So I was thinking today about a number of things- the foremost of which was this book that I just finished,
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. She was really an amazing woman. The worst part about her being that she killed herself (though perhaps that isn't that terrible)...she presents herself to me as an intriguing figure- wispy, "halo-ey" and intangibly sweet. I found myself tearing through her novel, not only because I needed to get it done, but also because it presented a world that I wish so dearly to be a part of- Regent's Park in London. I can't count the days I think about London and what it would be like to live there among the elite- with Clarissa Dalloway, Septimus Smith and Peter Walsh. I think about the summers by the sea and the breeze off the water and the propriety of it all- and I think that I could be a part of that! I could have "summered" somewhere and I could've been a part of the crowd who used words like "loo" and "scrumptous" and "autobus," etc...the crowd who could walk to Shakespeare's theatre for a performance of something- perhaps
Winter's Tale, perhaps
The Tempest...I don't know- it just all seems so "me". There must have been a reason that I was born in America because I sure don't feel like I belong here most of the time. I don't know what that reason is yet--- in fact I'm not really sure I will ever know.
Lately I've been biding my time in books like
Dalloway and in pictures from my trips and little things like HobNobs from Treasure Island (the grocer) and afternoon tea on the back porch...but as I sip my Earl Grey and talk to myself and gaze out the back window at the Russian Orthodox steeple that colors my view and the monstrous, barbaric building, which purports to be a hospital-- where they help people (rather than imprison them)--there is something amiss. Where are the small things? Where are the wee "tea"spoons and the sugarcubes (though i don't take sugar...)- I miss the lavishly decorated lounges, the grandiose notions that accompany the celebration of teatime with sandwiches that you can barely pick up they are so small, cakes that all taste the same, though they look quite different...and I want it back. I even miss my little desk at the University of Edinburgh with its hot water pot, a couple packets of tea and sugar and the sugary gingersnap cookie that always accompanied as i looked out my window into the lush green grounds and Arthur's seat up in the distance...It was cold then (it's cold now).
Why can't I celebrate teatime as I did over yonder? Why can't Americans take tea at 3 or 4 or 2 in the afternoon? Why why why!!??
Then it dawned on me. As I read
Dalloway I met a character who despised Clarissa and everything that she stood for. Her name was Miss Killman. She took Clarissa's daughter Elizabeth (lovely name) shopping and dragged her in to tea as well. But she was so improper- she ate selfishly, eyeing up the cakes and reserving the best ones for herself that she might get more than she needed, taking no heed of the impropriety of such gestures. She ate slowly, almost gluttonously (if it weren't for the size of those tea cakes). That's when it dawned on me...tea time in America would be a miserable failure! Think of the women who would want three tea cakes and seven sandwiches and with the cheese on the side, no frosting please; free refills until six in the eveing, eight lumps of sugar per cup so that we would put Big Chief out in a week. Americans don't have the good posture and straight faces and the soft voices to create a proper environment in which to enjoy tea time. Everything here is overdone--- the more the merrier, the lower the cost, the more we buy- we are a consumer culture of ignorant, inappreciative spend-thrifts who don't understand "taking tea in the parlor" or stopping for "a spot at Josephine's".
There are some really amazing things to be said about the culture of America (and I generalize grossly and entirely self-consciously)- I think there are wonderful things to be had...and in large quantities. We are so consumed with the big, the expansions, the fastest, the shortest route from here to there and IwillpayforitifIcan but youbetterdiscountitorelseyouare a capitalisticbastard and betternotexpectyourbusinesstolast- not in this town! Why then, can't we take thirty minutes out of the afternoon to enjoy a spot and a crumpet? Well- frankly most people wouldn't think it worth their time without a discount, a pile of food too large to consume or free refills.
Does this make us bad? No- just don't expect to see me taking my afternoon tea at the Starbucks down the way. I'll stick to the monstrous environ of my back porch for now--- until they lower the airfare to London that is.
