Bee Lavender

“On a scale of one to ten, ten being the worst pain you’ve ever experienced. . . .”

I let the doctor finish, then said “My pain threshold is calibrated on a different scale. This won’t hurt.”

He signalled to the nurses behind me, and they all put on safety goggles. He said “We have transplant patients who say this is the worst pain of their lives. They’re tough nuts, but they feel it.”

I shrugged, and strapped on my own pair of safety goggles. “Uh huh.”

The procedure started – an unseen machine behind me delivering a targeted blast to the cancerous lesions blooming across my back.

The nurses and doctor murmured amongst themselves about clinic schedules and supplies while I sat, calm and remote and cross-legged, contemplating the nature of pain.

Not because the mysterious treatment hurt: as predicted, I could not feel anything at all.

The nurse in charge of my left shoulder said “You are so flexible, so calm – do you meditate? Do yoga?”

“No,” I said. “I do skin cancer.”

I was three years old when the treatments started, and I’ve lost count of how many cancerous lesions have been removed. Or rather, I stopped counting after cancer biopsy number three hundred, because I was bored. It is possible (if not desirable) to get used to anything, and I am accustomed to having my flesh gouged off.

It is all routine: the speculative gaze of the doctors, the mournful conversations with nurses. The smell of antiseptic, the texture of the gowns, the crackle of white paper on the examination table – all familiar and expected.

This particular appointment was an innovation because it was the first time I’ve been offered photodynamic therapy, and the first time I have ever consented to experimental treatment.

Throughout the procedure I just sat there, fingers pressed lightly together, observing the sensations. The nurses asked “Does it hurt?”

I said “I wouldn’t characterise this as pain.”

This was the truth, though midway through the session my body had noticed the shock and my brain was shuddering with atavistic fear. The urge toward fight or flight is so difficult to resist, because it is primitive, essential, instinctual. I just kept breathing as the muscles in my neck seized with panic, and sweat broke out on my palms.

But it didn’t hurt, it couldn’t hurt, what could ever hurt me?

The doctor laughed and said “You are the toughest patient we’ve ever seen.”

Give me a ribbon, a medal, a commemorative statuette: my performance of stoic endurance is impeccable. Nobody in my immediate vicinity will see anything except acerbic cheer. Nobody will see me cry – I won’t cry until several weeks later, when I’m alone, and it won’t be because of the pain.

I will cry, eventually, because I don’t want to be sick. I’ve had my share, I don’t want any more. I hate the rituals, the attention, the dependency, the loss of both flesh and time. Pain is immaterial, ephemeral, but this is real: I can’t wear my regular clothes, for weeks on end. I can’t wash my hair. I am not allowed to walk in the sun.

Worst of all, I need to ask someone to help change the dressings on the wounds. This might sound minor, but to me it is enormous, unacceptable, shaming. But again, I don’t talk about it. I don’t acknowledge weakness. I just say thank you and keep breathing.

One week later I went back for my second session of PDT, and the doctor continued his commentary on my putative toughness. But this time, he alternated tough with tolerant – as though the words had the same meaning.

I sat cross-legged in the hospital gown on the crackling paper of the examination table and considered the point. There isn’t much that bothers me, but I would have described myself as oblivious. Though perhaps he is right – maybe my imperious disregard of obstacles and objections is connected to the experience of growing up with cancer. I don’t know, and honestly, I don’t care.

Toward the end the doctor asked in some amazement “Do you ever complain about anything?”

I said “No.”

In the schematic of my life marriage is an economic contract, no more, no less. This view is entirely traditional and conservative. I harbor no romantic illusions; emotions are messy and transient. People may feel all sorts of things, but true love is expressed through discipline and hard work.

I am by all accounts quite difficult to know, whether judged as friend, mother, daughter, partner, colleague. But I give as much as I get. The people around me are hugely problematic and adorable in equal measure; we often struggle to take care of each other. If you have been following this journal or reading my published work you might grasp that my life has been a carousel of crisis – but no matter what happens I hold on and even enjoy the ride.

Except sometimes the horses stop moving and I notice that I have been swindled in the particulars of the ticket. Without exception this requires compensation; I am an equitable sort of person, not a sucker.

The six dire years in Cambridge absolutely demanded restitution. From whoever I deemed responsible, which in this case was twofold: the company who moved us here, and the husband who accepted the job.

My price for remaining in the UK (as opposed to absconding back to Portland, or destinations unknown) was precise and simple: I required a home of my own.

Remittance. Settlement. Bribe. Not too much to ask – in fact, quite cheap, considering.

This flat is mine, and anyone who hangs out here is required to follow my rules. Including picking up their dirty laundry.

9.26.10 disrupted

My coffee break has been cruelly disrupted by a film shoot every single morning. When I step outside my own front door I trip over celebrities. Literally. Shouldn’t they be…. caged, or something?

Best part of my new dwelling (brace yourself): hot water on demand. With a mixing tap! Quiver at the luxury!

Oh, and I painted the whole flat a tasteful cream colour selected from a “heritage” palate. Does this mean I’m a grownup now??

9.23.10 amused

One significant deviation from past moves: living in England erases my anxiety about hiring someone to shift my shit. I just feel like a displaced foreigner, instead of a class traitor!

Though professional movers are never amused by my antique scientific equipment and dental prostheses collections.

9.21.10 principle

On my final full day in Cambridge I spent the morning on the river, had coffee at Savinos, ate a picnic lunch next to the gravestones at Great St. Mary’s, bought water at Bacchanalia, picked up dinner from Nasreen Dar.

The first person I met six years ago was Rick, going on the sound principle that bike mechanics are my kind of folk. He has since moved from the market square to his own shop so I stopped in to chat and inhale the smell of metal and grease. This is the only place in town I have ever felt truly welcome (blame – or thank – a childhood whiled away in a petrol station) but this fact just underscores the reason I need to leave.

You might notice the lack of a farewell party, or any kind of parting from friends. That is easily explained: I have none. Or rather, I have the few I knew before arriving six years ago, and they will always know me.

The academics (and their families) I met have departed to new careers. Locals, townspeople? They don’t much like me. Except for the bike mechanics, and I’m not sturdy enough to join their bike polo and cross-country adventures.

It would be painful to contemplate this fact, but the fault is mine: I hate this town in principle and practice. My disdain is clearly communicated in every gesture, and what sensible person wishes to get tangled up in that kind of mess? I would not want to be friends with me, here.

Right now I feel a wrenching loss, but it is not related to Cambridge. Oh no; I regret what I left behind when I abandoned my life in Portland.

Circumstance, desire, and DNA dictated my departure and I have no regrets about the decision. I just wish I had appreciated what I had at the time. I didn’t know; I didn’t understand.

9.19.10 piquant

Somewhere in the muddle of moving my daughter received a package from her paternal grandparents. The contents included copies of the videos they shot when we all lived in the same town.

I was pleased to sit down with my grown-up child and watch the scenes of her evolving life, from a tiny little mewling scrap of a human to the robust and fleet-footed wonder she became. She was an exceptional and entertaining child; we had wild fun all the time, adored each other completely. I am hugely thankful someone recorded those moments.

But I was not prepared in any way for the unsettling experience of seeing myself on screen.

The first tape opens with me sitting in the office of the lumberyard holding the baby, talking. Even calculating for the intervening years and geographic distance, the scene is shocking. My voice was pitched much higher, my accent was a looping rural drawl. My hair was long but wispy, not yet fully grown back from the cancer years.

And, while you can’t see the scars, you can see the damage – the way I keep my arm tucked under the baby because it wasn’t strong enough to hold her. The way I flinch at every unexpected noise. The dazed, stricken expression on my face.

I was terribly young, looked far younger, and no passerby could have misunderstood the degree of physical pain I lived with. I looked sick. I was shattered.

Every scrap of documentary evidence indicates I was only about half alive by the summer of 1990, and I certainly would not have chosen to stick around to see what happened next. But the arrival of the infant who has grown into an indomitable and talented twenty year old was the decisive moment, the point at which everything changed. Irrevocably.

I didn’t leave home then, in fact I retreated – dropping out of school, moving back to my small hometown, marrying the father of the baby. But the videos, offering up glimpses from holidays, family gatherings, birthday parties, show us all changing.

The baby, of course, was brilliant, at all times, in all ways. The adults in the vicinity acted as best they could.  James appears every so often, sitting at the kitchen counter silently reading a magazine. The husband is spotted at an airport in his military uniform, fresh out of special forces training, looking more baffled than anything else. He exits for a couple of years then shows up again, captured on film saying not much at all, rarely talking to the baby, never looking at me.

And I hover somewhere near the camera offering up a constant monologue of bright shiny sarcasm. Adjectives, adverbs, what my mother would call ten cent words, flowing corrosively and endlessly. It doesn’t really matter: nobody is listening.

Except the baby, and she finds my commentary amusing.

Once I recovered from the injuries I became the whimsical sort of teenager who literally jumped with joy, exclaiming Hot diggity! as I opened Christmas presents. True, I was impetuous, intolerant, and used too many big words. But if you like that kind of thing, my monologues were pretty funny.

The mystery I have never solved is what went wrong, why it all fell apart. These tapes show what I remember: over the course of three years I went from weak to strong, changing in all perceptible ways. I was still myself, but better.

And that is probably the answer.

Until this week I never really wondered what broke up my first marriage, consigning it to the category “too young, too stupid” and refusing to discuss the devastation that ensued.

I’ve never invoked questions of morality, or even honour. I’ve never publicly or privately acknowledged that the father of my child abandoned her, failed catastrophically in his duties. The lack of financial support is not the point. He could have visited, called, sent letters. He could have been a friend.

Instead, he declared that I would be a good mother, then left me to the task.

I’m picking up the keys to my new house on the twentieth anniversary of my first failed marriage, and there is a piquant satisfaction in that fact. My daughter is older now than I was when she was born. She is launched, in academic terms fathoms further than any of her parents at that age. The struggle to raise her was worth it, and look where we ended up!

Though it just occurred to me that someone owes me a really big apology for 1992.

9.17.10 absurd

Merging one boat, one house, one studio, and sundry storage units scattered across two continents into a single second floor (translation for stateside readers: third story) inner city residence? Not recommended… or at least, not as a leisure activity.

I’ve spent the last few weeks rushing about frantically packing, unpacking, purging, arranging, harassing, and otherwise falling to bits while keeping the rest of the crew in good working order.

I’m good at this kind of thing – obviously, since I do it so often.

Though everything you might imagine to have gone wrong has in fact happened. Is it difficult to locate a suitable home in central London? Why yes. Harrowing to raise the down payment and secure a mortgage when banks are not in a mood to lend? Yep. Chastening to convince the local council that relevant zoning decisions are absurd and should be amended? Uh huh.

Annoying to keep the whole thing a secret for six months because the outcome was unknown? You betcha.

It was all quite tedious, rather boring, and possibly offensive to those not in a position to purchase a property in central London. Worse yet, not interesting to write about, unless you like economy porn. And I’m not that kind of girl.

9.16.10 chasm

There is at times an enormous gaping chasm between my perception of a situation and what an objective observer might report. One example: I cling with bloody shredded fingers to the notion that I am working class, despite all evidence (education, income, career, tendency to scamper off to the Riviera on a whim) to the contrary.

Usually this distortion makes no difference in real terms except that I am inclined to say critical and highly offensive things at dinner parties. Or, you know, live on the radio. Whatever.

But sometimes the disparity between truth and experience is impossible to ignore. For instance, I believe that I am a cautious, deliberate, settled sort of chap.

Yet I have moved 21 times in 20 years. Not including interstitial escapades.

I’ve been anticipating the current move, but had no clear notion of which country I would choose, let alone which city I would end up in. Borough, district, neighbourhood? Niceties, and nothing more.

I looked at the flat I just bought for a mere ten minutes, six months ago. I only know where it is because I have a map.

Now this will be an adventure!

9.15.10 moving

Sold boat. Bought flat. Moving to London.

9.13.10 flummoxed

Moving to Cambridge was a whim, an adventure. Remaining was pragmatic – I lacked funds to find a new home. My visa (and hence eligibility to apply for citizenship) was contingent on the job of another person, who was determined to live in a town I loathed. I prioritised allowing my children to grow up with their father. Etc.

There is no easy way to describe my problem with Cambridge – one of the most beautiful yet wretched places I have ever visited, and certainly the worst place I have ever lived. Through six years that felt like a dozen my hatred of the place was the only thing keeping me sane. I knew that there was something wrong, and like having cancer, I could appreciate the learning experience while hating the pain.

I deserve congratulations only for my willingness to speak the truth. I watched friends who claimed to find the place pleasant deteriorate: addiction, divorce, and similar suicidal gestures are a commonplace.

My own behaviour in the city has been less than exemplary. My normally high ethical standards slipped, my casual truculence was converted to deliberate cruelty.

I’ve managed all manner of nonsense for years, but I am exquisitely finished. Done!

I would say that it does not matter where I move, so long as I get out of here. But I stopped believing that kind of fairytale awhile ago.

I’m a restless, agitated sort of person. I require privacy, anonymity. I like coffee, crowds, movies, and museums. Someone recently accused me of being cosmopolitan and I was flummoxed by the charge – but that might be the solution to my ongoing existential crisis.

I was born below sea level and grew up in a forest, but I want more than anything to live and die in a real city.

What of the other complications and concerns? My daughter is moving to London in a few weeks. My son is willing to move wherever I go. Husband? He can make his own decision for his own reasons. If he wants to follow me, fine. But it will be on my terms, to my chosen destination.

And I’m going.

9.12.10 buy

Ever wondered what life on the river looks like? Ever yearned for adventure and destinations unknown…. or at least East Anglia?

Well now your dreams can come true: click here for details about about how to buy my boat!

What do you get for your money? Oh, so much… like:

A 35 foot traditional narrowboat:

With a fixed master bedroom suite:

Foyer featuring abundant provision of shelves:

Open plan galley and guest quarters:

Cozy woodstove for chilly evenings:

Spectacular views of the River Cam:

Patio garden:

Friendly locals:

Numerous options for entertaining guests:

Idyllic scenery:

Easy access for cruising the Fens:

Privacy, autonomy, and above all, the cheapest way to live in the historic environs of Cambridge, England:

9.10.10 cryptic

I’ve opened my storage units and started to purge.

I started with the most mysterious and formidable corner of the archive but thus far there is no trace of hidden treasure, photographs of dead revolutionaries, or cryptic love letters in a language unknown.

However: great-grandma Saima’s steamer trunk is rehabilitated and ready for adventure!

9.5.10 twitchy

This morning a stranger complimented my new spectacles and I was so startled I poured 16 ounces of boiling hot coffee down myself.

While this reaction is largely down to the fact that I am a twitchy oddity, the fact is, strangers don’t talk to me in Cambridge. My normal conversational skills are in the “nonexistent to poor” range and never exercised.

In other news, I am homesick today. I will be treating the malaise with interrogative requests, right hand fork wielding, and US style comma placements.

Drum roll, please!

I choose (brace yourself):

England.

Since I’m already here & they gave me citizenship and whatnot.

Just not Cambridge. Not for one second longer than necessary.

8.22.10 choose

Earlier this year I declared that I would not spend another August in Cambridge, yet here I mysteriously remain!

That is a problem that will be rectified posthaste.

I’m not greedy. I simply require all of my wishes to come true. And, like the Kray twins, I always start as I mean to go on.

But wherever will I live next? Dual nationality means I can stay here, go home, or pick any destination I desire in the European Union.

One hint: it won’t be a town nobody has ever heard of, somewhere in the hinterlands of Germany. I categorically refuse, regardless of consequence.

Though I’ve gotta go somewhere. Destinations in order of preference are:

-London
-NYC
-Berlin
-San Francisco

Paris, Rome, Seattle, Portland, and Austin were contenders but have been eliminated from the competition for my favours. Though I promise to visit lots.

Tick tock, time to decide.

8.18.10 citizens

The big secret?

The most astonishing news of the decade: our applications were approved.

We are officially British citizens.

8.10.10 alive

More notes on the continuing drama of The German Question:

Before the first interview, Byron told the Prestigious Institute (PI for simplicity) he would not even consider applying for the job unless all four of us were granted permanent residency. They agreed that residency for the entire family was an obvious pre-requisite.

All seemed well until after he signed the contract, at which point it became clear that permanent residency was more bait than promise.

I wonder if someone lied, or if they were they just unprofessional to an inconceivable degree?

Questions have been asked, but I still don’t know the answer, and honestly, I do not care. Residency is a fundamental requirement. End of discussion.

And anyway, there are other things to consider. For instance, while you can’t really criticise an employer for ascribing to legal and cultural standards, I have just spent a year of my life trying to figure out the German health care system.

To fully describe the various complications would take too much time, and I am so disgusted I will refrain from even attempting a synopsis.

Suffice to say I was coached by insurance brokers and associated professionals to answer questions in a disingenuous manner. Repugnant, if logical. But wherever I could not be evasive, I was told to conveniently forget large portions of my history.

Like the fact that I have cancer.

The worst part though? Doctors and dentists who performed the examinations to certify eligibility were eminently willing to ignore, oh, you know, hundreds upon hundreds of surgical scars to sign the certificates stating that I am healthy.

There is a word for this. The word is corruption.

I do not lie, not for (as the saying goes) love nor money. Certainly not for insurance.

Furthermore, to do so in this situation would be idiotic. A simple internet search would reveal this journal, the articles I have published about disability issues, the fact that I wrote a book about living with a rare genetic disorder.

However, I am willing to push a policy to the last possible border and beyond. Deny me insurance while claiming to be a fair and rational society? We’ll see about that.

I was not allowed to join a public plan, as a self-employed person. Then I was officially denied membership in what is perceived as the appropriate private insurance plan for someone related to a member of PI. But it is illegal to live in Germany without insurance. What next? I was considering a lawsuit. Such is life in Chez Lavender.

Then, lo! I figured out a tricky angle that would force a private company to take me, and was able to enroll, if at significant expense. So now I have private health insurance in Germany – a nation featuring perhaps the best care available anywhere in the world.

Though I do not feel especially proud of this, given that my stated ideal (and current reality) is living in a place where everyone has equal access to health care. Will I seriously move somewhere discrimination based on disability status is an enshrined principle?

Maybe, but then again, maybe not. Depends on what other benefits are on offer – and the Germans also reneged on the promise of permanent residency for all members of the family.

The clock is ticking. If PI does not resolve this conundrum before a better offer comes through, I’m not moving.

No matter what Byron chooses to do.

I’m back in Cambridge. The most exciting event of the day? Double points at Boots.

I’ve enjoyed living in terrible places, because they offered the quiet of the forests or the solace of the sea. I’ve tolerated horror because I could see the sun rise and set. But this town has no horizon and, since I am not affiliated with the university, life here is so… boring.

Gotta get out before I start thinking it entertaining (or acceptable) to buy clothes at Laura Ashley.

7.18.10 antics

My daughter has arrived in Edinburgh to visit us, boyfriend in tow. This of course requires fun antics and celebratory meals.

Though their desires do not always synchronize with my predilections; we can agree that Wellington Coffee is the best cafe in the city, but beyond that we diverge. They wish to shop – and I wish to stomp around Greyfriars Tolbooth & Highland Kirk in the rain

I remain amazed by this person – a tiny baby entrusted to my care twenty years ago, grown and launched and utterly delightful.

Though she still won’t let me post photographs of her winsome self.

7.16.10 happy

We’ve been to Edinburgh before but never ventured past the city limits.

Since I don’t drive in jolly ye olde world it had to happen sometime. Yes, the worst has come to pass…. we booked a coach tour!

Our launch was inauspicious as my son immediately succumbed to motion sickness, but our fellow passengers thankfully all pretended not to notice.

From that point on the experience was actually quite good fun. I like to be driven about, and our guide was not just an employee but an enthusiast. He knew far more than any of us wanted to hear about Scottish history – awesome!

The Firth of Forth, Kirkaldy, Dunkeld, forests of Douglas Fir (just like home). Mountains, valleys, monuments to the Battle of Culloden and the massacre at Glen Coe.

I’m not even a smidgen Scottish by blood but I was completely devastated by the landscape and history.

Those who know me in real life can attest that I am cold and heartless about all sorts of things that other people think problematic – like, oh, broken marriages, or cancer. But give me a persecuted social movement and I will pontificate endlessly. And, often, weep.

Right now the most significant choice I face is the question of whether to remain in the United Kingdom, and Scotland offers up reminders of the lessons of history. Are they pertinent to my current quandary? Probably not. But it is more interesting to think about the Highland Clearances than my superfluous problems.

My children are not especially impressed by these habits, but the boy at least occasionally agrees to accompany me on the excursions. He has wanted to see Loch Ness his whole life: mission accomplished.

It was a two day excursion and we made camp at a hotel in Fort Williams, with carpeting in the bathroom and a view of the bay.

Eating curry in a peculiar Indian restaurant while gazing at the ruins of a Redcoat fortress, I picked up my phone to check for new messages.

I wasn’t expecting anything at all …. but a seriously difficult secret plan, requiring significant material and emotional sacrifice, has resolved.

I can’t tell you what happened, and my son was not impressed. But my life, whatever is left of it, has officially been improved in an exponential manner.

That night I slept deeply for the first time in months, then woke to eat a full cooked breakfast in a provincial hotel – always hilariously disgusting, though at least in Scotland they leave off the baked beans.

We met our fellow travelers to continue the journey, including a Jacobite Steam Train speeding past Neptune’s Staircase.

I am so happy.

7.13.10 haggis

The heat wave persisted. This, unfortunately, meant that it was about 90F with standing room only on my five hour train ride to Edinburgh: even Betjeman would object.

But in the north everything is lovely! Scotland is seagulls, sunsets, Al Stewart on the radio, rainbows on Arthur’s Seat, a penguin parade at the zoo, and RAIN!

There is black pudding & haggis on the menu at local pizza takeaway, and horse-drawn carriages picketing a Bollywood film shoot near my place in New Town…

I’m here to escape from Cambridge and definitively decide where to live next. Why does this question persist? When will I achieve the clarity I long for? Do I belong somewhere or nowhere?

7.8.10 clever

My daughter graduated! I don’t understand the system here, so no idea what the credential achieved may be – but I’m proud of her!

This is a particularly striking fact given that she has only attended school for perhaps two years, ever. Recalcitrant, brilliant, scathing and sweet: it is truly an honor to know her and celebrate this strange moment.

What a clever kitten.

7.7.10 resist

I’ve been ill and the weather has turned to that once-per-summer “heat wave” (think 75F) that incapacitates the city but (as always) I persevere, forging onward in pursuit of novelty and treats.

This week that includes See Further: The Festival of Science + Arts at Southbank Centre.

Just imagine: the Royal Festival Hall, and an opera about Icarus featuring Philip Glass and the London Philharmonic. Scientists, musicians, writers. Booths, demonstrations, performances, and….flying bionic penguins!

Who could resist?

Besides, Southbank is my favorite part of the city:

7.6.10 perfect

My UK dentist looks about twelve years old and wears Keds, but she says my teeth are perfect.

Qualified perfection, as I live in a land renowned for poor dental hygiene, but still. I’m nearly forty, drink coffee, and gobble jellybeans, but my gums are pink and healthy. I have no cavities, no loose crowns, no problems whatsoever. Astonishing!

This state of affairs was deliberate. My baby teeth were rotten, yellow, jagged. Throughout my childhood I endured daily treatments, countless fillings and caps. I had six root canals before my seventh birthday, and all but three of my teeth were extracted under anesthetic…. and that doesn’t even take us up to the era when my jaw was found to be riddled with tumors.

Have you ever required dental surgery so sensitive you woke in the intensive care ward of a teaching hospital? I have.

How my parents paid for these procedures without adequate insurance is a profound mystery – but they did it. My new teeth were coaxed and cajoled by a team of experts spanning three counties over two long decades.

I dutifully scrubbed and brushed and flossed and dared dream big dreams – that one day, perchance, I could eat an apple!

Thank you to my parents, working endlessly long hours to pay the bills. Thank you, childhood dentist, for the advice and intervention that saved my teeth. Fervent thanks to the oral surgeon for the delicate repairs to my jaw, and the larger diagnosis of the genetic disorder.

In the United States teeth are the most obvious marker of social class. Before I was old enough to understand, my family and physicians decided I was not the girl with a dirty mouth.

Later I moved to a country where even the movie stars have crooked smiles, but learned along the way that the question is not fundamentally about aesthetics. My UK dentist is amazed by my teeth because they are strong.

It was worth the hassle (and yes I still floss).

7.4.10 independence

Tourists: I don’t begrudge them the pleasure they find staring at the colleges and churches. I just wonder – do they lack streets back home? Or do they leave their common sense at the border?

Trinity Street is shorter than my grandparents rural driveway in Poulsbo WA, yet seems to host something like five or six thousand strangers all day, every day, from April to September. Summers in this town are a grind of trudging through impassable, teeming masses of people so I can complete normal errands. Like buying milk.

If I stood aside every time I encounter someone snapping photographs, I would spend my whole life immobilized on cobblestones in the city centre. I would be a statue, not a person!

The crowds won’t even budge for busses, forget cyclists. When I first moved here I didn’t understand all the aggressive bell-ringing, but now I am one of the agitated locals, one hand steering, one on the bell. Not to be mean (though I am often enraged), but to warn the clueless strangers who persist in bumbling into traffic without even turning their head.

My normal routine is to get the heck out of town, preferably out of the country, but this year I am trapped by immigration travel restrictions. Creative solutions are required!

Packing for a retreat to UK destinations more congenial I received email from Satnam requesting my presence at dinner. I was about to decline as I had a date with some robotic flying penguins, but then I thought for a second.

How many invitations have I had in this city? I’ve dined with Satnam and family twice. Don and Barbara five or so times, Sally and Steve about the same. There have been a few scattered other events with locals, and things were more lively when I hung out with students (Jean, Rachel, David & Sarah, all since departed for sunnier climes).

That is it. The sum total of my socializing over six years in this city is less than I would have done in a fortnight back home.

One of the tertiary reasons I left the states? The nonstop temptation to have fun. My Portland house functioned as a community center. My housewarming in Seattle was so crowded I couldn’t even get in the door. When I go back I have almost no time at all to myself, and regard trips to the laundromat as respite. Unless I see people I know at the laundromat as well, which is about a fifty percent chance, no matter which city I happen to alight in.

My life in the states is hectic, filled with people and events and excursions.

When my children were little and I did performances people asked how I managed to get any work done at all, and I always answered I’m an insomniac. This is true, and the first thirty-three years of my life were marked out by large work projects accomplished in the middle of the night and on the run.

The whole thing felt claustrophobic, and I longed for solitude.

Now I have all the time I could ever need. Every day is open, unstructured, without deadlines or commitments, no childcare needed or given, no friends to distract and delight.

What do people do with all of this time? Watch television? I do not understand.

I accepted the invitation and cycled up to enjoy the hospitality of Satnam and Susan, who continue to make an astonishing effort to entertain. They host these dinners all the time; I gave up on this town years ago.

We talked about Seattle, agreeing the scant year and a half or so each of us lived there wasn’t enough. One of the couples at the table offered up scathing critiques of all the things I hate about Cambridge: mostly the hordes of tourists, and the difficulty (twinned with necessity) of cycling. They have a tidy solution: they move to San Francisco at the weekend.

Other complaints include the perpetual Town v. Gown division, river drama, and of course and always, the lack of decent restaurants or grocery stores.

Satnam ranted about all the effort required to assemble the delicious dinner he had just served. I squinted and said Why do you live here again?

He answered To be near my mother.

What a corrective tonic. Would my life be better if I lived in Kitsap County, or even, if I am honest, Seattle? No.

Because all of the details that bedevil my day are superficial. I left my homeland because I want to live in a place where all citizens have access to healthcare and a basic standard of living.

Whatever it takes, whatever it costs, this is where I am staying…. for now.

Happy Independence Day.

7.1.10 development

I’ve been sorting through old files and found all manner of oddity, including but not limited to any email sent or received since 1993; full backups of every website I have ever designed or administered; and the contents of the computer stolen from my house a decade or so ago. The lost manuscript? Several other books I have elected not to publish? The controversies and hatred that destroyed the magazine? Photographs of hundreds of people in various stages of embarrassing development and fashion?

I have it all, sitting right here in front of me.

Of course I’m not going to look at any of these things. My archives serve no clear purpose, except to clutter.

Though I have been reading old journal entries to piece together an essay on topics that have faded in memory. In 2003 I was apparently obsessing about not just my wardrobe but more pertinently, the ethics of narrative nonfiction. I was worried that publishing the stories eventually collected as Lessons in Taxidermy was somehow “wrong” – though I could not quite identify the nature of the crime.

The concerns centered on the notion that I had a clear understanding of the facts (what happened) and an imperfect grasp of the importance (why it happened, or what it means).

Looking back, the real danger appears to be that I was convinced of my own indifference to how other people feel about the events described. Feelings are sticky, sloppy, annoying. Someone hit you upside the head with a plank? I only want to know how many stitches you needed, not what you think about the scar.

Well, it was a good theory.

I thought – and still believe – that telling the truth, no matter how hard or frightening, is mandatory. When I published the book I was also young (or stupid) enough to think that truth was somehow illuminating – that incurable pain could be relieved with sufficient doses of honesty.

I was wrong.

While assembling the stories I was cautious, using only the elements beyond dispute. Everything in the book (aside from names) can be proved. I have the records. It all happened, exactly as stated. If you refer to witness accounts, medical files, or any other source, you will find that I did not elaborate, embroider, create.

Instead, I edited – leaving out years, events, people, and always, feelings. The most bitter fight I had with my publisher concerned a profound lack of adjectives.

At the time I was fixated on the question of who owned the story – my story. My body. My life. This is a reasonable line to follow; the problem is that a life is not a singular experience. People are entwined with each other. I may have been lonely, but I was not alone.

Somewhere underneath the burbling about ethics I was scared that I would hurt someone by telling the truth – but I didn’t let myself examine that problem.

Hurt? Try taunt. Torment. Enrage. Words like “destroy” might be too harsh, but several important friendships ended, whether I wanted them to or not. Other relationships changed in traumatic ways. There was no reconciliation, no redemption, no reunion.

I accumulated positive reviews and lost friends. I wrote something down, guaranteeing I could never speak of it again.

Would it have been easier to keep the secrets? No. But this does not change the fact that I hurt people.

It doesn’t matter if they hurt me first.

Since 2003 my circumstances have changed dramatically. This life is factually better than that life. So why am I still thinking about these things? Why do I spend a significant amount of each day fretting about purely speculative concerns?

Because I know a couple of stories, and the urge to tell is more compelling than the fear of retribution.

When my beloved junkie auntie died my mother turned to me and said Now you can write anything you want about the family.

I didn’t believe her, but I suspect it was meant as an assignment.

My agent and my children urge me to write the stories as fiction, but I retort that I have no imagination. My job would be so much easier if I did – but for whatever reason, I seem to be stuck with facts.

Right now the question is not whether I will write the stories; it is, rather, whether I will allow them to be published.

James has been a close friend since we were sixteen or so, sharing everything imaginable as we ran away toward an obscure future. For twenty years we talked or exchanged letters every single day, and when I asked his advice in 2003 he said:

You are stuck on truth, which is real philosophy of the ethical moral variety. Fiction is something else, namely, the ontological, metaphysical sort of contemplation and assuming. Somehow I do not think you are about possibilities. Rather this other sort of wisdom: action and experience. You really care about remembering what happened; to the point of ruinous arguments over events. The problem is, though you often do not let on, you also worry, quite deeply, about what other people might think or feel about what happened. There is always doubt, and in that doubt, there are feelings – yours and theirs. And at the end of the day, regardless of what happens, you want people to feel alright. You want people to be better. That is your conflict. It is maybe also the point of your writing.

He is one of the people who stopped talking to me after the book was published. He had valid reasons (though it is unlikely he remembers the precipitating event), and his life has been improved by my absence.

Facts do not extinguish feelings. They just help us decide what to do next.

Just in case anyone missed the point, I have a career. My job is portable in the sense that I can ‘work’ just about anywhere, but I am compensated for that work in traditional ways. If I freelance an article or sell a book in one country, but live in another, there are complications both in getting paid and in paying taxes for the work.

One simple example: to receive money you need a bank account. To get a bank account you need proof of residency – a visa, a permanent address. Banks and governments frown on efforts to move money across borders without sufficient documentation.

I dwelled in the United Kingdom for five excessively long years before I was able to get a bank account. I still have no pension or investments of any variety, and affordable home ownership is out of reach. Yet my savings account is clogged up with cash. Why? Because the passport and residency documents you possess actually matter. This is not a principle, this is pure pragmatism.

This is the subtext to a secret plan that has been afoot for about a year: Byron was offered a fancy job with a Prestigious Institute (PI for simplicity). When he first outlined the plan of accepting the job, one of my main objections was the portability or lack thereof for my career.

What is the provision in Germany for self-employed people, writers, artists, freelancers? How would I (or could I) enter whatever they call their social security system – pay taxes, accumulate pensions, acquire health insurance, etc.?

The answer: not easily, if at all.

That answer is not acceptable.

Rummaging for a solution, one of the representatives of PI suggested that the institute provide me with a cover story – a nominal fake job and salary as… something or other… so I could access the benefits system.

Excuse me?

I am not chattel.

I am also not young, naive, or stupid.

While I can be flexible about where I work or live, I am not willing to compromise about other issues.

I am an adult with a well-established career. It was already a massive compromise to even consider moving to a remote German town, then start the laborious process of rebuilding my professional contacts.

It is offensive to an intolerable degree to suggest I accept any further level of degradation, for any reason. To serve the career of another person?

In a word, no.

And everyone should feel relieved that my rage is limited to typing the above paragraphs.

I had to stop watching the news as I keep expecting Cameron and Clegg to gel up, fade to Top of the Pops, and burst into a duet of ‘Love of the Common People.’

5.25.2010 settings

That precious little premature infant I coddled and carried for years is now… five foot eleven! He has started to tousle my hair and call me Baby!

Oh, the horror – it won’t be long now before he is fully grown and launched, and then what will I do? I’ve been a mother as long as I have been an adult. I’m not equipped with other factory settings.

Speaking of, his sister came to visit, dragging her boyfriend along to enjoy the hospitality of this spacious (and rather surreal) cottage. There is plenty of space- six bedrooms – and the place gradually filled.

Alessandro is considering a move from NYC to the UK and is crashing in my London studio, but he popped over to say hello. Angela, Bjorn, and baby Tor (originally known via Sweden) arrived from Bath.

It was all rather jolly; I can see the benefits of possessing a house, if I could keep it full of friends and family.

In the midst of the festivities I convinced a coterie to come along on an adventure…. the Steam Rally at Didcot!

5.20.2010 commentary

Recently I was reading a mystery novel (perhaps an Amanda Cross?) in which a character says that anyone who lives in Oxford, no matter how short the sojourn, feels compelled to write a book about it…. whereas nobody feels that way about Cambridge, no matter how long the retreat.

My visit thus far confirms this observation.

Oxford, for whatever reason, truly does have a kind of near mystical appeal. Dreaming spires and all that. How? Why? I do not know.

The only fact I can cite is that I have never dined in college during six years in Cambridge. But last night in Oxford I was seated next to the president at high table in the richest college in the entire world – and he found my scathing commentary amusing.

Later I was taken on a midnight tour of the fellows library, where I handled manuscripts older than my homeland.

The Ashmolean, Pitt Rivers, Maison Blanc cupcakes, the Angel & Greyhound meadow, meandering along the banks of the Cherwell. Picnics on Will & Lyra’s bench, with students wearing togas punting past, and a wild fox scampering at my feet.

My lodgings are in a seventeenth century house with St. John’s at the back and St. Giles to the front. How could a city be more seductive?

The only real problem is my persistent desire to be elsewhere.

My grandmother is still ailing, my aunt and cousin are dead. I can’t go home to help, or for the funerals, because my passport is needed in a faraway office while a bureaucrat considers the viability of my citizenship application. This is my choice, even if I am fated to forever wonder if the compromise is worth the pain.

I walk the streets, and wander through the colleges, in a state of melancholy amazement.

5.11.2010 observations

Grief makes even the most alluring adventure seem drab, and guess where I am? Oxford.

Think Cambridge, except the people dress a little bit better.

I am being quite stern and refraining from judgment of this town, since I am in mourning and all of my thoughts about life in general shift with each new death in the family.

However, a few observations: the only thing worse than a Leonard Cohen song? A Leonard Cohen song performed by a British busker. The only thing worse than posh academic Ladychat? Posh academic Ladychat about babies. Ick.

I am at least entertained by the hung parliament and formation of a coalition government. Parliamentary process is so fascinating.

5.8.2010 wish

The election, my confusion about where to live, and a separate yet undefined sense of unease conspired to wake me over and over again until I gave up just after dawn and checked my messages.

My mother had emailed to say Christopher is dead.

He was only eight years older than me. We grew up in the same place, raised by the same people. All the cousins were granted a nearly identical set of skills and talents, raw intelligence and curiosity. The only true difference between us? I had a mother who used her fierce love to protect me, body and soul. The others were not so lucky.

I went to college. Chris went to jail.

The last time I saw him was at Mary’s funeral. He told me that he was proud of me for getting out. I told him I was proud of him for holding on.

I’m sitting in a boutique hotel in a posh resort town in a country with a social welfare system. Chris died of treatable illnesses in a shack in a ravine, without even electricity to light his last hours.

Money might not buy happiness, but it can purchase food, shelter, and healthcare. I had to leave our home to find safety. He never had the chance.

I am filled with rage and horror and there is absolutely nothing to do.

I wish, oh how I wish, that things could have been different for all of us.

RIP Christopher. I wish there had been more time for you.

5.6.2010 election

Continuing the marginally obsessive search for a new place to live, I ventured forth to look at Bath and Bristol again. The trip fell on the same day as the general election – fortuitously, because I would have otherwise missed the television coverage of the returns.

The whole event was baffling on many levels, though my kid objected to nonstop viewing of the motley and bizarre collection of “celebrities” chatting on a boat on the Thames. We switched erratically between news and entertainment, and discovered that Flight of Chonchords is excellent – who knew!

During commercial breaks I texted with Iain and read the hilarious twitter posts from my pal Michael Moran in the Times office.

Somewhere around three in the morning I gave up trying to understand which party had won, or indeed, what result would be more desirable.

I drifted into a fitful sleep, determined above all else that from this day forward I will be able to vote in the country where I live.

As the UK election looms, anti-immigration fervor is all over the news.

I am an immigrant. I bring my skills, my taxable income, my genius husband and dazzling children. I want to work and contribute to a society that is fair and equitable. I want to make a home.

I have done this at great personal cost. My relatives are dying, and because I am applying for citizenship in the UK, I can’t go home for the funerals.

Remember that when you cast your ballot. The immigrant of your imagination? It is me.

4.28.2010 RIP

RIP Maryann – sister, wife, aunt, cousin, mother, grandmother, friend. We will miss you.

4.26.2010 waves

I have been inundated by ferocious waves of grief because I can’t be there for my grandmother, her mind gone now, all feuds and judgments erased.

She is no longer the person I knew, the authority I hated and adored in equal measure. I’m not trying to impress her, or rebel against the Lavender way; those concerns died with my grandfather. I still disagree with the choices they made, but I also understand the gift they gave me.

I grew up in opposition to them, and that made me.

But none of that matters any longer. All I can think of right now is how she held me and danced, in that house on the cliff over the bay, singing along to Shirley Temple songs on the record player.

4.24.2010 home

I just heard that my grandmother has been airlifted to Harborview with a broken neck. Nobody knows how the injury happened; it seems that she was alone in her room at the nursing home, but she can’t recall.

My mother also reports that her aunt has started hospice care.

I am frantic with anxiety, and there is absolutely nothing useful to do. I am left with the poor substitute of a symbol: bouquets of roses ordered in haste from a great distance.

Transcontinental tears make no difference whatsoever.

4.18.2010 accoutrements

Lacking a first class airline lounge to scrounge in, I was forced to BUY the new Tatler.

Oh, the horror… spending my own money on such accoutrements just feels obscene.

Arguably, reading the rag is in and of itself a dirty business, but hey! How else would I figure out which cosmetics are worth the price? It isn’t like I was born with the knowledge, or raised with the skills.

Fake it til you make it, kid.

My days are otherwise consumed with the question of where to live, and that is a conundrum no magazine can help with, no matter how glossy.

We’ll take a few points as given, namely: I will select a destination helpful to my career. The new city will be aesthetically pleasing, with adequate provision of coffee, movies, and esoteric cheese.

I could go back to Portland; I miss my friends, and I own the place currently known as the Harmelodic Haus. That life is a readymade – I can just walk right back in.

Seattle casts a spell, offering the landscape where I belong.

Or I could meander south, to San Francisco. Or east to Austin. New York is always a temptation.

The problem with the United States is the lack of a public infrastructure. Health care reform hasn’t halted the medical bankruptcies. The current administration has not significantly improved the lives of working class families, nor provided adequate care to the mentally ill people begging on street corners.

America: love it or leave it? I choose both.

Right now my inclination is to either remain in the UK (with a new address) or go to Germany. Therein lies the controversy, and for me, it is all about money. Remember: born in poverty, raised working class. I’m self-made and I pay my own way.

London is one of the most expensive cities in the world, no matter how you read the statistics. It is also hugely alluring, not least because I already have a life there – a literary agent, friends, daily routines, favorite shops, a language I am at least moderately acclimated to.

The only significant barrier to moving is the cost of housing. A comprehensive review of the market informs that all properties in Zones 1 to 3 are approximately the same cost, best stated as ‘breathtakingly expensive.’ Regardless of whether you rent or buy, reckon on a range that starts at 600 quid per bedroom (and that would be a bargain). The more you pay, the better the place, etc. Yet Zones 1 to 3 are by necessity the target destination, for reasons both practical and subtle.

Germany represents a significant savings on housing, for better quality overall. I could trundle over and buy a flat in Berlin tomorrow if I liked, and it would be a fantastic place in a central neighborhood. There are, however, two major problems with Germany:

1. Compulsory education. My son would be compelled by law to attend school. Entering the public German system at this age, with no knowledge of the language, is commonly considered a catastrophic mistake due to the way children are tracked in the system. The best alternative is private school (an option I find abhorrent on so many levels), and that would cost at least 15,000 euro – possibly as much as 25,000.

2. Health care. Proof of insurance is a legally mandated condition of residency. The cheapest I can get for myself is a minimum payment of 325 euro per month for the public plan, not including options I will need, like travel insurance. This is a threshold payment – actual premiums would be 17% of my total income. Oh, and since I don’t speak the language, it would be extremely difficult to access services, deal with bills, etc.

Whereas the UK offers free standardized health care, and school is free if you want to go (my kid doesn’t). So, stated in a completely conservative fashion, living in Germany would require earning an extra 30,000 euro each year, minimum, to cover basics like health care and education.

Oh – but that washes away the savings on housing, doesn’t it? How fascinating.

I would like to stop thinking about these things and just read the Tatler. Dreaming of a new life is far easier than leading one.

4.15.2010 sartorial

Who has tickets to the Rufus Wainwright opera? Me!

I know that the rest of the world has abandoned sartorial standards, but I actually care about what I wear. Every day, all the time, even when I look like a raggedy fool. But especially in the context of events one would have dressed up for in, oh, 1890.

Most of my clothes were sorted and packed for the upcoming mystery move, and I have no time to shop. Rummaging in the high shelves of the studio I finally found an adequate garment, but it hurts my neck!! Oh, how troubling. Whatever shall I wear? Hmm….

4.14.2010 busted

Back in Cambridge, I stopped to watch cute indie buskers playing a set in the city centre…. only to get busted by council staff in this Town of No Fun.

As I walked away a Hare Krishna tried to snag me with “Do you practice tai chi? You look so balanced.”

I resisted an urge to smack.

I haven’t been this annoyed by the town I live in since 1988.

4.10.2010 pleasure

We went to Kensington Gardens to ride a replica of Stephenson’s Rocket, then it was back to the flat to eat cinnamon jellybeans and watch Doctor Who.

I’ve always been a fan, lonely and mocked within the family infrastructure for this pleasure. But now my kid likes it, so I finally have a pal! We watch the new episode each week, and of course there is a massive archive on youtube.

Later I managed to get lost at the Barbican (this seems to be my natural state) then it was off to meet Paul Finlay & the Lucy’s Diary crew to watch Kid Carpet and Milk Kan at the 12 Bar Club.

Really good – and then the nightbus! Yummy….

4.8.2010 testament

My kid is doing a course at the BFI so I spent the day working in the Tate members room.

The view is amazing, the people annoying. I spent the morning brandishing a copy of the Daily Mail in front of my face to repel unwanted flirtatious attention from artistic bald men.

But the afternoon was worse – the cafe filled with posh women and their misbehaving children.

When I had kids in my entourage, I can assure you they were never allowed to scream and run about, climb on chairs, smear jam on strangers. That isn’t cute, it is obnoxious. Civilized behavior is an imperative in all age groups.

Though I was more comprehensively disgusted by the notion that this public institution serves as the playground of people who can afford to buy the stuff on the walls.

Note to development staff: if you want a shot at my donations, and even potentially my estate, you should work on creating and promoting programs that serve a public interest. Your wine evenings for members? Ick.

Oh, and I am perfectly serious. My last will and testament invests scholarships for disadvantaged youth. I just haven’t decided who gets to administer the money – my alma mater? My favorite nonprofit organization or museum? What a fun guessing game.

I should start a Take a Teen Mom to Tate program.

4.4.2010 spectacles

I went walking through Finsbury Park, and ended up on Hampstead Heath. London is such a mysterious city …. I am surprised every day I spend here.

In my wandering I encountered a Famous Rock Star, but only noticed because he was staring at me.

Maybe he liked my spectacles.

4.1.2010 unmentionables

I am in London and on a quest to sort out the question of unmentionables.

Prepared to pay any price I slogged from store to boutique, with no luck.

Thwarted by capitalism! In our global economy, the mediocre prevails. Even the most expensive shops all stock the same limited array of goods. In another era I would hire a seamstress, and at this point, the option makes a lot of sense.

How much of my time is devoted to these concerns?

How much do I spend on merchandise that does not suit my needs?

Oh, and an existential question: if cleavage is fashionable now, why are the relevant undergarments still so ugly?

I was just informed I can’t be a kept woman as I am too opinionated. Evidently the other assets would pass inspection.

In national news: potential for hung Parliament? Possible invocation of Lascelles principles?

Oh, how I long for voting rights!

3.23.2010 treats

Happy, happy, happy birthday wishes to my excellent mother! Thank you for bringing me into the world, and keeping me alive love enough to see it. Wish I could be there to celebrate. I owe you countless treats!

Point Defiance, 1974:

3.23.2010 reform

Well golly; never thought I would live to see US health care reform pass….

Now for the messy bit: implementation.

I’m reserving judgment on whether it will work as stated, or turn into yet another quagmire. Those of us with pre-existing conditions (and money + jobs) are definitely better off than before, but it will take at least ten years of of tricky machinations before we know how the new system will work. Or fail.

Particularly the risk pools: will we be purchasing high quality care, or bog standard neglect? Massive inequalities between have and have-nots appear to remain an enshrined principle.

Let me know how it looks in a decade or so.

Personally I prefer the NHS model. Indifferent care for everyone! Hurray!

Give me unwashed hands but true equality, any day, anywhere.

3.21.2010 goggles

First picnic, first daffodils, and the Strawberry Fair has been cancelled – triple hurray!

As I ran errands today a hooded youth approached in the city centre and demanded “give me money!” Lucky for him, it was my kid. Main clue? The aviator goggles.

3.17.2010 surprise

Why does it always surprise me that I possess the archives for the Washington State Governors’ School for Citizen Leadership? I’ve been dragging the stuff around for what, twenty-one years?

Anyone else want a turn? There is lots of good stuff, including all of our various appearances in the media… and quite an assortment of other juvenilia. Including “poetry.”

I won’t share the photographs. Too incriminating!

3.13.2010 boxes

If I give away my transistor radio collection, I will forget I ever had such a thing. Right? Right.

Moving is always difficult. Moving a mass of unsorted junk complicates the process. The lack of a stated destination is one challenge too many!

Also: if I lived in the states, there would be more than one store selling moving boxes. And they would all be open past six pm.

I spent the afternoon contemplating boxes of unsent thank you letters spanning four decades of graduations, weddings, births, awards. Is it sadder that I wrote, but did not mail? Or that I kept them through twenty or more moves…. across two continents?

The clothing collection that once required 750 sq feet of storage has been ruthlessly reduced to fit in four medium boxes. Not including handbags, obviously.

My favorite observation so far: shredding unopened love letters is a uniquely rewarding experience.

But hey! I miss these glasses! Why do I still have a newspaper clipping, but not the desired object?!

3.10.2010 storage

I have not made a decision about where to go, but I know that I am going, and this means it is time to purge.

My possessions have been languishing in various hidden corners, and this week I decided to deal with the worst of the lot.

The Eames lounge has been on loan to teenage offspring, and upon retrieval is found to be rapidly disintegrating; I’ll need to have the leather replaced. Most of the other large pieces have been in a borrowed garden shed, and when I opened it I found the Wegner sofas are moldy… though salvageable.

Trunks that have traveled across continents and centuries, however, have been destroyed by damp. I stood staring, aghast. Byron looked from my face to these heirlooms, and after a pause said I am so sorry I didn’t organize my life fast enough to save your things.

It had to be stated out loud, I suppose.

The apology is officially accepted.

3.3.2010 sterling

The only thing I am reluctant to leave behind is my boat – because, while life on the river can be difficult, it is also extremely cheap.

Other river dwellers will claim otherwise; I suspect because they do not want to share the lifestyle with outsiders. And it might be expensive, if you merely wish to maintain a leisure craft.

Living on a boat though? If you already own one (and I do), the yearly outlay is insignificant.

Our boats use tax exempt petrol, it costs about 40 pounds sterling (and from here on please imagine the notation for pounds sterling, as my keyboard is unable to type it) to fill up, and the motor and solar panels provide electricity. I’m not inclined to go cruising, and haunt cafes for laptop power, so fuel never costs much at all. Mooring and waterways license fees run about 1,000 per year. That includes lock keys, navigation of two rivers, municipal water and rubbish service, and the right to tether up in the heart of a historic university town.

I’m probably one of the most persnickety people on the river when it comes to warmth, and my (ecolog) heating bill is about 10 per week in the winter. Insurance is about 150 annually. Every three or four years the boat needs to be blacked (pulled out of the water, hull painted), for a couple of thousand quid, and there are assorted minor running repairs. Like an old car. Except it floats.

Quite affordable, wouldn’t you say? Even when my freelance income drops to “cover your head and cry” levels I remain well within an earned budget because I have no debt. No student loans, no credit cards, no bills, no encumbrances.

When my tolerance of Cambridge vanished I rented a studio in London for 300 a month; still completely affordable, with money leftover for sundry necessities and madcap excursions.

Readers might wonder – what about the children? But remember, one is grown. The other has a father paying his fair share. My contribution to the upkeep is my time, and that I give most lavishly.

My primary indulgences are memberships with the British Film Institute, Tate Modern, Design Museum, English Heritage. I’m not required to pay for a TV license as boats are exempt, but I do anyway, due to pesky “beliefs” about civic responsibility. I also spend an obscene amount of money on coffee, and bottled water. That is all.

Leaving the river requires a change of perspective, but also a vast amount of cash. Do you know what human houses cost these days?!

I just checked.

More than I have in the piggybank, that is for sure.

3.1.2010 aesthetic

I moved to Cambridge on a whim, and remained here because my offspring wished to be educated and the schools were pretty good. Or at least safe.

I was optimistic that I could organize a life for myself, and others shared that hope. Don wanted me to acquire a house on Portugal Place and open it up like my Portland and Seattle houses, with friends and neighbors and strangers swarming through.

Though he also said that I would hate Cambridge, and my best bet for sanity would be the river.

I chose the latter option, consciously limiting my social activities, withdrawing from polite society. Partly out of necessity, as this city is so toxic and I am so argumentative. Mostly though because I needed the time; I had used up all of my generosity. I was tired. I needed a rest. Or at least, a place to hide.

Cambridge served that purpose, and more besides; this city (that is only a city by royal decree) taught me what it means to be truly lonely.

This damp, hostile, flat university town cares not for you, nor me, nor anyone at all. This is the place where words like ‘scientist’ were coined, and it will always be a stern bastion of the intellect. Cambridge and Establishment are interchangeable.

I tend to think of life as a costume party, and I can certainly dress whatever part is required. Cambridge is not impossible for me; it is merely unpleasant. I could fit in, if I wanted. But I don’t. Mainly because I dislike the aesthetic.

The earlier remarks about bribes and plots were entirely truthful. I have decided to leave; the question is where will I go, on what terms, and who will accompany me?

Paris, Berlin, London, Portland, SF, NYC.

How, where, who…. I just need to decide.

Back in the land of tea & misery, a border guard scrutinized my passport and proceeded to ask probing questions, despite the fact that it is prominently stamped Indefinite Leave to Remain.

Know what that means? It doesn’t matter where in the realm I live, what my job is, whether or not I am married. I have permanent residency in the United Kingdom, and border guards have no reason whatsoever to ask impertinent questions.

However, “mind your own beeswax” is never the right answer when dealing with immigration officials.

2.18.2010 denizens

My kid flew in from Colorado and we had one last night in the states. Without a car (yes, I can and do drive in Washington… I’ve held a license there since 1986) the options were limited, but we walked from our Belltown hotel to the Pike Place Market to buy donuts – a ritual from his childhood, and my own.

Pacing down the sidewalk chatting with the boy about his time in the mountains I almost walked right past Ade, who was shocked to see me; another person I did not get in touch with because the visit was too short. Also, before we forget, a child of Colorado.

I introduced my kid, an honor in and of itself as my family is normally kept strictly separate from the denizens of the Seattle scene. Ade is important, not just a genius performer and wit, but someone I truly care about and would welcome to my home (if I had one). But we were all short of time, we had to say goodbye, hurry away.

Shoe museum, magic shop, arcades, spaghetti dinners, an arduous and ultimately successful attempt to get all of our gear crammed into carry-on luggage, a fitful sleep. We talked about our memories of living in the city, what we miss.

On the last morning we sat in the Sculpture Park, looking at the Olympics, completely shattered.

The boy did not want to move to England in the first place, and neither of us want to go back.

2.17.2010 failed

I somehow missed the fact that the Olympic games were happening in Canada. And the train runs all the way to Vancouver now? What an innovation – and how annoying!

Nearly all seats for all trains were sold out, and I paid an extortionate price for a seriously bad seat that would get me to Seattle hours after my parents were asleep for the night.

This meant that I missed a chance to see my grandmother, perhaps for the last time. My mother consoled with the observation that Grandma no longer recognizes anyone, but somehow, that does not make me feel any better.

The true consequences of immigration are found in these stories – how many family members have died, how many funerals have I missed, how profoundly have I failed my blood kin?

One small immature part of my brain retorts that if Grandma had wanted my allegiance she would not have disowned me when I became a teen parent. If the paternal side of the family had offered assistance with college tuition, housing, health insurance, or anything at all I would probably still be living in Kitsap County, stopping by every week to visit, taking care of them as they took care of me.

But they didn’t. And the compromises I made to survive and prosper flung me across the world.

I do not feel vengeful; if anything, understanding what divides us just makes me care more.

The Lavender ethos is self-sufficiency, autonomy, hard work, the cliched and bullshit bootstrap rugged individualism of a cowboy movie. Everything I have accomplished is an illustration of those values but at the same time a rebuke, because I think that material success is a sham. The only thing that matters is taking care of people. Being kind.

If the Lavender grandparents were alive and sentient they would be proud of me because I own property, travel, have children who ace standardized tests. They would be impressed that my photograph shows up in the papers. None of which matters to me – but somehow I still did it.

I did everything right, but I am still ashamed because there is an old woman dying in a nursing home, and I am not there to hold her hand. I can’t be with her, I’m not there to tell her that everything is fine.

2.16.2010 routine

One night in Seattle: whatever should I do?

Don’t be silly – there is a routine to these things!

Jeffrey picked me up, we acquired Sophie, and then it was onward to the familiar old places. We grabbed a vegan Vietnamese dinner then stopped in at the Bus Stop so I could talk to Niki Sugar, for a scant few minutes, say hello to Genevieve and Gary, before hurtling across to the Crescent.

I was still feeling too queasy from Disneyland gastritis to handle even a bold fruit juice, and I don’t really drink nowadays, so this was my first time in the bars and clubs of Capital Hill completely sober.

The experience was…. interesting.

The Crescent Lounge is a particularly intriguing swirl of despair and joy, a rumbling mix of street people, punks, drunks, frat boys, opera singers, the deranged and dismayed. It is the only place in the whole world where strangers feel they can touch my face and tell me that I am beautiful.

DJ Laura was on the microphone and shouted impossibly sweet greetings before singing just for me. Her new husband, a writer who constitutes one third of Guyscraper, was summoned from home.

That fellow who declared himself a lifelong enemy last April has decided (because someone tipped him off about who I am, whatever that means) otherwise and tried to chat as I stared in bafflement.

When my friends were singing or chatting or otherwise engaged a stranger tried a poignant pickup; where else would this happen? Nowhere.

Those who know me only from these trips never fully appreciate that the nights are an escape from my domestic commitments and career. I can throw a brilliant party and keep it going, but this isn’t my scene, it isn’t how I live. I’m just visiting.

We always end up at City Market two minutes before closing, buying cheese as the drunks stock up on cheap booze.

2.16.2010 passion

Gabriel took me to an enchanting, old-fashioned shop out in the wilds of industrial North Portland and the critical question is: can a typewriter pass as transatlantic carry-on luggage?

One last coffee and then it was time to go. As the train pulled out of town Stevie texted, hoping to hang out. We missed each other once again; maybe we’ll catch up in NYC, London, or somewhere unspecified.

Oh, Portland – eight years after I moved away I still love you with the same hopeless passion.

2.15.2010 displacement

I spent Valentine’s weekend at the coast with a bunch of people I love and never see, and several others I have never met before. As always when traveling with this crew (I still think of them as Chorus friends even though the musical element dissolved years ago) I felt completely welcome, and awfully out of place.

It isn’t just my clothes or accessories (though it is true that I had to borrow rain gear, and carried a Commes des Garcons bag to the beach). They all have an equal tendency to go out in drag, assume and discard costumes and identities.

No, it is something more subtle – a sense of jolting homesickness, displacement, even at the most serene moments. They know my secrets, and ask hard questions. They love me but let me go. I belong with these people, more than I do with any other group of humans aside from my family, yet I feel I cannot speak in their presence.

This is my own problem. I try to ignore it.

I also did something so singular, so rebellious, I almost dare not type the words.

Despite clear medical injunctions and the warnings of my mother, I …. got in the hot tub.

To a stranger this may seem minor but for me it is a real risk. I am too sensitive, my skin too precious for chlorine or shared bathing. I have a note from my doctor!

Rain, forest, ocean, friends, naked communal bathing under the Oregon moon. Marisa, Jodi, Maki, Erin Scarum…. it only took about two hours for me to declare I am never leaving this place.

2.11.2010 question

The sojourn in this city is completely booked up with events, excursions, parties, fun. Friends pass us from one to another with such efficiency that I haven’t even had time to buy sparkling water! Stolen moments with Stevie, long adventures with Erin Scarum, a trip to the coast next: it is good to be back.

I put my kid on a plane to Colorado and continued the antics, traipsing from cafe to restaurant, record store to club. Along the way I asked each friend encountered where I should live, what I should do.

Alex Yusimov (who I still think of as Thunder Pumpkin) votes against Berlin because while it is a great city “it is hard to find daytime friends.”

Ana Helena shares this view (as she jets away to that exact destination). Others like the idea – Vanessa Renwick had even heard advance rumors and wondered if I could put her up during an imminent trip.

Sara K and a host of strangers encountered in odd corners thought Berlin would be a fun place for me to live. Arika and other acquaintances understood the allure of London.

Chris and Gabriel separately managed to extract a hint of why Germany is on the list…. and understood what I was talking about.

My Portland friends are perceptive, but more importantly, they tend to wander. I fully believe that Alex, and strangers in random kitchens, have a better perspective on these matters than almost anyone I know in Europe. Mostly because they, like me, can sometimes be found hanging out random punk house kitchens.

Sara K tried to help with a couple of rounds of astrodice, uniquely unhelpful as each roll agreed with my instinct to just keep moving. One night we went out to watch Freddie DJ at a club on the waterfront and Sara asked the same question of a deck of cards.

The reading was precise: My kid would be happiest in Berlin, and that city would keep me alive the longest. London offers time to work, and sustainable friendships. Portland is affordable, healthy, the most fun. San Francisco represents the highest standard of living with the least compromise.

No city has everything I need – probably because I expect too much.

I just have to choose. And that is the hard part.

2.9.2010 honor

I arrived in Portland still fragile from the wretched illness. Sara K had arranged a a Super Bowl party (she claimed in my honor, though that might have been “irony”). The queasiness I felt was largely due to a bad batch of gumbo, but was partly also emotional. The Chicken House: another lost refuge, more people I love and never see.

Marisa picked us up at the train station and as we drove through the NE quadrant of the city I marveled once again at how my old neighborhood has changed. All the houses (except mine) have been painted! There are condominiums, boutiques, cafes, even upscale taquerias!

The only thing I recognize about the place is the street names, and I’ve been gone so long that is no longer a useful method of navigation.

Marisa wondered if I would like to stop at my house, but I don’t know the people living there now. This is peculiar; I’ve owned it since 1997, and Gabriel lived there from 2002 until last summer. I think of it as my home, even eight years after moving away.

Another obscurity – if Portland is home, why don’t I live there?

I don’t know the answer. I just know that my desire to go back is equal to my inclination to run away.

Enough with the tormented philosophizing! It is just good to be with my friends. I miss them:

2.7.2010 poisoning

I took my mother and son to Disneyland as a very special treat; since he is thirteen, it was quite likely the final moment he would enjoy our company without attitude and complaint.

For this reason we did not take any other companions, notify local friends, arrange to meet the California cousins. It was just us three, for five days, and the trip was in every possible way amazing. I’ve never been so happy twirling around on those teacups!

Until the final evening, when I decided we deserved a farewell dinner at the Blue Bayou. The ambiance was excellent.

The food poisoning was not.

I cannot abide vomiting, not the visceral experience, and certainly not the memories that come flooding back with each wave of nausea. I do not just get sick; I have to suffer through horrifying flashes of a childhood conducted in hospitals.

Somewhere around three in the morning I was laying on the cold white tile of a budget hotel in Anaheim muttering if I ever need chemo I will kill myself before the first appointment.

2.1.2010 airport

Another day, another airport.

The most remarkable thing I have learned in all these years of travel: I enjoy the journey more than the destination.

Plane, train, taxi, ferry, bus…. I am happiest in transit.

The first portion of the trip was allocated strictly for blood kin, but I decided to let my son have an indulgent day alone with the family… away from my rules and bossy ideas about food and movies and arcade games.

I arranged to meet Mark Mitchell and Kurt for brunch, but swore them to secrecy: with a scant five hours in the city, there was literally no way I could meet up with any of the other adorable friends. Especially since the vast majority sleep through the day.

Riding the ferry over, I pondered the question of how best to avoid accidentally bumping into loved ones (and thus hurting their wee little feelings). Bauhaus and similar are extreme danger zones, so corporate coffee seemed like the only answer. I trudged up to the Starbucks on First Avenue.

It was Sunday morning. It was Starbucks! I thought that I was safe, but as I stood in line I heard someone shout from behind the pastry case Is that BEE LAVENDER I see?!

Indeed – and it was Shannon intoning the words! It was incredibly thrilling to see her, though I apologized profusely for woeful lack of time.

After a thoroughly delightful afternoon with the boys (dressed in identical lumberjack outfits – if only I had packed my camera) I caught a ride to the Silverdale Mall.

Continuing Adult Preparedness 101, I purchased enough Fiestaware to serve dinner for eight (there was even a sale). Of course this presumes I will one day have a house to serve dinner in, and that is, well, a bit premature. Now to… erm… get the dishes back to the continent where I actually live.

Then we went shopping for bike helmets!

1.30.2009 sojourn

The last time I visited my hometown it had a pretty good independent coffee shop (generally staffed by members of the beloved Hoyt family). It has since been driven out by Starbucks. Heavy sigh.

Still, I need coffee, and when I’m home I can almost imagine the corporate monstrosity to be local. Or at least, I do remember going there when Starbucks was exactly one shop, in the Pike Place Market.

I coaxed my mother and son inside for pastries, only to be sucked into a social miasma. Encountering three childhood enemies before 10 am? Amusing, though not especially illuminating. We all turned out as you might have predicted.

A girl I loathed for good reason when we were fourteen years old eavesdropped throughout a conversation with my mother, in which we discussed the advantages of the various (realistic) places I might move next.

It was very odd to feel this semi-stranger glare as I rambled on about schools in Berlin, housing prices in London, the benefits offered by assorted other cities.

My mother voted for a return to Seattle, or at least a sojourn in San Francisco.

1.28.2010 forest

Flying first class did not prevent the inevitable sinus infection; I am moping around in my parent’s pantry, using the dial-up connection to erratically answer email as I drink coffee out of my dead grandpa’s cup.

When my children reminisce about their early years they often puzzle over the particulars of the memories: Mama, do you remember that dinner… museum exhibit…. train ride….?

They have traveled so much, lived in so many different places, it can take quite an effort to sort out which town or country they are referring to. Venice, Trento, Tallinn, Paris, Nice, Berlin, Frankfurt, London, Edinburgh, NYC, San Francisco, Los Angeles: the list spools. Did they go with me to Zurich, Granada, Prague, Toronto, or a dozen other places? None of us can quite recall.

Whereas almost anything I remember before age twenty-one took place in a very small geographic area – a forested strip of land between two mountain ranges in the Pacific Northwest.

Four restaurants, one movie theatre, no access to museums whatsoever; it was a big deal when KMart came to town. We stood in line for free commemorative tshirts.

Neither experience is better, or worse, than the other. I gave my children the life I dreamed of growing up in a small town. They are consequently cosmopolitan – but both wish for new, different, unexpected lives of their own.

My parents still live in the house they built in 1976. My childhood bedroom is intact, with all the books and dolls sitting exactly where I left them on the shelves. I have boxes in the attic, furniture in the garage, Tonka Toys in the shed.

Most of my surviving relatives still live in the county, still call on each other for help or advice or to celebrate graduations and births. No matter how far I wander, I have
a place – a home – to return to. I wish that I could provide my children with the same.

I don’t want to trade away the life we have now. I just want everything to be a little bit easier.

The first and most important goal for this trip: visit the relatives. I have a new cousin! I wish his grandpa could have met him:

1.26.2010 lounge

I’m back in the first class lounge… but I’ve already read the Tatler for this month! Drat.

1.24.2010 rule

In my first career I had a strategy for avoiding jobs I did not want: I just set my hourly fee so high nobody could afford the time.

This rule has worked in countless situations requiring subtlety, though I have no qualms about blunt refusal. When I say no people believe me. That is my thing – how I operate – how my life works.

But lately the control panel seems to be malfunctioning. I say no and someone replies would you like to fly (here/there/anywhere) to reconsider?

Um, okay. So long as you understand you are buying my time, not my consent.

Another set of free tickets, this time to Seattle – first class and purchased on short notice – why not?

1.20.2010 price

The external forces attempting to purchase my loyalty continue to offer bribes, although it is unlikely anyone can meet the stated price. My basic requirements have never changed: health care for myself and my offspring, and legal permanent residency in a nation that provides basic services to all citizens.

Cash is nice but irrelevant – no amount of money in my pocket will suffice to convince me to live in a place where other people suffer for lack of food, shelter, and medical care.

If I sound like a pious idealist, that is fine. Remember: I have the wherewithal to act on principle. I left my homeland for a reason.

Though I am also by nature strictly freelance, so I am willing to listen to competitive bids. Where will I live? Wherever I get the best offer, within other stated parameters.

So: a place with excellent public infrastructures, reasonable fiscal policies, decent educational systems. To protect my sensitive skin, weather on the “gray to gloomy” scale. Pandering to a strange new fascination with houses: enough money to acquire a home. And couch. In a city with arts theatres, interesting museums, live music, literary intrigue, and good coffee.

See? I’m easy. There are at least three, maybe four options in the whole wide world that match my list!

Today I spent a significant amount of the day in a first class airport lounge reading Tatler. My destination was secret. Though you might be able to guess.

1.15.2010 rank

The weather cleared enough to catch a train back to Cambridge. But I arrived to find the taxi rank collectively disobeying queue etiquette – with both passengers and drivers ignoring posted rules.

Clearly this is not acceptable; in the UK you could even state (without exaggeration) that it is a shocking breach of protocol.

Too many tourists, not enough Brits? Who cares. I schooled them all with ruthless efficiency.

I put one finger in the air and started issuing orders – You are next, you need to go to the back of the queue – the queue forms – here<!

One or two drivers looked mutinous but they obeyed my beckoning finger.

People are so susceptible to unearned authority.

1.12.2010 birthday

I planned my own birthday treat – a trip to an exotic destination I have never visited: Penzance! Also known, to enthusiastic and somewhat misguided locals, as the Riviera of England.

The gift was to include three nights lodging in a former geological museum; how thrilling!

Except it was my birthday so we have had the inevitable storm. I am stranded in London by the “weather” ! No ambitious adventures for me….

Instead I went to went to Harrods and bought a Brooks Brothers bag.

I also bought a proper suitcase and (hushed whisper)…. it wasn’t even on sale!

What?!?

Then a contingent of the nearest and dearest took me out to dinner, where I set my head on fire. Mmm… kimchi & singed hair!

1.1.2010 happy

The New Year has arrived with a leftover question: whatever should I do with myself next?

Five years ago I chose an itinerant existence, and pursued the goal with blithe indifference to the consequences. I wanted mad adventures, crazed pursuits. I wanted to travel. So I did.

Intermittent residency taught me that this town is largely about alcoholism and adultery. I find both banal but I didn’t need to worry about it, because I wished to be elsewhere. All the time.

While Cambridge baffled and annoyed, it also entertained, and served a stalwart role. I like my bicycle, my boat, and the river, and the other arrangements that anchored me here on occasion were sufficient to purpose. It was a place to store my things.

But recently I woke up and wanted… a home. Not just a house, and certainly not a fixer or project, but a solid structure, where I can spend all of my time. Where I can sleep, and work, hang out, throw parties (remember my parties?).

With a couch.

Of course I used to have all the standard material possessions – I bought my first house in Portland at age 26, and within a short time had moved on to acquire a Seattle property, on a hill, with a view of the Cascade Mountains. I would never glamorize the experience of home ownership, because I found it annoying. I am not the sort who enjoys renovating or (worse yet) decorating. I do not cook, or clean, or care.

I would rather sleep in a hotel and eat in restaurants.

So why this irrational urge toward domesticity? Why do I keep buying architecture magazines, and ogling kitchen towels? The itch is rather surprising, and has no known source. Maturity, or just age? Both? Something worse?

I have no idea. But I am sitting in a club in Shoreditch drinking peppermint tea and watching the bartender do a crossword. See? Old!