"You shall never win against me, for I am the chess master." - Barley |
If there is anything to be said about the last few months, it is that moving to a different country comes with a certain amount of triumph and a certain amount of heartbreak.
The heartbreak:
Cunard lost the bag that contained my wedding dress and my childhood stuffed toys, Wilbur and Kiwi, not to mention almost all of my Anthropologie dresses and a laptop. Cunard can officially be said to not give a f#%&, a s!&%, or a b!@£$%^. I'm devastated and more than a little pissed off.
We had to say goodbye to so many wonderful friends and family (though we all know it won't be permanent).
We had to find a new Crazy Cat Lady for Barley (she was this awesome lady who loved cats, who had the best indoor/outdoor cattery for holidays, and who always gave our normally matted cat back to us smooth and tangle-free).
We had to find a new Laura for Moose (impossible, but we are trying hard).
We cannot find watercress or rose water anywhere and had to bring our own supply of tea, mango chutney, and (in Matthew's case) Marmite ('things overheard in Waitrose', right?).
Also, Americans have a thing about driving huge, automatic transmission cars, which is both weird and upsetting from the point of view of dignity and environmental sensitivity.
The triumph:
We moved here to snowboard, and snowboard we have done. We had a day of 14 inches of light, lovely powder last Thursday and enjoyed ourselves to the point of near-hysteria.
I'm not going to say anything about British beer versus American beer, because both are wonderful, but I am going to say that keg-style beers do MUCH better in the bottle than bottle-conditioned beers, and the American culture of filling a growler (a take-home vessel) at a brewery and consuming it at home is just the best. There may not be pubs here but enjoying fresh beer from one's own sofa is a nice alternative.
Breakfast is much better in America (Huevos rancheros, anyone? Endless variations on eggs benedict? Pancakes that are more than a millimeter thick?).
We were able, in the end, to find a manual transmission car.
We may not be able to find watercress, but the availability of hot sauce is endless. And that makes this spice-loving lady very happy indeed.
Overdosed on The Times |
One of the things that I miss the most about living in the UK is The (London) Times. I know, I know. First I complain about not being able to find rose water in the grocery store and then I get really middle-class on you all and admit to not being able to cope without my Saturday Times (the Weekend section and the Magazine most particularly). So I have it shipped (er, what was I saying earlier about environmental sensitivity?) to Bozeman every week. The papers arrive almost exactly two weeks late, so by then I already know the gist of the news stories, but honestly Giles Coren's bad attitude, Jane MacQuitty's wine advice, and the endless aspirational fitness/food/lifestyle/anxiety articles from the Weekend section really have no expiration date. It's ludicrous but I am hooked.
Given that Matthew and I have declined to subscribe to any television channels whatsoever (oh, we are so smug), have hooked ourselves up to a VPN so we can continue to watch British shows, and basically have restricted our news intake to two-week old copies of The Times and The Guardian online, it's almost as if we are living in Britain. Britain with a whole lot of snow and an infinitely wider selection of junk food options.
In other news, Matthew and I went away to Steamboat Springs, Colorado for a few days last week. It was an exciting diversion but started with something very scary: we had to leave Moose with someone new. Barley was left in the house and taken care of by our neighbours' thirteen year old daughter, but Moose needed to be properly looked after: fed, loved, walked, and generally kept away from his usual mayhem. We found a lovely local lady who was willing to take the Moose, and foisted him upon her and her two very young children for these four days. He set the tone by helping himself to one of the girls' snack within minutes of arriving at his temporary home, and then jumped up on the counter to see what other treats might avail themselves to him. Really well done, Moose. Apparently his visit was a success, however, and Moose was returned to us some days later, having (apparently) decided to spend each night sleeping on his host's feet.
While Moose was busy terrorising children and aggressively cuddling, Matthew and I had a ten-plus hour drive down to Steamboat, during which time we listened to Bill Bryson's "I'm a Stranger Here Myself." In his collection of columns, he describes his experience of moving back to America after a long time in Britain. I am somewhat heartened to find that his experience and mine so closely resemble each other. I have found, as he did, that there is an uncomfortable mix of delight (oh, thank Paul Revere for attached garages and utility rooms large enough for a washer AND a dryer) and horror (Donald Trump is really a serious presidential candidate? There is such a thing as a 64 oz. soda?) involved in the re-entry process. Sometimes it is wonderful to be here and sometimes it is not, but it never does (and I'm afraid never will again) feel like being home.
Thomas Wolfe tells us that you can't go home again, and he's right. Once I made the decision to leave the US for Britain (and then Britain for the US), I entered what will become a lifelong state of limbo, where I am not perfectly at home in my own country but will (despite becoming a citizen) never be genuinely British either. I'm afraid that Matthew will one day soon feel very much the same about America.
However alarming it might be to realise that I won't ever really be at home anywhere, I would not change it for anything. Not while I get to claim both pubs and growlers, the South Downs and the Tetons, McVities and cake batter ice cream. It's all a matter of perspective.