Inside the train, up through the glass
My finger tracing
All of these towns I’ve never heard of racing past– Amelie, “Times Are Hard for Dreamers”
Sitting alone, waiting for my train at Nottingham Station to depart for London St. Pancras, I find myself feeling rather anxious again. The comfort that I found in Nottingham with family friends, while reassuring when I was there, now produces an opposing effect as I leave them behind. I am finding that the freedom of travel—which I longed for so much a month ago while my mom was planning the family trip to Los Angeles—is overwhelming and frightening.
If home is found in the crevices of human experience, homesickness is most certainly found in the expanses of suitcase living: sharing a room, having to take toiletries with you to the bathroom and back, not being able to leave your belongings lying about. (Mommy, if you’re reading this: I leave my room messy because that’s just part of the experience of being at home!) I am excited to be able to leave my toothbrush on the bathroom counter, to unpack my clothes from my suitcase. (Maybe long-term solo travel isn’t for me after all. How distressing.)
For the first time since landing in England, it is dark and gloomy today, which reminds me of home and certainly helps me feel less anxious. With the greenery of the English countryside dampened by rainfall, England looks more and more familiar to my beloved Pacific Northwest.
Speaking of the English countryside, I’m not sure how I feel about it. I’ve never really felt like calling Vancouver the big city before, but having spent some time in Nottingham, I suddenly feel like quite a city girl. I love the outdoors, the open sky, seeing farm animals, and narrow, winding dirt roads, but I am excited to be in the city again—thus confirming for me once again that Vancouver, a city in between city and country, is truly the most perfect place for me.
Having said that, though, I don’t think I can stress enough how much the English midlands and the English countryside felt like home to me. As we drove back from Chatsworth House, widely believed to be the inspiration for Mr. Darcy’s Pemberley in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (one of my favourite books), I looked around at the grids of farmland separated by stone walls and hedges and I found myself thinking about Dr. Dalziel’s Honours seminar on storytelling, and Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd.
When I visited New York City, I was in the middle of reading Edward Rutherfurd’s monster book New York, and I felt familiar with NYC because of that book (and, of course, all of the movies and clichés), but what I feel in England is a truly different level. So many of the works that I’ve loved for so long, or have studied intensely—Harry Potter, Pride and Prejudice, Far from the Madding Crowd, Shakespeare’s plays and poetry—were set in England. British authors seem to have truly taken the advice “write what you know” to heart, and with this beautiful place, they had good reason to.