I’m dreaming of the UK these days. My connection is eroding. It’s been over a year since I’ve been in the country I once called “home.” Oof. I step away from my laptop.
Outside on my porch, I race toward the final pages of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. Kathy reads in the meadows, talks with Ruth in an old bus shelter while rain falls in sheets. Maybe this is why I feel the tug: more intense, more desperate. I scroll through flights to Heathrow and then close my tab. I want to be safe but I also want to scream.
I ask my friend, half vaccinated, where do you need to go? when it’s okay again? I think about need: why I feel the need to be somewhere instead of a need to not be here. I don’t want to go anywhere. I need to tsk tsk the shoddy plastic-wrapped produce in Tesco. I need to try on every piece of clothing in Sarabeth’s wardrobe before we go out. I need to squint at the rainbow intersections on the map of the tube. I need a Sunday roast on Gravenhurst Road, complete with a Sue signature dessert. I need to argue over high stakes answers in a pub quiz. I need Putney pies. I need to look right left right when I cross the street. I need Michelle’s floor, where she spoon feeds me some chocolate peanut butter delicious gooey decadence as we listen to Lana del Rey and remember when we were younger.
These photos are England on her best behavior. Beating sunshine, languid afternoons woozy on bubbly wine. Walks punctured with pints. London, the farm, the lakes. Indie’s indifference. I wish I was there.