Pups and Flowered Strolls

The past couple of mornings, I've woken up to a gentle rub on the shoulder and the sweet nothings of, "Sarah, sweetie, the dog pooped on the carpet . . . and I have to go to work so . . . Could you, um . . . "
I tell you what, there's no other wake up call like it.
Way to get out of it, honey bun. I'll get you back, one of these days.
Also, one day, I will find a way to teach you to clean up pet puke without your turning green. Maybe.

She loves to cuddle in my lap while I'm on the computer . . . and then she starts nosing my hands until I use BOTH of them to pet her . . . Ham, much? Maybe a bit.

Pup's been sick with the runs for four days. Considering that she has delightfully fluffy thighs covered in long, long hair, this posed a slight problem. Let's just say that you can now add "dog butt barber" to my resume. Please and thank you.
Good news--I'm not a terrible furchild parent. I DID take her to the vet and he sent us away with smile, reassurance, and antibiotics.  She never acted sick, except for the obvious, so, now, we wait with a happy dingo and hope the runs solidify a bit. Or something.

Spring has arrived in San Juan Bautista--everything has begun to bloom and it is stunning. Just stunning. There are drizzles, now and again, that go off and on all day.  Sometimes, the sky is bright blue, and others gray, hovering foggy over the mountains the way breathe hangs in cold air. I adore it.  Gray, damp chill brings me back to London.  The fact that the town is small enough that I can walk everywhere brings me back there as well, and makes me think of college a bit.  As a new student, more than anything, I wanted to find a coffee shop, just some little place where I could have a cup of chai and study, a brief walk from campus.


Mississippi, where I attended university, does not have seasons the same as some places, but it has more than Florida. On winter nights, there was a cold that bore into you but no snow.  In summer, the air was thick, heavy with heat and no relief of sea breeze--stiff, smothering.  But springtime, oh, springtime was heaven.  For the first time in my life, I knew was Spring Fever was.  Even in my favorite classes, I'd stare out the window at the Quad strewn with students laying on their blankets, tossing frisbees. Spring was the only time the Quad wasn't as mucky as usual.  The sprinklers never turned off, even in the rain, leaving the dirt beneath the bright green grass perpetually black, damp, slimy, and slick. It nearly stole several pairs of my flip flops and, more than once, nearly had me falling on my bum. Spring time it was alive--all of us were screaming for sunlight after fleeing winter.  I'd wear skirts--the long peasant type--paired with tank tops or t-shirts and flip flops, looking like I stepped out of the 70's. My hair was long, and, sometimes, I'd put flowers in it, plucking them as I walked around the tiny Southern town where nothing happened.  It was the only time that I adored my campus.  My roommate, Emily, and I would lay out on blankets and read, soaking in sunlight.  Then, we'd walk to the local coffee shop, Cups, a lovely, artsy place filled with work of local artists and built in a little yellow house a friend of mine once lived in.  I didn't visit as often as I had dreamed, but my friends did.  I took a full load of classes and worked 18 hours a week at the university library, so I didn't get out much.  Still, very little beat sitting out on that little deck, sipping hot chocolate or chai, with my books and sunbeams.

Sometimes, town wasn't enough to satisfy our hunger for fresh air. We'd go driving out to the Natchez Trace, this beautiful stretch of land with all these little historic spots and pretty, hidden places like my favorite: Owen's Creek. We'd wander the woods, play in the stream. Once, we found a pair of graves from the Civil War.  I might not miss Mississippi a great deal, but I miss Owen's Creek.

Do you see the tiny trickle? The creek ended abruptly in this shelf that, most days, was the tiniest, most pathetic "waterfall" you'd ever seen. the shelf formed this awesome "almost cave" and then continued into the rest of the creek through the woods.  It remains one of the prettiest wooded spots in the Southeast that I've ever seen. I'm sure there are prettier places, but this little spot seemed like a fairytale to me.
Photo credit to my pal Rhyno. :]

I couldn't walk places in Florida.  Not really. Everything's very spread out, built for commuting.  When you do walk, it's brutally hot, suffocating.  You begin to sweat just walking to your car, but it doesn't dry, won't evaporate the way sweat is supposed to, cooling you. It just sticks, drips. Make-up melts, hair deflates, and clothes begin to stink of musk, deodorant essentially useless.  Residential areas are rarely within walking distances of super markets or restaurants. If they are, we drive anyways because it's too hot.  You melt and the milk risks spoiling.  It's dreadful.

Here, in this town, it's different.  I can go for a walk in the cool--almost cold--air and be downtown in roughly five minutes. From there, I have my choice of antique shops and independent restaurants of various tastes and persuasions. If I want to go to an actual grocery store, yes, I have to drive ten minutes or so on a highway, but, to be in town, to see little sights and enjoy an afternoon out, I merely have to put on my shoes and walk out the door. I love that. I have always preferred walking places.  That was one of my favorite things in London. I do not think I would like city life. There's not enough green.  I do, however, adore the commute system.  You walk, you ride the Tube, hop on a double decker bus, swipe your Oyster card, and you're off. I could go anywhere on my own two feet.  I loved that. I love it here, in this tiny, mission town with its buildings straight out of a western film, hidden in the hills from the outside, modern world.

So far, I have found a favorite burger spot. I'm on the look for a coffee shop, now.
Maybe I'll even start wearing skirts and flowers in my hair.

The feet of people walking home

I don’t think a day goes by that I don’t miss London.

 Spring semester of my junior year of college, I arrived in London.  I had scrapped and saved for two years, and had been dreaming of this trip for over five years.  For three months, I studied, I went on tour after tour, and I wandered and wondered. I did so much of that--walking through the city, thinking, just drinking it all in.  I left friends, family, and boyfriend in the States, but, somehow, I was home. 

 “Die Alone” by Ingrid Michaelson plays and I’m walking down Baker Street, looking for my mother’s hotel, as she’s come to visit me for my 21^st birthday, and the world is bright. “Sad Sad City” by Ghostland Observatory comes on, and I’m dancing with Mark on the Tube like we’re the only people in the world. I still remember the hand motions we created. I play “My Moon, My Man” by Feist, and Kellye and I groove down the street on Russell Square, ignoring every stranger because we are young and alive. It’s all that matters.   There is a quiet, warming joy, the kind that makes you smile like you have a splendid secret, and you skip a little as you go, greeting every stranger like a friend.  I was at home, walking those streets. Some days, I miss the walking more than anything.

  

I walk into the hotel sitting room in my pjs where Mark and Billy drink beers, hiding them whenever someone walks by. Mark tells me I looked pretty, standing there in a cami and checkered pants, and I retorted, tactlessly, “It’s because I have boobs, right?” and he laughs.  The three of us talk about television, and, next thing I know, Billy is showing me his favorite Family Guy clips while I am perched in the chair beside his. After I had gone to bed Billy went into the basement and told everyone, “I’ve just been watching Family Guy for like an HOUR with Sarah Pete, and she’s actually really cool.” I was "in" from that moment on—the breasted girl without tact who loved Youtube and hated shopping.

Me, Mark, Kellye, and Billy's hands posing as one of the "Last Supper" pieces we studied in Art History. We ate lunch down in the hotel basement--miss that little place.

I love gray, dreary days because I’m back there, back on Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, and Leicester Square. If it’s particularly cold and grim, I’m at Dover Castle, trying to spy the French coastline through the mist.  Almost every day in England is gray and sunless, with a chill in the wind and always the threat of rain. 

I am in the Tate Modern (that our art professor called “rubbish”), staring in awe at a Jackson Pollock piece or in the V&A Museum, adoring the marble sculptures, my favorite. Maybe I’m lost in the British Museum, soaking up history, or exploring the vast Science Museum with Melissa who devours the medical section.  God, there are no museums like there are in London.  I could get lost forever and be happy as a clam for the rest of my days.

A piece of the Berlin Wall at the WWII Museum

I am back in Piccadilly Circus at night, on my way to a play, and, suddenly, without reason I NEED a new book. I haven’t read anything new in a month and dart into a book store like a woman possessed, rushing downstairs into the basement where I am surrounded by paperback classics. I buy Frankenstein and Moby Dick and feel as if my heart is whole again.

When I want to walk in the woods, I remember Ambleside in the Lake Country, and it feels like a fairytale. I’m convinced it’s one of the most beautiful places in the world, lost in a forest that you know must be filled with faeries, if you’re looking in the right place.

I open a book by Lewis, and I remember the Eagle and Child.  I’m in Oxford, and it’s the worst kind of dreary—perpetually gray with rain that’s almost more a thick mist. You’re freezing and soaked only because it doesn’t stop. I separate from the group to seek out the famous pub, and I am hopelessly lost. I have no watch, no phone, and I am terrified that I will not only be left behind but never find my destination, my purpose for coming to England in the first place: to sit where they sat, to see where they smoked, and drank, and dreamed together, a group of brilliance who changed everything.  I found it, and everything was beautiful.

I’m on our coach, sitting up front with Paul our driver who is every bit Irish—witty and never to be taken seriously—trying to take pictures of the Scottish Highlands, again, one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen.  We travel up through Scotland, down through Wales, and then back to London.  The first place we visit is St. Andrews—the home of golf—and I know, If my heart were a place, it would be St. Andrews with its rocky seaside, where I perched for hours. No Spring Break will ever compare to this one.

Every time I see a picture or a shot of London, something in my aches a little.  When you find home, you’re always longing for it. It never stops, not even once, as the years go by.  It will always be my soul’s city.

“After all this time?”
“Always.”