Why Did I Come to England?

Welcome to another chapter of Flight, my memoir about my first year of traveling around Europe in search of a new life, after leaving my old one as a professor, wife, and mother in New Orleans in 2022.

You can catch up here anytime with the full list of chapters, updated as they appear.

But you can also just read the installments that interest you or that you have time for. They pretty much all stand alone.

Or feel free to read on without catching up at all, if you wish.

After a beautiful, sunny month in Provence, living in Dora Maar’s house, I’m off to London, where it’s gray and rainy, and I decide, perhaps prematurely, to remedy the loneliness I’ve been feeling with some online dating. . . .

LONDON

My bones are cold, wetness is creeping under my toes, and I’m seriously wondering why I’ve come to London in November instead of heading off to Spain or Portugal. I’m not just chasing the sun, I remind myself. I’m chasing happiness. And my memories of England are among my happiest.

I first fell in love with all things British in 1992 when I lived for six months in Canterbury after college. I loved listening to my roommates debate whether the monarchy should be abolished or not. I loved wearing “jumpers” and drinking milky tea and going to the pub for a pint. I loved the Gothic cathedral, its spires visible all over town.

One of my favorite memories from that year is a walk through the rolling hills of the Cotswolds. The idea of walking into a vast, open landscape, neither wild nor tame, but full of public pathways, has stayed with me as one of the best ways to live—unlike in the U.S., where we walk on circular tracks or around shopping malls.

Since then, on subsequent trips, I’ve fallen in love with how the British appreciate their history, literature, and art. They keep the past alive in a staggering number of historic sites. I’ve dreamed of retiring in England and spending my days as a volunteer in some old manor house, where a writer or artist lived.

In the summer of 2017, my daughter and I spent one of the happiest days I’ve ever known. We walked through Hampstead Heath, visited Kenwood House, and ate soup and scones on its terrace. Then we took the Tube down to the city and walked through St. James Park, where the spires of Whitehall gleamed in the distance like a fairy-tale mirage. I somehow managed to get us on a very small tour of the rarely opened Clarence House, a stone’s throw from Buckingham Palace, where the Queen Mother had lived for fifty years. Finally, we had dinner with friends and saw a play in the West End.

I felt such utter contentment that day, relishing every sip of tea, every stately interior, every cool breeze in the sun. I didn’t want it to end. I went home with visions of a cottage in the countryside, a teapot with a quilted cozy, Wellies by the back door, and a pooch to roam the hills with. I became hooked on “Escape to the Country,” a BBC show in which couples—only occasionally a single woman—“up sticks” for the bucolic countryside. Whenever I needed a break from my life, I would turn on an episode and imagine myself living the dream.

So that is why I’m here, in the North of London, within walking distance to Hampstead Heath and Kenwood House, chasing a dream.

But I’m all alone this time. And it’s definitely not summer.

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