London calls

The One True Wife, Middle Daughter and I have made the trek across the Atlantic to visit Oldest Daughter toward the end of her semester at King's College in London. I'm exploiting this family sojourn to give a few talks with my esteemed co-author, Rabbi Akiva Tatz. The first two of these were given back-to-back at the Jewish Free School, London's centuries-old Jewish school which a few years ago, with considerable help from the state, built an entire campus that puts to shame every Jewish school and most other schools I've seen (including the ones I attended).

Not just the facilities were first rate but the students were, too. Despite being the U.S. equivalent of seniors and facing serious exams, they were polite, attentive, curious, and full of probing questions. Talking to them, I realized that my spiritual journey may have seemed a little abstract to them, but my spiritual path and theirs through life and general, were probably very similar. Having slept only two hours on the plan, I felt toward the end of the second talk as though I might be hallucinating a little, but Rabbi Tatz, the consummate host, took very good care of me: secured me bagels and cups of coffee, took me to the Jewish Learning Exchange, where he and I are speaking on Monday evening, and before all that made sure that a driver picked us up at the airport, dropped us at our hotel and then whisked me to meet him at the school.

I haven't been to London in almost two decades. It's now bristling with growth and wealth: the skyline teems with ostentatious architectural statements and construction cranes. The Brits have cut back on their smoking and carbs, and can now be found jogging along the South Bank and sipping upmarket coffee at innumerable coffee bars (only some of which are Starbucks). The traffic crawls over the ancient roads; the British Pound hammers the measly dollar into submission.

We had Thanksgiving dinner with some American friends in a suburb of London. One of their three kids was born in the States and was eight years old when the family moved to London. The other two children, twins, were only two when the move was made. The oldest sounds and seems thoroughly American. Of the twins, one has only the slightest hint of an English accent, and the other, to our tinny American ears, sounded completely British (thought the family claimed that Brits can immediately identify her as an American). This family has taken joint citizenship, because, 10 years on, they feel quite at home in Britain, and appreciate the lack of hysterical emphasis on athletic achievement and cliquishness in the schools, and the more relaxed nature of British life in general.

Our family time has been tourist time: museums, parks, changings of the guard at Buckingham Palace, posing for pictures with Beefeaters at the Tower of London and with wax mock-ups of celebrities at Madame Tussaud's, shopping in Covent Garden, Borough Market and Harrod's, topped off today with afternoon tea at the Orangerie by Kensington Castle.

I face three days here after the family goes home, giving more talks with Rabbi Tatz. I struggle to revive my Buddhist years in my mind, and convey the meaning and vividness of that time to audiences as diverse as high school students, businessmen on their lunch break, and Orthodox Jews. It seems like a long time ago.

And as we walk through London, I find myself dropping back behind my daughters so that I can watch them walking arm-in-arm with the Wife, or chasing Gabe, or simply being women in the great, wide world. They are compulsive picture takers, partly because digital cameras make this possible, partly because they feel we never took enough pictures of them when they were growing up.

Now, as my eyes attest and as the camera confirms, they really are women, and I really am getting old. It's not such a bad feeling (yet), and they are a wonderful site to behold (still). This trip is a gift from the fates to the five of us, a reminder of how, in spite of it all, we became a family.

--T.A.

Comments

[amba]

1) You should never sleep more than two hours on a plane.

2) That's why they call it the Pound.

[amba]

You're getting old? Hmph.

[mom]

Such a wonderfully humane yet crazy city. I love all the historic underwear that peeks out here and there, sometimes in a flattering way and often not. It's also, like most 21st century big cities, daunting and scary and diverse and beautiful, if, like me you are city bred in the bone.