Goodbye London

July 13, 2010

Din in the courtyard of a family leaving. Much shouting of instructions and reminders, a little girl bawling, repeatedly, unanswered, “Nana, I want to go in the taxi with you!”

Jeff and I went to the Wigmore recital hall to hear a group sing Spanish a capella music of the Renaissance, in a program called “The Golden Age.” It was beyond magnificent. I had the rare experience of more than listening to the music, praying to it, sure that its ecstatic curve would bear my words into the sky. This must have happened at church, but I don’t remember it in a concert hall before. I wish I had written of this last night, when the emotion was fresh in my heart.

Our first rainy morning, more a mist than a rain.

Did a measure of wandering, to the Curved Angel for coffee, through town, across Waterloo Bridge to the Queen’s Walk, where I took in the sights of a misty morning. A great and good city lay spread out before me on the far side of a green, turbulent river. Without the bridges it could have been the far side of the world. Sat on the National Theater terrace and wrote a play. We gathered at the Globe to see Henry VIII, which somewhat to my surprise was wondrous and moving. Each time I come to the Globe the more convinced I am it is the ideal Shakespearian setting–as if that should be a surprise. Tara was amazed that the “real” Globe had been in London, indeed on that very spot. Much complaining about being tired or uncomfortable or not being able to understand the “language,” but I think somewhere within they got it. Final supper together at a waterside restaurant nearby. I left early and made a rather melancholy way back through the city, overcome with brutal and unexpected grief. Grief at parting. I will miss them. I didn’t expect to miss them. I missed them even before we were parted. My unborn daughters haunted me with a sharpness I do not believe I fully deserved.

But since it falls unto my lot
That I should rise and you should not,
I’ll softly rise and gently call
Goodnight, and joy be with ye all.