NYC Limbo

Hello from NYC! The kids and I are visiting friends and family here on our way home to Maine. I can’t believe I’m back in the USA. As for culture shock, Manhattan couldn’t be more different than Oxford. My son summed it up as we walked through Times Square, “Nothing’s older than 400 years.”













We stopped and stared up at the sky-scrapers. The sun was shining. Traffic was honking. Lights were flashing, and people were shouting. If I hadn’t grown up in NYC, it would have been an assault upon my senses. This is home, and yet it feels foreign.

Why are strangers saying “hi!” to me and smiling? When people bump into to me, they don’t apologize. Cars and buildings are super-sized. Food comes in portions too large to finish. I needed the ice cubes in the drinking water. The temperature is in the 90’s today.

Yesterday I met my old school friends for lunch at Cipriani Dolci in Grand Central Station. The food was good if not great. The train station setting was fun. The iced cappuccinos were perfect as was the company. I felt very welcomed home. The prices only made me smile when I converted the dollars into pounds.

Perhaps that was how I managed to overcome my sticker shock and buy a digital SLR camera. I have a backlog of paintings to add to my website, but my circa 1985 Nikon SLR isn’t working. I miss the manual control of an SLR. I like to pick my aperture and even prefer focusing myself. Scanning slides for my portfolio costs money too.

My son and I headed to the photography mecca. B&H Photo is near the Empire State Building. It’s enormous and quite the New York experience. Many of the salespeople are Hasidic Jews, and they all know from cameras. You can research and buy a camera on line, but at that price I wanted a test drive and expert advice.

I had originally planned to buy the Canon Rebel XSi as it gets top reviews, but the NikonD80 can take my old Nikon lenses (in manual,) and it’s more of a professional grade camera. You couldn’t go wrong with either camera, assuming you would really use the manual features of an SLR.

For most people, I’d recommend my point-and-shoot Canon Elph. It’s small, versatile and affordable. The image stabilizer allows for nice indoor shots without flash or a tripod. I’ve taken all my blog photos to date with it, and I’m sure I’ll continue to use it for every day blogging. I won’t have my new SLR camera until I get back to Maine Friday as I shipped it to avoid sales tax.

To reach B&H Photo, my son and I walked downtown through Central Park. It was our first day in NYC. There was a light breeze and low humidity with temperatures in the mid 80’s. Summer at long last!

Back in England, people still had the heat turned on, and the rain was relentless. Everyone said it was the worst summer ever. I reminded them of last summer with all the flooding, to which the reply was that was very unusual. Yeah, right. We did at least have a gorgeous last day in England. We took the dogs for a favorite walk “between the fields.”

The landscape was bucolic English, but the wheat against the bright blue sky made me think of the American Midwest and the novel I’m reading now.



Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres is set on a farm in Iowa. The story is Shakespeare’s King Lear. Many have called this Pulitzer Prize winner a “Great American Novel.” I loved Smiley’s Moo, which poked fun at academia.

A Thousand Acres is more serious and beautifully written. The characters are quintessentially American. They are ambitious, hard working and tied to their land and family. The farmers might be parochial, but they are far from simple.

I’m enjoying the novel so much, I bought another copy for my parents as a visiting gift (I’m staying with them in NYC .) I also bought them Ellis Avery’s The Teahouse Fire set in 19th century Japan which I reviewed in April.

On my mother’s recommendation, my son and I went to see the Louise Bourgeois exhibit at the Guggenheim Museum. Bourgeois’s installations worked so well in that space. I preferred her earlier work, especially the skinny sculptures. Giacometti worked in a similar way only he got the recognition that would never go to a woman. Understandably much of Bourgeois’s work challenged the notion that women were only housewives and sexual objects. She’s still working now in her 90’s. NYC has such amazing art.

It is wonderful to be back home, but I’m already missing England. Somehow we didn’t realize that we had grown roots until it was time to yank them out. My children had been counting the weeks but then felt sad to go, just when they’d finally been accepted into their new schools and made new friends.

Even our dog, Stella, was anxious about the move. She crawled into suitcases, terrified we’d leave her behind. Rest assured, we even remembered her lamby. Her crate had more legroom than we had on the plane.

Henry flew to Boston with Stella Tuesday and then drove to Maine. American Airlines only charges $90 to fly a dog to the USA, but you need to produce a vet certified well-pet certificate (NOT mentioned on the AA website.) It’s odd to think of them home without us.


Our last few days in Oxford were full of ups and downs. Literally, ups and downs. I let Stella out into the garden one night and left the door open while I ran my bath. Henry came home later that night to find the house hopping with baby frogs. He caught and released 20 of them. I wasn't much help because I was laughing too hard. Henry was very good natured about the whole debacle.

On our second to last night, we stayed with my in-laws in their wisteria covered home. The cousins raced around and had a brilliant time. We donned thick fleeces to have a barbecue outside until it rained. At least we got to see a double rainbow. Our parting was bitter sweet.

For our last night in England, we stayed with friends in Cambridge to be near Stansted Airport. My father called from NYC. He couldn’t find our flight number on line. When he called American Airlines, they told him that AA no longer flew out of Stansted. We had printed out our flight info the day before without problem. I called to reconfirm.

AA had cancelled our flight, and said they had called our home phone in the USA! Can you believe it? Our last flight change in May, they had e-mailed, so why not this time? We had to wake up before 4am to drive back to Heathrow. Still, it was worth it to say goodbye to our friends. Talk about a stressful departure.

I’ve needed the time in NYC to recover. Jet lag is much worse when you’ve lived abroad for a year, and the transition back to “normal” life isn’t easy. It’s a relief to be looked after by my parents in a familiar setting.

Plus I’ve had some comic relief. Here’s an oxymoron my son noticed on the West Side:

Only in NYC would you need to insult the customer to sell produce:

Actually the Turkish shop owners were very friendly and the fruit was excellent. Perhaps something was lost in translation.

This morning I relaxed, taking a walk along the East River. Do you recognize the bridges from my opening shot? Tomorrow we’ll cross back over the Triborough Bridge on our way to the airport.

Poor Henry is already back in Maine unpacking boxes and getting us connected to the internet so I can keep blogging. You may have noticed that I posted twice today. If not, check out Oxford Index for a trip down memory lane. Once I resume work on my novel NOT CRICKET, I’ll need to refer back to my Oxford sabbatical posts, and the archives are hard to navigate.

Another expat American blogger, Just A Plane Ride Away, came up with the best solution to my dilemma. She created a blog page to index her vacation to Germany and Austria. JAPRA, I hope you don’t mind that I borrowed your brilliant idea. Check out her blog and other expat bloggers on my sidebar. I guess I’m not an expat blogger anymore….

It’s only been 3 days since I left England, and already it feels like a dream. Henry just e-mailed to say our boxes arrived (in 6 days!) and the internet is reconnected. We’re meeting friends at the beach on Sunday. Home!

Oxford High Table and Imps

You can pay a few quid for a tour of lovely Magdalen College, but please be my virtual guest at high table. I promise a new perspective.

My old friend, Stewart Wood (at right with my husband, Henry) is both a Magdalen fellow and Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s advisor. His boss keeps him busy, but Stewart took a night off before President Bush’s visit to take us to dinner at high table. It was a special night, Magdalen College’s 550th. Happy Birthday!

After admiring the Magdalen gardens and deer park,

. . . we had a champagne reception in the Senior Common Room. The oak-paneled chamber was out of another century and not a recent one with its deep-set windows overlooking the quads. The dark wood furniture was antique; the art was museum quality and the arm chairs were red leather before a fireplace.

There were the dons in black academic gowns, their guests and the college president. It was very social, and people were curious about what an American novelist was doing at Oxford. I was struggling to describe my genre of women’s fiction, when one fellow figured it out: “an Orange Prize book!” I wish. Magdalen has quite a literary history: Oscar Wilde and C.S. Lewis.

When it was time to dine, we filed out a tiny door onto the roof. The roof? Yes! Philip Pullman did not invent his heroine’s rooftop rambling. Before Lyra, dons have been walking the Magdalen roofs every evening, and now I follow in their footsteps. I did promise you a new perspective!

There was a wooden walkway, covered in chicken wire for better footing. I was relieved my heels weren’t too pointy. Way down below was the cloistered quad. Even in the highest echelons of English learning and antiquity resides the silly sign:

We entered the dining hall through another Hobbit sized door. The main entrance for the students, who ate earlier, was at the other end. That entrance is approached by a grand stairway. The high table is literally a long table placed at 90 degrees to the others on a raised platform below the oak-paneled end wall. Do the students wonder how the dons mysteriously apparate at high table?

Before we dined, the Magdalen Boys Choir sang hymns from the balcony, and we stood for a Latin grace. Seating was open except for those at high table. By silver clad candlelight, we enjoyed a fine 4 course meal: soup, fish, meat and pudding. Then, as is English upper class custom, we changed seats for dessert wines, fruit and chocolates. You hold onto your napkins but nothing else.

This time we were seated at high table, but first I admired the 550 year old royal charter displayed under glass. There were plenty at hand to translate the Latin. The delicate writing was perfectly preserved except for one smudge.

I slipped out to the loo (English for toilet) which was in an annex from the courtyard, built into the fort-like walls. There was even a moat. Henry gave me directions: “down the hall, take a left, down the stairs and a sharp right, pass the 3-headed dog….”

Thankfully there was no vicious dog, but there was a phantom call box. I half expected to find Dr. Who. I was certainly a time traveler.

It was good to walk and test my balance. After the champagne, white and red wines, I decided to pass on the sauterne and only took a thimble full of port, which is always passed to the left. The rooftop footing on the way back to the SCR was more treacherous in the dark.

Someone must have refilled my glass during dinner without my noticing, or why else would I consent to be weighed after eating so much? That leather bound stool is a scale, and my weight is now preserved for posterity in the Magdalen SCR record book. It was in stones so I have no clue. It’s hard enough to multiply by 14 when totally sober.

Stewart and I became close friends in our early 20’s. I was finishing college, and he and Henry were starting graduate school at Harvard. Being around Stewart makes me revert. Instead of staggering home to bed, I accepted his invitation to visit the Magdalen student bar.

Henry chimed in that it would be “research” for my novel. He was right. My protagonist is 20, she wouldn’t decline a pint (or a half pint in my case.) The bar was hopping with students celebrating the end of term and exams.

It was all good fun until I woke up the next morning. Hmm, now I remember what being 20 really felt like. On top of that, I’d agreed to meet an Oxford student for a pint the next evening. If I’m looking a bit worse for wear in the photo, you know why. Marisa Benoit was great company and perked me up.

Marisa first came to Oxford on her junior year abroad, and now she’s come back for an MSC. She’s from a really small town in Maine. I was thrilled to meet her because she has given me insight into my character who comes from a similar background.

Only Marisa’s back story was better than fiction. Her father is a tugboat captain in NYC, my hometown. He works 2 weeks on and off and decided to raise his family in Maine. On board he reads my blog (hello, Captain Benoit!)

Marisa gave me a tour around Lincoln College. The time to see it is in the fall when all the ivy turns bright red. I peeked my head in back then but had longed to see more.


Lincoln is a small college, but has a large graduate student population, making it a good choice for further degrees. It’s a warm, cozy place unless you're an imp.

An imp? That’s a daemon they keep locked in a cell by the student bar. No, I hadn’t even started drinking when I heard this tale. That’s him in the photo. I’ll zoom in closer for a better look. Do you sort of wish that I hadn't? He makes gargoyles handsome.

The Lincoln Imp used to grace a corner of the front quad, but now he’s been locked up for safe keeping, and a modern imp has taken his place. Are you thinking what I’m thinking? This imp could be the inspiration for Pullman’s daemons and the deathly tunnels below Oxford. It gave me the chills.

The library at Lincoln gave me good chills. It was once a chapel (they have another) but is now devoted to worshiping books. Wouldn’t you want to study in this glorious space? Thanks, Marisa, for the tour and the pint.

Another new friend this year is Bee. She writes a similar blog, Bee Drunken, about life as an American married to an Englishman here. We also share a love of reading. You have to check out her funny post on the 9 signs of going native (English.) For #10 I'd add putting the wash out on the line as soon as the sun shines. Bee and I met for a Port Meadow walk, but of course it was pouring. We had lunch at The Trout instead.

When people ask what I enjoy about blogging, it’s the 2-way street. I’ve “met” so many interesting people though comments and blog links. It has made this year living abroad feel much less lonely. I love hearing your responses. I also appreciate writing and publishing in an instant click.

A bunch of you have asked me about buying my novels. It will be a wait. My agent is looking for a publisher for my first novel, Moose Crossing, now. S.A.D. is still in revision. I’ll be writing NOT CRICKET (A MATCH FOR EVE) when I return to the USA based on material collected in this blog. It takes a long time for a manuscript to become a published book. Read my post, Shaping a Novel, if you want to learn more about the process.

I will announce the good news on my blog and add links when (if?) the books are available for purchase. It’s conceivable they will end up with different titles. In the meantime, I’ll definitely keep blogging when I go back to Maine, and I’ll revisit England from time to time. I still have a few more weeks left. So much to do!

Merton College Stories

Don’t you just love gargoyles? Actually this Merton one must be a “grotesque” as it doesn’t spit water. These little monsters crawl over many an Oxbridge façade, favoring high perches, drain spouts, hidden nooks and John Kelly’s Voxford blog. I’m so honored to be featured as Kelly’s gargoyle of the week. Look up when exploring the old colleges if you feel googlie eyes.

Merton is “the oldest college” at Oxford, a title it shares with two others: Balliol and Univ. They were all established between 1249-1264. The dispute centers around which started teaching first. Merton’s claim of antiquity rests upon being the first college in England to receive a royal charter. Its oldest quad has buildings without chimneys because the technology hadn’t made it to England from the Continent. College treasures are still stored in the stone buildings to protect them from fire.

Merton also houses the oldest continuously functioning English library (built 1278 -1378) in the world. Merton cleverly built up its library by requiring academics to bring and bestow their personal book collections to the college. They also had three ancient astrolabes and a couple of multi-locked chests that used to house books before the advent of bookcases.

Photo of Merton Library from Wikipedia

I wish I could have taken photos of the Merton Library myself. It was like walking into a wooden crypt or a sacred mausoleum of literary antiquity. The walls and stalls were oak paneled and the ceiling open to the roof beams like an attic. The tiny stained glass windows let in little light.

The best lit stalls housed the most learned texts in the hierarchy of knowledge: theology and philosophy, followed by law and medicine. The lower humanities were in the least favorable northern corners. The progression of subjects lead to enlightenment as in those days colleges were formed first and foremost as religious institutions.

In the darkest recesses the first year students of past centuries might be reading lowly literature. And what literature! There’s one of the first printed versions of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and it’s in the best shape of the 8 existing copies. Priceless! Merton also has a second volume of Shakespeare. I had to take out a tissue to avoid drooling over all the leather-bound, chained books.

Perhaps I should have been trembling with fear. The Merton Library is haunted! John Duns Scotus supposedly walks shin deep, wading through the new raised floor. Students sneak into the library to see him at night. I heard this tale and others from our student guide, Krishna Omkar.

Merton is as rich in stories as it is in history. J.R.R. Tolkien had an office in Fellows Quad. He met with his buddy C.S. Lewis in the Merton gardens which are lovely on a warm spring day. They sat around a stone table, that was to feature in the Narnia series, and discussed their writing when they weren’t meeting at the Eagle and Child pub.

This is The Stone Table? It wasn’t large enough to kill a cat let alone a mighty lion, Aslan. As for the name Aslan, my son told me that it is Islamic. He has a friend from Iran who is teased mercilessly for that name at their English boys school. Kids can be so cruel, but I like that there is more to the Narnia books beyond a Christian allegory. It feels like a treasure hunt living in Oxford and uncovering the inspiration for classic literature.

Merton also has tales from more recent times. On the day that the clocks fall back an hour, old Mertonians gather in Fellows Quad by the sundial. At 1:57 am they drink a toast. Linking arms, they walk backwards drinking port for an hour! Don’t mock it. This ritual is the only hope we have of maintaining the space-time continuum. Needless to say, it is a modern practice dating back to the 1970’s. Yes, I know that for some of you that is ancient history. My daughter’s eleven year old friend referred to the Bee Gees as “this really old band from long ago.” She then added, “They were guys but sounded just like girls.”

Back when Oxford students were still dancing to those “oldies,” my husband was at Oriel. The Crown Prince Naruhito of Japan was at Merton. Naruhito was invited to a formal ball and was provided a suitable date but didn’t know how to boogie. Henry came to the rescue and taught the crown prince how to disco dance. Not to the Bee Gees, that would be cruel and unusual punishment, but to Soft Cell. An international crisis was thus narrowly averted.

Despite the demonic gargoyles, Merton is a spiritual place with a huge 13th century chapel that was originally built as a parish church. It supposedly has the second best acoustics in all of Europe. A microphone is never necessary. The screen to the chapel was Sir Christopher Wren’s first commission.

At the end of our Oxford Newcomers' Club tour, we had tea in the grand hall, quite typical of the old colleges. On the way home down the cobblestone road, I had a good laugh. This is where you can find the Philosophy Department at Oxford:

For those of you hungering for more Oxford tales from my husband, next week Henry will be guest blogging about Eight’s Week – an Oxford rowing race. He’s out there on the Thames/Isis today with an old Oriel buddy. They’ll probably do some “research” down the boozer too. Time to push off.

May Day in Oxford

I awoke at 4:00 am to see dawn on May Day, but the Oxford students had been reveling all night long. The police requested that the students refrain from jumping off Magdalen Bridge into the Cherwell River after previous years’ injuries. Try reasoning with a lemming. I heard of a couple that got engaged in mid-jump. Honestly! Can you imagine how much drink was involved?

May Day is a pagan celebration, and yet there are Christian overtones. Or should I say over-tunes? After six bell chimes, choristers sang in the sunrise from Magdalen Tower. Crowds of drunken students and sleepy townspeople tilted up their heads to hear the Latin hymn. The young boys’ voices were truly angelic. Over the tower a small patch of blue sky dissolved dark clouds. But for a few cheers and loose balloons, the crowd stood still in silent awe. The Magdalen Boys Choir then sang Sumer is Icumen In. The minister spoke a few words about Mary Magdalen, the college’s namesake, and welcomed spring.

The many gargoyles of Magdalen College leered down at the less than reverent crowd.


Inebriated students in tuxedos with lost bow ties lounged upon the street as their micro-mini skirted girlfriends shivered, lurched and giggled. A Scottish gentleman in a dinner jacket, white tie and a kilt gave his stiletto-ed lady a piggyback ride. Others had painted their faces or hair in fluorescent hues. I looked for traditional Morris dancers and was impressed by this modern take:

There were live bands playing along High Street:

In Radcliffe Square Scottish country dancers spun in kilts and long skirts before a bagpipe player:

Another Scotsman welcomed spring with not so fresh air before St. Mary’s Church:
Vault & Gardens inside the church was serving a hot cooked breakfast from 5:45 am, but the queue (line) was too long to join. Many cafes and pubs had been open most of the night.

On New College Lane before the Bridge of Sighs, groups of Morris Dancers cracked sticks, stamped clogs and jingled bells to accordion players.

Dawn’s early light made the sandstone buildings glow pinkish gold.

A tree man watched. Must be a druid thing. Note the pink haired lady and the cheese-headed accordion player behind him. At least I think it was a he. It’s hard to sex a tree. Green families gathered on the steps of the 18th century Clarendon Building.

Despite the forecast for heavy rain, not a drop fell. The rites of spring must have worked!

May Day is also peak bluebell time in England. The hovering purple-blue mist could make a curmudgeon believe in fairies.

Best place to see these lovely woodland flowers is on National Trust Land. The Holies in Berkshire overlooks the beautiful Thames Valley.

Fluorescent yellow grouse and fields of rape provide the perfect compliment. England can be relentlessly grey and green so to see such rich color is pure joy.


May also heralds World Press Freedom Day. At The Reuter’s Institute my husband, Henry Laurence, gave a brilliant talk on political censorship of public television. In a related article Henry revealed how the Japanese government altered NHK documentary coverage of the comfort women (WWII sex slaves) and how the Bush Administration censored PBS children’s programming.

The British BBC is by far the most progressive public broadcaster, although not free of incidents of self-censorship. Henry referred to the phenomenon as “the pre-emptive cringe.” Expect a really interesting book to come out of two sabbaticals of research in Japan, the UK and the USA. It is fascinating and provocative material, but you don’t have to take my word on it.

Washington Post journalist John Kelly blogged about Henry’s talk. John Kelly’s Voxford is one of my favorite blogs; it’s topical, controversial and often very funny. Fridays feature the gargoyle of the week. Like us, the Kelly family is on sabbatical from the USA. John refers to England as the land of warm beer and cold loos (bathrooms,) but he clearly loves it.

Another new friend from this sabbatical year is women’s fiction author Miranda Glover. She’s in my writers’ group. Miranda’s second novel, Soulmates, just came out last week. Soulmates is about sisters, daughters and the sad havoc of depression. From trendy London to the cold beauty of Stockholm, it’s a captivating read in a soothing voice, rich in detail. I’ve only just started and look forward to reading more tonight.

I’m cross with the characters in the new novel I'm writing. They’re not even out of the prologue and already they are waking me before dawn for adventures. Maybe it’s sleep deprivation or the amount of work left to do for this English novel, but I can’t believe it is already May!