- Many good-hearted people are willing to share their time and homes with strangers for nothing in return. One boy I met in Northern Ireland kindly offered to take my friend and I back to Belfast (where we were staying for the night) if we were still in the area when he was leaving. When that didn’t end up working out, he offered to search for taxis for me when we were cab-less on the Irish coast.
- Buying food from the grocery store and cooking for oneself saves so much money. I have only gone out for food three or four times in London, and I’ve realized how much money I’ve saved by cooking in my flat. I can cook a meal for £2 or less, but to go out it costs at least £7-£10 for a decent dinner! When I return home to Los Angeles, I am going to stop eating takeout (which is mostly high in salt and starch) and start saving my money for plays and trips in California.
- Everyone wants to make friends. If you show interest in somebody else, they will be more likely to open up to you and befriend you.
- For the most part, Londoners are much more worldly than Californians. The morning and evening news here is free, with thousands of copies given out at Tube stations across London. The news has a more international bent and citizens here know more about Obama’s healthcare plans, threats of nuclear war, and the debates over building a mosque near Ground Zero in New York than many Americans do.
- Good subway and rail systems make driving unnecessary in the city and lead to better overall health. Unless one lives in the suburbs, Londoners take the Tube to work and then walk the remaining distance. Ever wonder why Europeans are so much more fit than their American counterparts?
- Drinking beers at a pub is so laid-back and fun. While some people are definitely getting pissed (trashed), pub drinking here is more of a social, casual activity.
- The healthcare system here isn’t half bad. In fact, scientist Stephen Hawking, whose life (according to one investor’s daily in the States) would be deemed worthless in the U.K., says that without the National Health Service’s “high-quality treatments”, he would not have survived.
- Being lost at night in a foreign country is so much better with a friend. I arrived at Belfast’s Europa Buscentre at 10PM and had to take a twenty-minute walk through darkened streets and alleys. While I still jumped at every shadow, it was so much better with a friend by my side.
- It isn’t hard to cook good-quality, cheap meals. I learned to cook a spicy, flavourful Indian curry simply by reading the back of a spice container. If you take the time, you’re bound to learn plenty.
- Stuff is not that important. Standing there on the frigid Ireland coast, wind nipping at my face, I realized all I really need is warm clothes, a hearty meal, and a place to sleep. Nothing too fancy or expensive is necessary.
Month: September 2010
Off the Northern Irish coast
I am the king of the world, shouts man
No sir being here can’t you see that
there is something greater?
No sir being here can’t you see that
there is something greater?
I took some time to contemplate the world and found sudden clarity and peace.
English or German? We’re all human.
For three hours, the theatre was a church, sacred, solemn, and a steeple for contemplation. We’ve heard that war divides, that soldiers fear battle, know in our hearts that humans fear death. But here on the Warhorse stage these simple truths were laid bare, blurring the line between the theatre as art and as an honest discourse on humanity and politics. We saw Germans, French, and British – unable to communicate verbally – bound by fears about dying on the battlefield and never returning home to loved ones. We saw a French mother and an English one, in different spans of time, worrying about their children and trying to shelter them. We saw brothers, always fighting, unite over worry for their sons at war. It seemed to remind us of truths more important than the color of one’s uniform or one’s nationality, and motivated questions on the necessity of war.
No less important was the idea that love knows no boundaries. At the beginning, we meet Albert, a young country boy from Devon, and his beloved horse, Joey. From the beginning, we are almost intruders on their quiet intimacy as we watch the two mature together. Joey grows from a foal to a full-sized riding horse, shown beautifully in the play’s transitions, and Albert becomes a temperamental teenager, loyal only to Joey. When World War I breaks out, Albert and Joey are separated. Albert, only sixteen, is forced to remain home, and Joey is sold to the British cavalry and shipped to France. Separated by distance but not emotion, Albert soon chases after Joey, joining the British infantry in the process.
The play’s artistry motivates our reflection on war. Crows accurately circle dead bodies, horses and men – their shadows haunting on the walls – fall with unflinchingly regularity. As the horses tire, we watch their bodies whittle to skeletons, eventually being shot out of misery. Near the end of the play, when Topthorn the horse dies, the three men controlling his limbs slowly edge away. It as if his spirit is leaving, and offers both an artistic and symbolic understanding of war’s tragedy.
In another ending scene, Joey is caught on barbed wire in No-Man’s Land, and two soldiers – one German and one English – spot him simultaneously. Their synchronized appeals to their commanders, their eventual approaches to the horse, and how they both entangle Joey from the wire are not-so-subtle reminders of their shared humanity. To watch the determination of Joey’s ownership (by the simple coin flip) was almost sacred. Here was a testament to human commonality, to mutual desire to shield the horse from harm, to the pointlessness of fighting.
When Joey is finally reunited with Albert – through a harrowing ordeal when we wonder if Joey will be shot – we have subdued joy. For although their story ends relatively happily, we must also reflect on the scores of lives lost in the battles that came before. And thus Warhorse concludes, abruptly and suddenly, like a war screeching to a halt.
The audience stood, some still wiping tears from their eyes, and shuffled out of this makeshift temple. I stood for a moment, still awed by the beauty, the honesty just shown in front of me. Before I left, I closed my eyes, and I – like the characters at war’s end – gave thanks to be alive.
Anonymous in a Pub
Last night at a colorful pub just north of Oxford Street, I met a boy I will never meet again. He accosted me just before I reached the bar, with its rows of beers on tap and whiskeys and rums on inlaid shelves, and he adorably (and drunkenly) started to converse with me. We talked for a bit, all the introductory questions, and then I gestured towards the bar. Okay, he said, smiling, sorry for blocking you. I smiled. It’s no problem.
I ordered a pitcher of Strongbow for my table of friends and arrived back to find the boy chatting amiably with my flatmates. He had called in his friend to teach us British card games, and we were soon playing cards, downing beer, and dancing happily like old friends. In his drunkenness, he was soon declaring that he “loved us all”, and made us swear that we too would “get pissed”. And then, just like that, he and his friends were off. The boy promised to find me on Facebook, but I expect nothing, and desire nothing.
Nothing lasts, and that idea is beautifully liberating. The boy and I both know that our infatuation is temporary, that tomorrow will bring new faces to greet and more names to forget. No future is expected or even thought of, and thus there is no pressure to impress or to pretend. I can be exactly who I want, secure knowing that any impression I leave today will be irrelevant tomorrow.
Living in London is thus about embracing the present, in marveling at each architectural gem and new friend in front of me, and accepting that these fleeting images and people will not be with me tomorrow. It’s about striking up a conversation with a Scottish bartender on the Glasgow subway and walking away without knowing his name. It’s about smiling at a old lady on the street who’s playing the violin and never exchanging words. Mostly, it’s about celebrating being with others in the present without placing expectations on the future or worries on the past.
Nobody knows who I was back in Los Angeles, and nobody seems to care. Here it’s about the continual redefinition of self, about who I am right in this instant. I can carry the morning papers and be British, be loud and improper (American), or throw up peace signs and carry a DSLR like a Japanese tourist. I can be anyone. I am completely anonymous, caught up only with what’s right in front of me.
In that respect, my encounter with the adorable boy amplifies this sense of anonymity, of defining myself in the moment without regret. I continually remind myself that each amazing person or thing I see is like a butterfly: living its own life, fluttering into mine to share its beauty for but a moment.
I fall asleep each night feeling blessed and wake ready for a day of new joys.
One Lovely Day 
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