A Home at Last, and an Early Thanksgiving

On the morning of May 8th, 2011 (a Sunday), after a mostly-sleepless night of packing and scrubbing floors, I. and I closed and locked the door of the too-cold and too-damp Tower Flat for the last time, stumbled, (nine) suitcases in hands and on backs, across two streets and to the bus stop, and then took the bus to Leuchars, the train to London, the tube to Kensington, another tube to Earl's Court, and a foot journey to our hotel. This exhausting burst of energy was followed by more tube and train journeys, a short stint in a taxi, and eventually a week-long holiday on a boat steaming across the Atlantic ocean.

On the morning of November 7th, also 2011 (a Monday), I signed the lease for our fourth married flat, this one a spacious and well-lit abode in the bustling neighbourhood of Leith, the northernmost bit of Edinburgh, where we will spend the next six months (and, hopefully, a little longer). The past six months have been an exhausting but wonderful adventure. Homeless for the entirety of it, I. and I have been blessed by the hospitality of friends and family in Maryland, Virginia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, Albuquerque, California, Nevada, Illinois, New Jersey, New Hampshire, and various small towns in Scotland, as well as the fellowship of friends and family in an even longer list of places. Over the course of our homeless "summer," we visited more than half the states in the United States, had a coffee date in Canada, and put more than fifteen thousand miles on Kate T., our faithful Chevrolet.

My travels ended yesterday, with the signing of the aforementioned lease and the discovery that our wonderful landlord (whom I have never met!) had left us a fully functional and well-stocked kitchen. I. joins me in the UK this coming Sunday, after staying behind in America to attend the wedding of some dear friends (I was unfortunately required to return before the wedding date, in order that I might keep my student visa). It has been a wonderful summer, and I am so grateful to the numerous people who generously allowed us to sleep on their beds, futons, couches, and floors, but I am absolutely thrilled with the stability of this flat: for six months, (some of) my clothes will be unpacked, living in wardrobes rather than suitcases, and I shall have a kitchen of my own, whose drawers and cupboards I shall be able to navigate without the previously requisite enquiries about the locations of obscure kitchen gadgets (while there was a certain pleasure to be gained from making German chocolate cake, which is possibly the most complicated thing I know how to cook, in a dear friend's kitchen, there is also a certain pleasure to be gained from knowing where to put the ingredients away when the baking is finished!).

In addition to the delights of unpacking, I'm thrilled to be living in a proper city with every conceivable amenity easily accessible. Within half a block of the flat are a bookstore, three charity (thrift) shops, a pub, several cafes, a textiles shop, a butcher, a fishmonger, two fruit markets, and a number of smaller establishments. Just around the corner--not quite within spitting distance, but only because I can't spit in a curve--are a discount supermarket, a drugstore, two discount shops, and a few other establishments I have yet to explore. Within a quarter mile are three more pubs (at least!) a half dozen charity shops, and the largest Tesco's I have ever seen (seriously, I think it runs the entire length of a city block). I foresee many ridiculously lazy days of staying in the flat to write all day, then dashing down to the fishmonger's just before closing to buy something fresh and wonderful for supper. (And while we are on the subject of food, down the road a little further--on the path of my daily commute--are more bookstores, a Chinese grocery, a middle eastern market, and a Polish deli. I am in culinary heaven).

At this point, I am really supposed to be finishing my first (and final) thesis chapter, which was not so satisfactorily manages yesterday when I spent most of the day shopping for housewares (you know, the important things, like sheets and soap and books). My chapter, not quite half written at this point, is due in ten days (and my beloved husband arrives in five!) so, all things considered, I should meander back to the grindstone for a while. Photos might come eventually.

And the months keep rolling in from every side . . .

I. tells me that another month has passed; I may or may not believe him, but we have done a great deal of travelling since I last blogged, so anyone still reading this may have a few more photos in the meantime.

Since last blog, I've returned to study at the wonderful Rosenbach Library in Philadelphia (also, incidentally, my all-time favourite American city)

and also the very splendid Beinecke in New Haven.

I. and I had a rare and splendid chance to take a few days' rest between adventures, so we spent a few nights at the lovely Sky Valley hotel in New Hampshire and took a hike in the stunning White Mountains on our weekend off:

We also took a quick jaunt up to Montreal, but I don't have any photos of that. This is sad, because Canada has the most wonderfully decorated information centres I"ve ever seen: they are large buildings with enormous question marks on their sides, as if to say, "Am I a building?" But I digress.

After our jaunt, I spent most of a week at the Pierpont Morgan in New York city, while I. got to get to know some of his extended family members a little better.

Last week, I also visited the New York Public Library Performing Arts branch, which also satisfied a life-long desire of mine to see the Lincoln Center.

Meantime, I. has also gotten older and creakier, and to celebrate his increasing decrepitude, we spread out festivities over several days: a pre-birthday dinner at the Cheescake Factory (not pictured), a birthday luncheon at an Irish Pub in Philadelphia . . .

. . . a Birthday dinner of I.'s first real Philadelphia Cheese Steak (wit' and provolone, for the interested) . . .

. . . and a weekend excursion to a local farm with a small but enjoyable Corn Maze.

Good times were had by all, but next week marks five months on the road, and I think I. and I are both very weary of living out of suitcases and driving so far so often. (We're well over ten thousand miles for the summer, and that's just driving). Settling back into the routine of school will provide a lovely change.

West--and back again.

We've taken the long way home, and have now put well over 10,000 miles on the car since the start of summer (a lot of those miles were on the thirty-mile [each way] commute I had in LA while visiting the Huntington). August gave us some splendid opportunities to catch up with friends, most of whom aren't pictured in this blog.

We hiked a mountain in LA with two friends, and--along the way--took "Car Wreck Trail," which is, as the photo should show, a fairly apt appellation:

On the same hike, I caught my first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean in more than a decade. (If you look very closely, the tiny white smear above the "v" of the mountains is a wave in the Pacific. I promise).

I took an afternoon (and only one, I promise!) off from library work to tour the beautiful grounds of the Huntington with I. and my mom. Here they are in the ;arge library:

Other features of the Huntington include the Chinese Garden . . .

. . . the Japanese garden, which is unfortunatelyunder construction but still quite lovely . . .

. . . the rose garden, with several statues . . .

. . . and the lovely buildings that house collections of art and literature:

Another fun feature is the garden of Shakespeare statues, which is lovely:

On a Sunday when the library was closed, I. and I took a trip to the Santa Monica Pier, which is a fun and lovely place with all sorts of exciting people to watch.

The Pacific was gorgeous!

The sunset was also quite lovely:

After our time in the West was spent, we headed for a quick trip to Sin City to visit my grandmother, who took us to a posh casino ("for locals") with this enormous chandelier:

(And she bought us drinks:)

Back in Albuquerque briefly, we loaded up a moving van with the greater part of our worldly possessions, and then drove it two thousand (and sixty) miles across the country just in time--we thought--to meet Hurricane Irene.

We crossed the Mississippi River and got to see a few friends (and family members!) based in the central states of this very large country.

And at long last we reached "home" --or at least our current stop on this seemingly-neverending saga.

At the moment we are based on this pretty piece of God's brown soil, and I'm making day trips (and some longer trips) to libraries on the East Coast. All is well, although we are a little weary from our journeys, and we are staying out of trouble pretty well.

And I Would Drive Three Thousand Miles . . . Just to Read Another Book!

(Actually, I think we've logged closer to four thousand miles on this trip, but that's probably primarily because we've been driving around sixty miles each day in greater Los Angeles).

Where have we been this month? We began July 1 at a hotel in North Carolina (state of miserable traffic) and drove South that morning to see my good friend R. from college. By the 3rd of July we were actually at said college, my alma mater, which has recently changed its name and thus shall not be named.

Here's the Warren A. Hood library, at said school, which has changed remarkably little in the past eleven years since I matriculated:

And the rest of campus, which is greatly altered: (I. and I once got into terrible trouble at summer camp for talking to one another at a stone table that used to be just to the right of the tree in the foreground of this picture. We also had many pleasant conversations at a lovely swing that would also have been in this picture, had the cruel "improvers" of my alma mater not removed it. But I digress).

We visited the office building in which I. spent many hours of his high-school years:

And, of course, the tree where we met--though there was a little debate over exactly which tree. This is my best guess:

After our Jackson jaunt, we headed to wretched hot Bryan, TX for a visit to the Cushing Memorial Library (which holds three annotated copies of Donne's 1633 Poems).  Here's the library:

And here the one semi-attractive building on the entire Texas A&M Campus, which now rivals Cambridge and Birmingham for Most Wretched City of the World Award.

After Bryan (and a desperately hot night of camping at a muggy state park nearby), we ventured forth to Austin. During a morning of meandering we visited this very awesome pipe shop, which had thousands of hand-blown glass pipes beautiful enough to merit space on our eventual mantel. We refrained from purchasing any.

Some friends who live in nearby Round Rock took us to visit water and the infamous Round Rock (not pictured).

For most of our trip, I spent my time on the University of Texas campus, in the Harry Ransome center, which has the most amazing etched glass windows. These literary autographs are just to the left of the main entrance:

After this, we headed to Oklahoma, where we spent a wonderful weekend relaxing and celebrating with some good friends. Well-fed and quite sated with lively conversation, we then hopped onto I-40 and drove west for many, many miles. I. was particularly delighted when a random rest stop proved to have been one he'd visited before; though the bathrooms were vile, the amenities included this lovely old merry-go-round, which he enjoyed mightily.

New Mexico welcomed us with a lovely sunset (better in real life, of course) and Green Chile Cheeseburgers (for which I. had long been craving).

We spent a wonderful week catching up with friends, examining the contents of our storage unit, and resting beside this beautiful pond:

Onward and upward . . . we crossed into California a week later and were shortly surrounded by mountains (trickier to see in the rearview mirror, but they were certainly all around us!).

After three weeks of travels, I reached the lovely Huntington Library in Pasadena, where I have been researching for slightly more than a week. I have yet to dip my toes into the Pacific Ocean, but plan to do so before we venture back across America again.

Wishing all you readers good health, much happiness, and a restful and cool rest-of-summer.

The Remarkable Disappearance of June

In my head, it is still sometime in the late and too-warm Spring, a year or ten in the past, anytime (really) besides --is it already?-- July? of whatever year it is. President Obama made great waves when he wrote the wrong date in the Guest Registry at Westminster Abbey, but, really, it's a very understandable error. Time flies, and I have this summer forgotten the day of the week (numerous times), the date of the month (often), the month itself (more than I'd like to admit), and even the year (as my husband will tell you with great glee). Time, this summer, is a winged horse on steroids.

June, it seems, has come and gone, my days primarily occupied by seminars and books in the Folger Library, one of my favourite places in the world. In addition to its learned staff and wonderful books, the Folger also has a lovely Elizabethan Garden, pictured below, where I ate my lunch nearly every day.

While I read books and took notes, I. stayed busy volunteering for a nursing home near the house in which we were staying. Among other things, he painted an enormous recreation room and made many friends.

Most mornings, I walked up to the Folger from the L'Enfant station metro stop, located about halfway down the National Mall and very near to the Air and Space Museum (my personal favourite). There were several possible routes, the most pleasurable of which afforded this excellent view of the capitol building:

In the early morning, it's not uncommon to see hundreds of sprinklers watering the lawns outside the capitol building, Library of Congress, Folger Library, and others.

Near the end of June, we received the definite news that we'll be returning to the UK for another year next fall. This is less positive for I., but I'm very pleased and looking forward to teaching and researching as much as possible while there. In the meantime, as we make plans for our return, we're catching up with some old friends, visiting some libraries, and generally staying quite busy (but not out of trouble!)

The road ahead:

May We Sail Across the Seas?

April was a month of bright and sunny weather--the most distinctive and constant summer I've ever seen in Scotland--and May began with equal sunny warmth. Isaac and I took the excuse of a sunny late evening on our last Sunday in Scotland and ran down to the East Sands to build a sandcastle:

Here's Isaac, for size:

On the following Thursday, we had a barbecue on the only rainy evening in the last two weeks of our stay. Much cider was drunk, and we finally burnt up our Christmas tree. Isaac discovered a rock that explodes with the application of heat.

I spent my last two Scotland weeks packing, cleaning, having coffee dates with friends, and trying to write another large chunk of thesis. I now have, in rough draft, just under 50,000 words: I've passed the halfway point. In the middle of all this bustle, we took a morning off to visit the Farmer's Market and eat the delicious smoked fish available there:

We left England on a gloriously sunny day, sailing down the English channel as we passed small towns, long piers, other boats, and beautiful green trees:

We spent six days in a shroud of fog:

And we arrived in New York in a blessed pouring rain that somewhat managed to alleviate, if temporarily, the wretched humidity that has plagued us ever since the boat docked. Here's another boat in the rain at dawn:

Now, every day, I visit the building pictured below, in which are contained manifold delights: manuscripts, early printed books, and a few dozen texts I've needed to read for quite some while.

My research is going well, Isaac is meeting today about a volunteering opportunity in the neighbourhood in which we're staying, and we're both enjoying certain aspects of Americaland. Our plans for next year are still very much uncertain, but we'll keep you posted should that change.