"That will be four and seven," the store clerk said as she set my first day's shopping 'on the economy' by the register. I handed her a note ... twenty pounds, I think ... and was handed back an indistinguishable pile of coins and colored paper. I smiled and thanked her, my native accent waving like a flag on foreign soil. "You're American, aren't you?," she grinned as if unlocking a riddle, then turned away.
My line had traveled a circuitous route to reach that moment. Farmers from Somerset, my family emigrated in the latter 1800's for the rich soil of New York's Mohawk Valley. Then to New Jersey, the Garden State. Then, finally, back to the fens of East Anglia; farm land of twenty centuries. In the end, we are still farmers. Our instinct is still for the soil.
Our departure was anticlimactic compared with two solid months of preparation. Staring across the tarmac of Newark Airport I drank in the last moments, feeling little left behind me and knowing more lay ahead. Judy's sister Patty joined us for the ride. It was her chance to see England, to help me move the kids, and to extend her farewell by one more week.
I recall little of our arrival. Airports look and sound the same to me now. A misplaced document made Customs difficult, though, and we were nearly denied entry. Instead, we were sent to Medical Screening ... 'foreigner hospitality' ... me and two tired child surrounded by a bevy of anxious young Hungarians and Poles waiting to be inspected by the British government.
A doctor finally motioned to us. "You're Americans," she said noting the strain in my 'r' consonants. "And you've had to wait here all this time? With the children?! Come with me." And with that, England's doors swung open. A long bus ride north, a tearful greeting at the depot, and we were in our new home.
Everything British is red: cars, doors, phone booths, mailboxes. Or it is green; green with the expectation of Spring. The people, like the climate, are mild. Like the gardens that seem to grace every lawn they are subtle, ordered and complex. I was told they would be either friendly or aloof, and I found both were true.
There is no denying we are strangers here, though as a Northeasterner I've felt more out of place in Dixie. The newsworthy precedes us, I think. When the English think of Americans these days, they may well imagine a firefighter picking through the rubble of lower Manhattan. Courage is not wasted on the English.
There are peculiarities here. I was cautioned that driving on the left would feel clumsy, and it does -- though not nearly as clumsy as working a five-speed with the left hand while steering with the right. Road signs come to mind, and roundabouts, and phone numbers. Why these otherwise intelligent people ever conceived of carpeted bathrooms is beyond me.
But the differences are a facade. With my white skin and the proper mannerisms, I would easily disappear. Instead I strain my 'r' consonants, speak to Elena in Spanish, and let grow my goatee. There is wisdom in acceptance, and the English are as haltingly successful at it as their cousins Across the Pond.
Today marks the last stage of transition: the orange cargo container arrives filled with the essentials of a previous life. We will unbox them, as we have ourselves, in a new setting. Like the fertile soil and our accents, they will remember who we are. ###
