The Day I Hung Out With
George Eliot and Robert Browning
With one foot on Lewis Carroll and the
other on Henry James, I stared up at Geoffrey Chaucer. I was in Westminster
Abbey, and after having sauntered through most of the church, I finally reached
Poets' Corner. Here, starting with Chaucer, is where 40 writers are buried,
along with memorials for important British writers resting elsewhere. Combing
the floor by Chaucer's tomb, I began looking for familiar names.
Before me was the memorial for George
Eliot, really Mary Ann Evans, nestled snug between the stone commemoratives for
Dylan Thomas and W.H. Auden. Her stone was a perfect little square and a shade between
black and gray, fittingly the exact color a regular number two pencil would
produce. In white lettering, the craftsman made "George Eliot" the
largest print, with her real name underneath. Running clockwise around the
perimeter of the square was a quote from her first novel, which I then read by
turning round and round.
Elated and motivated to keep
searching Poet's Corner, I was ready to find another name. Scanning the neutral
colored plaques, I met Robert Browning two tombstones down and one to the left.
This was his actual grave, with his skeleton deep under the church's floor. His
gravestone was designed with a white marble frame on the outer edge and an
inner frame of brown and cream marble. The center of his stone was a red
rectangle with slightly curved top and bottom edges. Written in gold, his name
shined with a flower perched above it. While reading on the tomb that his wife
is actually buried in Florence, a large black sneaker marched across the
flower. Stunned, I reached to pull my glasses' cleaner from my coat pocket and
wash the wet mark.
America in London
I look down
and my phone does not believe that I am in London. The time in the corner is
correct, 9:40am, but most of the screen is trying to tell me that I am at
the airport, and it is 3:40am. I try to assure my phone that I actually
got on a plane and left for somewhere, but refreshing the screen does nothing.
I curse my phone, muttering that I did leave the country, and put the
technology away.
I look up
and see a statue of President Abraham Lincoln. For a split second, I wonder if
my phone was right. The first sign that I could still be in America should have
been coming across a small, circular billboard of American actor Ben Stiller
while looking for the tube the day before.
Or maybe I
am just in England. America would not have been possible without England, since
England is what our ancestors separated from. It never occurred to me, though,
that tour guides in England would know of historic Americans who attended their
churches. I am in London specifically and looking at Southwark Cathedral where
William Shakespeare worshipped and his brother is buried. When coming to London,
you expect to see the cathedral Shakespeare attended, but you do not expect to
hear your tour guide announce that John Harvard, the founder of Harvard
University in America, also attended that church. As the bus rolls on, I hear
that Harvard's parents owned a pub in London back in the day. They raised their
son and that son grew up to open one of the largest Ivy League schools in the
United States. I am shocked, but know that I should not be. The United States
is a baby country, compared to England and many others. We were founded when we
separated from England, therefore our founders came from England and England is
in our blood.
I feel
resolved, and settle myself back in my seat to enjoy the churches. My guide
talks some more as we pass the Tower of London. Apparently, William Penn was
baptized in the church overlooking this great tower before founding our state
of Pennsylvania.
Londoners and their Royalty
The swarm of visitors crowding around
Buckingham Palace’s black gates did not surprise me. Peering in, everyone was trying
to get a closer look at where the Queen of England lived. Across the road, hundreds
of people stood around the Victoria Memorial, waiting for the ceremonious
changing of the guards.
What I was surprised by, however,
were all the British accents. Pushing through the horde of people, I heard a
mother and her daughter talking about the palace in distinctively native voices.
I saw a man hold his son above his head, telling him in a chipper English tone
that this was where their queen lived. Pulling myself along, I perceived a few
different accents, most of them the various British accents of London. Why would
people native to England line up an hour early to see this reoccurring
formality?
I shook my head as I walked back to
the Victoria Memorial. This large marble statue has their former queen's
depiction on the front, with angels and people surrounding her. A golden statue
that seemed to catch all of the light in its polished paint stood on top in a
victorious stance. Britain made this for Queen Victoria, which forced me to realize
that I didn't know the last time America designed a statue for one of our
presidents.
I've always known that we Americans
complain about our elected officials more than other countries criticize their rulers,
and perhaps England truly loves their royalty. In a culture rich with history,
it's understandable why their traditional ceremonies would still get them animated
and waiting out in January's chilly wind. Sitting back on the bus, I jotted
down these notes. Maybe we Americans are too harsh on those with power, and we
need to consider all that they accomplish.
As we left Buckingham Palace, our
tour guide informed us of King George IV and how he was voted Britain's most
useless monarch. Possibly, I was too quick to judge the Londoner's enthusiasm
for their current queen as unconditional loyalty to all kings and queens. Londoners
are human like us, after all.
Global Modern Art
Cardboard boxes spray-painted in
blue, orange, red, and gray formed the shape of a mountain with one shoe
precariously climbing the stones. Then, about eight fish tanks with gold rims
were stacked together in two rows. Diagonal from these pieces of art was an old
car engine bedazzled in shimmering blue, placed on top of a dusty shelf. This
was London's Tate Modern exhibit on Energy and Process: Contemporary
Sculptures, and that was not all.
Walking into this exhibit of
assorted objects, I met a colossal silver platter with stainless steel kitchen
instruments piled on one half. I wondered if these pots, pans, buckets, and
spoons were glued to each other, or just thrown to the side. Trying to see the
thought behind this piece, I moved in closer, but all I saw was what I would
imagine finding in a giant's pantry.
I don't know what I was expecting to
stumble upon inside Tate Modern, but I was not anticipating being reminded of
America's depictions of modern sculpture art. Our television shows poke fun at
this so-called "junk art," and I have seen characters just dig
through the trash and glue a cluster of items together for an art exhibition, ultimately
winning for their genius designs.
I turned towards the corner of the
room and found a man sitting and reading between two of Tate Modern's pieces.
Since I had seen men and women sitting in boxes for modern art on American
television shows, I was not sure if this man was an art piece as well. I made
sure to pop by this exhibit later, and mystifyingly observed that he was still there.
Church
Service to an Atheist's Daughter
Because
they gave me a script—
lines
to say, stage directions to perform—
sit
stand listen read
these
words in St. Paul's Cathedral,
in
Southwark Cathedral,
in
Temple Church,
it
wasn't strange.
Pretty
stained glass props
enclosed
the platform and beyond—
set the
scene for Jesus' passing,
tell
tales with the actors.
Light
Act I with their candles and flames.
The
audience was all thespians, all
an old
school Greek chorus, in unison, monotone,
interactive
musical.
We
recited after the organ whined,
sang
its own sad lines,
and no
one knew I wasn't
ChristianCatholicProtestant,
a
Luther-man.
The
play wasn't
alien
or foreign or off
until
everyone but me knew
to sing
verses not written in the
pamphlet
handout script—the lines
artistic
directors in red bathrobes passed around,
and it
became improv. I
don't
do improv,
and it
was time to turn in my script,
exit
stage left,
out the
wooden
theatre
doors.
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