July 21, 2011

When I woke this morning–around two, which was a clement seven where I was used to–I had no idea where I was, but I was in great darkness and warmth, in an enclosed space, under a low roof, as though I were one of those knights in his tomb in a cathedral, not dead and sad, but awake and happy, happy as only a child is happy. Then I realized I was home. I was happy because I was home and there was no uncertainty about what came next, and it was the great, close and holy Southern night, and a cat was curled against my arm. It was a moment of actual bliss, a word hard to use in normal discourse.

Despite the manifold asininities of US Air, I got home only three hours after I was meant to. The transfigurations of Cambridge had an odd effect on my thwarted travel plans: there was no rage, no fury. It was all right. All was well. I couldn’t believe the calm thoughts I was hearing in my head were mine. Read a history of the Medici on the plane.

I thought often of the girls from Yorkshire in the Tate Britain, who asked me to take their pictures and, when they found out I was American, quizzed me about the celebrities they were sure I knew. I lied and told them intimate details. They were so pleased with me, beaming like the schoolchildren they were. Some people take to me instantly–the Yorkshire girls, the boys at the door of the Russell–and if I knew why, I could cultivate those particular virtues.

Moments ago, when I first fired up this computer, I found the Novels folder where I figured in Cambridge it must be. There it was, where I couldn’t look through panic and with the limo honking in the street. I don’t think the fury and sadness associated with that was wasted. It was a contributor to the Transformation. Some doors can only be opened by despair.

The warmth surrounds me like a great fragrant body. London chilled me to the bone these last few days. The moment I broke a sweat in my own house I was happy.