members of the family.
But four is not enough. L also wants Onnie the pickled onion. Once again, I am having another fish-and-chips-related flashback to my granddad who would always make jars of delicious pickled onions. Growing up, my sister would eat them for every lunch during the winter. Today, my mom carries on the tradition and makes those same onions every year. Naturally, Onnie has to be my favorite one of the bunch.
Next, we grab the Elizabeth line out to Reading. My cousin B and his girlfriend V have just gotten off work. They pick us up, and we grab a delicious dinner at the Highwayman Inn. B and V have recently returned from several months of post-graduation travel around Latin America and southeast Asia. Their tales are exciting, but as a big fan of air conditioning and luxury hotels, hearing their stories is more exciting to me than living them myself.
The time flies as we talk. I can barely remember what I ate and drank. Soon enough, we are back at the train station ready to get home. The four of us huddle around trying to squeeze every minute out of the day that we can. If I am lucky, I get to see my extended family once every year or two, so moments like this are so valuable. Up this far north on the globe in the summertime the sun cooperates and refuses to go down.
B describes where they live as suburban hell. Maybe one day, he says, they’ll even relocate outside of the UK. Reading and England seem great to me, but we all have that wanderlust inside of us wondering if the grass is greener somewhere else.
Wednesday, June 11
The Vaudeville Theatre has quickly filled up. We are all here to watch Six, the musical about the six wives of Henry VIII. As a dumb American, I know virtually nothing about the history of other countries. I can just about remember that Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn were Henry’s first two wives, but everything else has either escaped my mind or never been there in the first place.
The show is fun and feels more like a Spice Girls concert than a traditional musical. The set and costume design is an enthralling mix of modern pop show meets Tudor aesthetics. The musical numbers are all catchy, but the best is “All You Wanna Do” which is an earworm that tells a dark story of all the men who used and abused Catherine Howard.
Six is a short show with no intermission, so it definitely does not overstay its welcome. Nonetheless, the ending is a disappointment. As expected in these sorts of narratives, the six wives set aside their differences and come together, but this is done in a cloyingly meta method. The fourth wall is torn down to resolve the tension, but this comes across as a cheap way for the writers to quickly and easily write themselves out of a corner.
While it is not my favorite West End show that I have seen (that award goes to Hadestown), Six is still a wonderful time and a crowning jewel of London’s theatre scene. The show has whet my appetite to see more shows, and the West End is filled to the brim with them. Advertisements on the Underground constantly introduce new shows to me that I want to check out. You could spend weeks in London and still not have enough time and money to see them all.
Thursday, June 12
We walk through Leadenhall Market. While Camden Market is filled to the brim with kitschy merchants, Leadenhall is a bit calmer and far more elegant. The covered interior is grandiose and timeless.
Though it is only three in the afternoon, the pubs here are overflowing with customers. Every single patron has bunked off work from their finance jobs in the City of London. 90% of the drinkers are men in suits; their ties around their necks have been exchanged for pints in their hands. Their few female colleagues present have their own uniforms: a long-sleeved white or blue blouse with a black skirt.
Maybe it is better that all these finance workers are here slacking off at work instead of crashing the global economy, but I still feel a pang of jealousy. It’s not just finance though. Every pub in London we have walked past this week has been crammed with salarymen in the early afternoon.
As an American, taking off from work early to go to the bar is unfathomable. Lazy Europeans, we think while seething with jealousy. American Protestant work ethic is a lie. We’d all rather be spending an afternoon with a few pints than yet another Teams meeting.
Friday, June 13
I was wrong about how packed the pubs were in London yesterday. Friday night in Soho is on a different level. Every pub we walk past is overflowing onto the street. L and I are getting the Caledonian Sleeper to Edinburgh tonight, so we just want a relaxing drink or two before we head to Euston station. However, we do not want to be asses to elbows in any of the places we have walked past so far. After a quick Google search, L finds the closest thing to a speakeasy, and we hop two streets over to it, hoping that it is far less busy. She says Anthony Bourdain and Marco Pierre White once visited there. As a huge fan of both, my curiosity is piqued.
The pair of us walk right past the unassuming entrance to the New Evaristo Club or Trisha’s. Eventually, we double back and find the address. The thick, red carpet beckons us downwards towards the basement. A bartender and a barback are sweeping the floor and prepping the room. For a moment, they do not notice us. L and I look at each other and wonder if we should leave. The club has been open for half an hour, but we are the first customers. In the end, we decide to stay. The bartender turns around and greets us. In order for us to drink here, we have to become members. The bartender takes our driver’s licenses and scans them through a machine. I pray that our identities have not just been stolen.
At this early time in the evening, drinks are two for one, so L and I get cheap Aperol spritzes. The drinks are unassuming, just like what you would make for yourself at home, but they taste great nonetheless. We take a seat in the corner of the empty jazz club and enjoy the only silent spot left in London.
With no one else around, the bartender Imran strikes up a conversation with us. He is the first stranger in London we have had a genuine conversation with and one of the nicest people we have ever met. He tells us all sorts of stories about the club while I munch on a packet of smoky bacon crisps from behind the bar. The bartender tells us about the club’s owner Trisha, the tale behind the $100 note over the bar, how Charlie XCX is nice, and how Liam Gallagher is a cunt. By the time we order our second drink, a pair of Moscow mules, I have fallen in love with this place.
Though it is still early in the night, the place is starting to fill with a few patrons now. All I want to do is stay and see what Trisha’s is really like at its peak. I want to have a cigarette in the underground patio then come back inside to hear the live jazz artist playing. But we have to catch our sleeper train to Edinburgh, so we say our goodbyes to Imran and depart.
We have already visited a lot of drinking establishments so far on this trip. We will visit even more. But my favorite is and will be Trisha’s.
Saturday, June 14
The Caledonian Sleeper from London to Edinburgh is quite the experience. Unless you spring for a double en-suite, the room is going to be cramped. Nonetheless, being able to lay down on a bed and fall asleep is worth this train’s high ticket price. Plus, saving a night at a hotel helps make the expense more palatable.
Though the Caledonian Sleeper is a unique adventure, every train ride in the UK has a little bit of magic. Back home, the Phoenix light rail cannot even take us from one end of the metropolitan area to the other, and the idea of traveling to another city via public transport is laughable. Being able to get to virtually any town of note in the UK via train is an incredible luxury to an America.
But even the method of transport is special, different than a bus. From the viewpoint of a rider, trains are a 1-dimensional form of travel that cuts through a 3-dimensional world like you are living in the world of Flatland. The countryside looks far prettier from the carriage of a train than the backseat of a car.
L takes the top bunk while I sleep in the lower one. Sometime after midnight I fall asleep. When I wake up in the morning, we have been transported to Scotland. Within the hour, we have arrived at Waverley Station in Edinburgh. We scurry off the train to find that we have arrived at the most beautiful city in Europe.
Sunday, June 15
L and I go to a tapas bar called Piggs. The restaurant is tiny. Normally, we would be packed in here. Fortunately though, the hour is late, and dinner service is winding down. L and I get a four-seat table to ourselves.
The owner is a young Spanish man who greets us warmly and takes our order. We are lost in the wide variety of tapas options, but he guides us through the list and helps us pick out five different dishes.
The Iberico ham arrives first. The meat is sweeter than I expected with a beautifully complicated taste. The Spanish tortilla and patatas bravas are classic dishes that fill my need for carbohydrates. A tapa of lightly toasted bread topped with honey and chorizo is the most interesting dish—bold but perfectly balanced.
The only thing we are missing though is our drinks. We are halfway through our meal before the owner realizes he forgot about them. He comes over and apologizes. By the end of the night, our drinks are comped, and we receive a free order of churros, but the owner’s charm and sincerity are what truly win us over.
I used to be a grocery store manager. Every week we would run a group interview for new hires. One of the questions we would ask candidates was to tell us a time they received great customer service. I must have heard the answer to that question a thousand times over the years.
Few people would tell us about a time when they received objectively perfect customer service. Instead, the vast majority of these stories would be about a time a company screwed up but then fixed the problem. Mistakes are usually a better opportunity to leave an impression than getting everything right in the first place. Tonight is a good reminder of that lesson because Piggs ends up being our favorite restaurant of the entire trip. It is a small, local place that cooks with heart.
What steals the show though is the lagrima, a fatty cut of pork. The restaurant treats it simply: cut into pebble sized pieces and sautéed with only salt and pepper. This is the most simplistic dish on the menu but also the most delicious. Every bite hits like that the perfect piece of meat you steal midway through cooking—the seared beef before you make a stew or the corner piece cut off from a chicken thigh still in the pan. This is the first time I have seen L actively fight me over a dish. Spaniards know what to do with pork. We head back out into the cool Edinburgh summer night resolving ourselves to eat Spanish food more often.
Monday, June 16
Edinburgh has taught me one lesson: I am a fat fuck. Walking in England gave us plenty of steps but was easy enough. Scotland, however, has upped the challenge with its hills. While L is busy making a Harris Tweed purse, I go explore the National Galleries. The Playfair steps outside nearly defeat me. I resolve myself to lose weight and get fit.
When L and I reunite, we walk from the arches of Market Street to Edinburgh Castle. The task is like climbing a mountain. Both of us are exhausted by the time we arrive at the castle, and we take a break in the cafe. The room is mostly filled with senior citizens who seem to have made the trek far easier than us.
“Bitter Sweet Symphony” by the Verve plays followed by “You Get What You Give” by New Radicals. You can definitely tell which take on life is written by optimistic Americans versus pessimistic Brits. I guess I relate more to the Verve though.
After finishing our coffees and snacks, L and I head outside to take in the stunning view of Edinburgh all around us. The climb was worth it.
Tuesday, June 17
L and I get our engagement photos taken professionally. We meet our photographer at the Milkman, the most popular Edinburgh coffee spot to be found on TikTok. Their pastries look gorgeous and are all a perfect, glossy shade of golden brown. I force myself to resist their call since I do not want to spill crumbs over myself.
Our photographer first takes us around Old Town. The morning is still early so we can find some secluded spots near St. Giles’ Cathedral and the Writers’ Museum.
The camera snaps hundreds of pictures. I thought I would be extremely awkward at this, but our photographer puts both of us at ease. I realize I could never be a celebrity. This limited attention is already getting to my head; I could not resist the allure of being an actual paparazzi target.
The best shot though is at the Vennel Viewpoint. We climb up a hundred stairs, but the climb is worth the beautiful shot with Edinburgh Castle in the background. A pair of friends ask a stranger to take a photo. The man then proceeds to lift the woman up in the air. She stands atop the palms on his fully stretched out arms in a cheerleading pose. One misstep and the woman breaks her neck. They get the shot, however, without incident. L and I take much less athletic photos.
Next we head to Dean Village. The area is a tucked away escape from the rest of central Edinburgh but equally beautiful as the rest of the city in its own unique way. We get a few shots by the water and the houses. Just as the photographer snaps our final pictures, the sky starts to rain providing a little drama to the end of the photoshoot. Our day could not have been timed better.
We say goodbye to our photographer and depart. Our train back to England leaves in a few hours, and we need to check out of our hotel. On the way back, we continue to take in the sites of the city.
Its beauty almost annoys me. No city in America looks this good. Comparing Edinburgh to where I grew up in Houston is a joke. Every edifice here tells stories dating back centuries. The thought of going home and looking at another strip mall makes me want to vomit.
Wednesday, June 18
We have arrived at the welcome party at the Suffolk Arms in Cheltenham. P and M are getting married on Saturday. I have known P for her entire life. In fact, I’ve known most people in this room for the majority of mine.
My parents moved from England to America when I was two due to my dad’s work. Several other families came over at the same time as well, and we all became close. With no extended family in Texas, the people in this room became the equivalent of aunts, uncles, and cousins. Many of the others at this party are P’s family who I have met over the years when they would come out for holidays.
Nonetheless, it feels a little strange seeing everyone here in England. We are all English but have almost never seen each other in this country. This feels like a sitcom episode where the cast has been plucked away from their usual setting like when the group from Friends spent several episodes in London.
The inside of the pub is swelteringly hot, but a few pints of beer helps keep me cool. The alcohol helps loosen me up and have honest, mushy thoughts: Seeing everyone here is lovely. Other than my parents and sister who are also present, I am not related by blood to anyone here. The only reason we know each other is because they all decided to move to Texas, but I am so glad that all these people are a part of my life.
Thursday, June 19
Morgans may be the most beautiful cars in the world. Their distinctive curves and style make them impossible to blend in like any other car. And we get to tour the Morgan Motor Company Factory. Virtually all the boys at the wedding are here; none of us want to miss out.
We watch the workers mold the chassis, work the wood, and build the interior. Each car is hand-built and dozens of workers are putting in effort to the limited number of vehicles. The smell of English ash wood and Scottish leather fill most of the buildings. The perfect paintwork in a staggering variety of colors makes them all look like the ultimate toy. I dream of one day having one of these cars. I even snap a shot of a pink Plus 4, hoping one day I could convince L we could get his and her Morgans.
Watching the workers go about their day is enthralling. From the young apprentices to the experienced masters, their work is precise and impressive. Obviously, these tours are a great advertisement for Morgan. But I wonder if the real value comes from the impact it has on the workers themselves.
Working 9-5 year after year in any field makes it easy for the job to become routine. I’ve seen high-performing engineers, software developers, and managers forget how impressive their work actually is when all you see is a cubicle wall and never interact with users. But these Morgan workers get to see the looks of bewildered fascination every day on the faces of these potential customers. Every once in a while you catch them beaming while working on bending a piece of ash or moving a frame from one part of a building to another. The factory workers know they are being watched, and doing so makes it impossible to not care about your work. That may be the secret sauce that actually makes a Morgan special.
Friday, June 20
The Cheltenham Food and Drink Festival is going on at the back behind the Queens Hotel. Given that we have a free day, my entire family goes to check it out, and we spend the afternoon eating and drinking.
I gran lunch from a food truck: barbecue pork shoulder on fries smothered in brown gravy with sage stuffing and crackling on top. This is the exact sort of eclectic monstrosity you expect to find at a food truck. I have had far better barbecue pork back in the States, but the crackling and sage stuffing are excellent. The brown gravy and chips make this reminiscent of Canadian poutine, so I have no idea what English-speaking country is the most heavily influenced here. All I know is it is delicious.
For dessert, I wash my meal down with a doughnut from another nearby stall. I pick a doughnut with mixed berry jam and rolled in sugar. This is an elevation of what you can find at any Sainsbury’s. Despite doughnuts being considered an American staple, a raspberry and apple jam donut from an English supermarket is my favorite in the world. The American equivalent is usually rolled in icing sugar and far less delectable.
Food is such an important cultural touchstone, but defining what that food is for America and Britain is a challenge. Is fish and chips or tikka masala the national dish of England? Where does Italian cuisine end and Italian-American food begin? Those questions are impossible to answer inside a melting pot of cultures. And if you were to ask me what my favorite type of food is, American or British, how can I possibly answer? The truth is I love it all, and the dishes I love to cook are uniquely my own blended heritage.
Saturday, June 21
All the wedding guests take a vintage double-decker bus from the Queens Hotel to the church. The pastor is jovial and entertaining; everyone in the church is relieved this is not going to be a stuffy, decrepit pastor that we struggle to pay attention to. Before beginning, he points out the oldest parts of the church. They have been here from at least 1132, a year that does not even seem real as it is over three times as old as the United States.
The wedding itself goes smoothly and is a wonderful affair. P and M make a great couple. You can see M’s nerves before the ceremony starts, and the love that washes over his face as soon as P walks down the aisle. I look around the room at all the younger adults in our English expat crew. We all were either born in America or came over while still barely able to walk. Every single one of us is partnered to an American including myself with L. If our parents had not come to Texas, we each never would have met our future wives and husbands. That realization makes me want to believe in fate because the idea that our lives are pure luck is terrifying.
The reception back at the Queens Hotel is a grand affair as we make our way through bottles of champagne and a five course meal. P’s cousins are sitting at the same table as us. P’s male cousin roasts for being from the States but also admits we are not too bad for Americans. L and I will gladly accept that award.
The party rages on well past midnight. The music alternates from 70s and 80s classics to 00s and 10s party hits to even some Tejano music. I find out the next day that the receipt for the open bar will be seven feet long.
Many guests cannot make it to the end. Even L had to crash out early, not realizing that this would be a 13-hour affair. But at the end of the night, virtually all of the English expat crew is still present. This will be the last time I get to see them for at least several months until I come back to Texas for the holidays.
Moving to Phoenix is one of the most important decisions in my life just like moving to Texas was the same for my parents and their friends. You lose so much moving away from home. The hours you spend with loved ones become far more rare. You cannot just pop into the house you grew up in whenever you feel like it. Your life becomes far more uncertain.
I understand why some people never leave the town they were born in even if they have the means to do so. So why move? Career opportunities are the main reason most people move in this modern world, but I think it is more than that: the call of adventure and the need to change. In the words of Lord Huron, “To the ends of the earth, would you follow me? There’s a world that was meant for our eyes to see.”
The remaining stragglers see P and M off with a sparkler exit. Miraculously, no one burns themselves on the sparklers despite everyone being well drunk at this point. We all depart and head to our rooms.
I check my phone before falling asleep. America has just bombed Iran. Maybe Trump has just started World War III. Perhaps everything escalates over the next few hours, and nuclear armageddon occurs. If so, then today was not a bad last day on this Earth.
Sunday, June 22
We are having lunch in my aunt and uncle’s garden in Chippenham. Nine of us are surrounding a big, wooden table filled with all sorts of dishes. Since my aunt, uncle, and cousin are pescatarians, I was in charge of grilling the meat for the rest of the family. Cooking on an unknown grill is a challenge; you have to invest the time to learn how it handles heat and where the cooler spots are. Without this knowledge, I fail spectacularly and most of the meat is at least somewhat burnt.
The real star of the dishes though are the salads. Almost every vegetable is taken from the garden. My aunt and uncle live near a farm, and they themselves have about a quarter an acre of their massive yard dedicated to growing fruits, vegetables, and flowers. And at this time of the year, the garden is in proper form: Every square foot of their planters has some vegetable growing. The new potatoes are ready to harvest. The greenhouse is filled with tomatoes and peppers. The dahlia flowers are in bloom. And all of that freshness makes the food delicious.
I wish I could have a garden like this back home, but growing all this produce in the desert seems impossible. My uncle points out though that we can certainly do tomatoes, peppers, and many other fruits and vegetables. I resolve myself to build my own garden. Different things grow in different places.
Monday, June 23
Bradford-on-Avon is one of many stunning villages in Wiltshire. We grab a pub lunch and walk along the canal. The water is filled with a wide variety of narrowboats.
Living on one of those vessels has appeal. You get to travel the country with every day potentially bringing with it new sites and adventures. But since you are still confined to the canals, civilization is never too far away.
My favorite narrowboat that we walk past is British racing green with a vegetable garden on top. Maybe that can be my retirement plan someday.
Tuesday, June 24
My sister Y has come with L and I to check out Bristol. Since it is her first time, we take her to the same place we went to on our last trip here: the Clifton Suspension Bridge. The bus ride from Bristol Temple Meads to the bridge is a long, uphill trek. I am glad we are on public transport instead of hoofing it.
The Clifton Observatory provides a stunning view of the bridge, the city, and the countryside behind it. This is one of my favorite spots in all of England. L and I have now come here twice in the past year. On our first trip, I felt an eerie connection to the place. Afterwards, my aunt mentioned that my great-grandfather had been stationed here during World War II. The bridge was a prime target for the Nazis, but despite a few bombs going off, the bridge remained operational for the entire war.
I wonder what a man I never met was like. Am I anything like my great-grandfather? What stories did he have of this place that are lost to time? Did he ever wonder if one day his great-grandson would be standing here, a stranger in a strange land. All at once every past and possibility I have thought of while on this trip comes to me at once. My mind turns to a David Foster Wallace quote describing how his parents raised him and his sister and the personality differences between the siblings:
I would much prefer being by myself with a book. And that Mom and Dad were basically, “Oh cool, look: David and Amy are different.’ They were really ‘60s parents, and I don’t think—there was if anything a conscious attempt to not give overt direction. Although of course you end up becoming yourself.
David Foster Wallace, Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself by David Lipsky
I love that final phrase and its two meanings. The first is that nurture can never completely erase our nature. But the second is more interesting and the one I think about more often: You are who you are. Your personality and conscious are the culmination of every event that has happened to you and every decision you have made. Pondering over who you could have been is pointless. Changing anything would be effectively killing yourself and replacing you with a different person.
The version of me whose parents stayed in England is a fundamentally different person than the one I am. Even though it has only been a few years, the person who chose to stay in Texas rather than move to Arizona would have already diverged significantly from myself. Life is a tautology. You end up becoming who you are.
L, Y, and I walk down to the bridge. Most of it is under construction just like everything else. My eyes get one last view of Avon Gorge. The water we walked past yesterday in Bradford has long since passed here, and soon so shall we.
Wednesday, June 25
Our plane from Heathrow departs at 11 A.M. We make it in plenty of time, but part of me just wants to stay in the United Kingdom. Everyone feels that way though at the end of a vacation. Our Boeing 777 takes off. I do not know when I will feel the ground of the UK beneath my feet again.
Since the flight is not overnight due to the time zone change, I don’t feel obligated to sleep. Instead I finish re-watching O.J.: Made in America. Finishing my third viewing since its release has just reconfirmed that this is the best documentary series I have ever seen. Ezra Edelman makes O.J. Simpson’s story a defining part of the culture of America and our country’s never-ending struggles with race.
Afterwards, I watch A Complete Unknown, the Bob Dylan biopic starring Timothée Chalomet. This film is far more interesting than other recent biographies of music stars such as Bohemian Rhapsody and Elvis as it says something really profound about the nature of identity.
Despite the movie’s focus on its main character, the audience never fully understands Bob Dylan. What we recognize though is that there is a profound difference between Acoustic Dylan and Electric Dylan. The man who plays “The Times They Are A-Changing” at the Newport Folk Festival transforms into a different person who takes that same stage a few years later. This dichotomy is only reinforced by his competing relationships with Joan Baez and Sylvie.
Interestingly though, a third version of Dylan is presented as well: pre-New York Dylan. Yet we learn almost nothing about him. His presence is only hinted at in a short scene where Dylan’s high school yearbook from Minnesota is briefly glimpsed. Other than that though, we have no idea from this film about who Dylan was before hitchhiking his way to New York City. Sometimes you do get to pick what identities you want to keep.
On the other hand, Bob Dylan is still defined by the end of the movie as the same young man that came to NYC to play a song for Woody Guthrie. In the final scene of the film, Dylan hands back the harmonica Woody gave him. Despite being nearly completely immobilized by the Huntington’s disease that would soon claim his life, Guthrie refuses to take the harmonica back. Others see Bob Dylan as the man who betrayed their scene by picking up an electric guitar. But Woody sees the same boy that played a song for him with only an acoustic guitar.
Saying I understand how Bob Dylan, perhaps the greatest songwriter to ever exist, may sound arrogant, but the point of stories is to relate to the main character. Acoustic and electric. English and American. What sides we pick and which one is winning can be a complete unknown, even to ourselves. We are all just blowing in the wind, for better or for worse.
I also watch Paddington in Peru.
Thursday, June 26
I crashed almost immediately after getting home yesterday. Going to bed at 4 in the afternoon though means I wake up at 3 A.M. I have been up for a few hours unpacking and am wide awake.
I take my usual route to work, avoiding the highway by cutting through Paradise Valley. My 2016 Ford Fiesta feels out of place among the $10 million houses on the side of the mountains, but the rich cannot stop me from admiring this view.
The sky is bigger out here. In a rare occurrence for the Phoenix summer, a few strands of clouds have followed me back from England. The mountains make for the sort of panorama only Georgia O’Keefe could capture. Soon enough I will be sick of that burning sun, but this morning its rays fill up my heart. Bob Dylan plays on the speakers. The Phoenix tableau is stunning here at home or whatever this place is.
