London: On my own

Sam's time was, of course, required elsewhere at times while we were in London, and while I would have much preferred to have him with me, I did reactivate my long-dormant ability to enjoy going places and doing things by myself. I may even enjoy it MORE than I did in college, due to its current novelty and the fact that it's not accompanied by dramatic thoughts of "oh, will I NEVER have someone to love me?" :)

Sam was busy meeting people and "networking" and keeping the students at the workshop enthralled. I did get to be with him for some of that, which I always enjoy. But I wasn't going to spend ALL my precious time in London sitting around watching him sign autographs! :)

One thing I loved was when I got to walk through Hyde Park Sunday morning on my way to church. After the earlier days of cold and rain, it seemed like the most beautiful and glorious morning in the history of the world. I'd left early enough that I could spend all the time I wanted dawdling and wandering and daydreaming and taking pictures, and it all felt so strange and wonderful. I kept looking around for children that I'd forgotten, and not finding any.

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London: Tourists

My very favorite part of London may be riding the Tube to Westminster Station and then coming out up onto the street to see Big Ben RIGHT THERE looming up at you. I remember feeling like, "NOW I'm really in London!" at that moment last time, and the amazement has not worn off even a little. It's not really called Big Ben, of course, as I've had drummed into me by various sources. Big Ben is just the bell inside, and the tower is actually Elizabeth Clock Tower. But I feel like a pedant whenever I point this out to anyone, so let's stick with "Big Ben" like the rest of the world. :) Although my niece Katy calls it "Big Elizabeth" which is quite catchy.

Speaking of cute, we had this Tiny Big Ben at home and Daisy begged me to bring it to London with me so I could hold it next to "its Mommy," Big Big Ben. I actually remembered to put the tiny one in my suitcase, and then in my pocket, and then take a picture of it! What an impressive feat of memory. (And I even brought it home, too.) Aren't they cute, together at last? 

It was so cold! But so great to be walking around in the city among all the hordes of people. I don't know why I like that so much. But I do.

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London: Sun and Rain

It was mostly chilly in London, and rainy, which seemed right, but we had a bit of sun too. One morning Sam and I rented some of the public bikes you see around everywhere, and rode through Hyde Park. Such a great way to cover more ground, even though it was terrifying every time we had to ride along a street or cross a thoroughfare. I never have been able to figure out what pedestrians are supposed to do in England. You would think, since cars drive on the left, that people would walk on the left too, and pass on the right. But whenever I'm running (and, as I discovered, on a bike) there seems to be no coherence to how anyone behaves. Whatever I did, it always seemed to be wrong. Maybe all the native Londoners pass on the right and all the foreigners don't, and that's what makes it confusing?

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London: "Oh the memories!" edition

Last year when Sam got invited to teach art workshops in London and Berlin, he asked me if I wanted to go with him and I immediately said "Are you kidding? YES!" I spent a semester abroad in the BYU London Centre seventeen years ago, and I've always dreamed of going back. I dreamed of going back before I even left! "Someday I will come here with my husband," I would say to myself, every time I wandered into some part of the city I particularly loved. (Of course I also said to myself, "Someday I will come back and study at Oxford," and we know how that turned out.) Still…London! I couldn't believe we were going to be so lucky.

So I was totally excited, and I couldn't stop thinking about it, but I then spent the next ten months worrying. Who would watch all the kids? What if baby Theodore still needed me? What if something went wrong? But thanks to our hugely awesome mothers, the solutions gradually presented themselves. Sam's parents agreed to take the girls, and my mom said she'd have the boys. By the time Teddy turned one in February, I allowed myself to believe maybe this really was going to work out after all. Living in London before had felt like such an important time for me. It was the first time I really lived on my own, and had roommates. (Girls! They're so weird! I only have brothers and living with forty girls was SO strange.) I made some awesome friends. And I felt so grown-up and independent. I loved going places by myself—concerts, recitals, museums. Walking home past lighted windows at night. Even just riding the tube and letting the city and the people wash over me. "Remember this," I must have told myself a million times. "Don't forget how it feels." 

But I did. Not all of it, of course, but looking back at that time from NOW, I thought I might be a whole different person. And I started feeling nervous that maybe I wouldn't be brave and independent anymore, maybe I wouldn't know my way around. All those fancy, cosmopolitan people would look at me and know immediately I was just a mom from a small town who didn't even quite know who she was without a gaggle of children around her.

Well, that was silly, of course. I knew it was. But I also knew Sam would be busy doing work things for part of the time, and I might be on my own a lot. I was excited and also scared about that. I wrote to my friends and my brothers and tried to get ideas about what I should do with myself and how I should spend my (limited, so limited) time! I made spreadsheets and entered addresses into my phone and scrolled around on Google maps and I felt a little better.

I thought these tall snowy mountains (Iceland, maybe?) out our plane window were so cool. I kept having the song "From Greenland's Icy Mountains" run through my head, which is bad because I don't know that song. Only that first line. I don't even know what it is. A hymn or something.

The flight over was so strange, just as I remember it being strange when I went before: you fly through the night and the sunrise and suddenly the new day is there before you even know where you are. You're so tired and so confused and you can't let yourself sleep—I remembered that, at least—DON'T SLEEP till it's night again! That first day I was there in college, I remember one professor giving us directions about crossing the street: "Usually you look left, look right, look left again. But now you have to look right, look left, look right again"—and I was so tired, my head literally ached trying to follow what he was saying. 

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