The Real Me

My first trip to the UK, in 1978, took me within hours to choral evensong at King's College, Cambridge, and then via old fashioned BritRail Pass north to Scotland, around Scotland, and finally back to London, where I stayed with an older American friend who lived in South Kensington. At the time, I remember thinking, "this is my life." For several days before flying back to the States, I used her flat as home base as I explored the city on foot and on the Tube, and two years later when I arrived to start my master's degree at Royal Holloway, I somehow assumed I would never leave. I would easily figure out how to live in London. In the end, with the intense work on my degree, there simply wasn't time. Thus it was that the flight back in September of 1981 was utterly wrenching, as has been, on some level, my entire American life since then. Despite wonders and miracles and unique life lessons, I have never felt like I was really in my own life, more like traveling across the surface of its opposite, as I guess some of my readers have gathered (!) 

Last night in the middle of the night, I had one of those moments which was either entirely crazy or entirely healthy and significant. I imagined that, in fact, the "real" Liz is alive and has been living in London all these years. After a few years of working at a job, she fell into a wonderful living as a freelance writer. She attends choral evensong at least twice a week at St. Paul's, Westminster Abbey, the Chapel Royal Hampton Court, Southwark Cathedral, and elsewhere. She is in a high caliber choral group which sings evensong at least once a month. She attends concerts of The Tallis Scholars, The Sixteen, Voces8, and other groups, and has dozens of musical, artistic, writer and visionary friends with whom she eats out and attends concerts. She volunteers at the National Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum, and frequently travels to the south and west of England to sites of historical and spiritual significance to her, which she writes about. And she spends a lot of time on her own, loving her small but comfortable flat with its handful of oriental rugs and oil paintings.

And I imagined current me, with her $12.99 haircut, hand-me-down clothing, and roller bag, showing up at real me's flat. She opens the door, and we immediately recognize each other and fall into each other's arms like sisters. She's better coiffed than I am, somewhat slimmer, with nicer clothes, but with the same dark-rimmed glasses and dark (but greying) hair. She whooshes me into the kitchen, orders some delivery Thai food, and opens the first of at least three bottles of wine. And we start talking. And talking. And talking. "No way! You did what?" "You met who?" "You went where?" "What was it like singing there?" "What was it like going there?" "Tell me about your book!" "Tell me about your blog!" Etc. etc. An entire adult lifetime (or two), shared in five or six hours. 

By three in the morning, we agree that it made a certain amount of sense that we had had such diverse life experiences, and that it was meant to enrich our future. Then she shows me to the guest room, and I collapse onto the bed and fall asleep until at least eleven the following morning.

The flat sounds awfully quiet. I get up, and get dressed, and walk from room to room. "The Real Me" seems to be gone, but when I see a note on the mantelpiece saying "Welcome Home," I realize that she's not gone, it's just that we are finally the same person after all these years. I walk over to the desk, look at my calendar for today, and, with a big smile on my face, get ready to walk out the door and get on with my life.