No Ghoul Deprivation Here

Last night I arrived back from London - my second trip in 11 months since moving back to California last year - to discover an explosion of Hallowe'en decorations around my neighborhood. 

As daylight emerged and I took my dog out for her morning walk, I was captivated by the number of bloodied mannequin limbs, partially buried doll heads, hanging witches with apparent skeletal issues, and the more traditional giant spiders and pumpkin displays. For a hillside community with mostly rugged gardens, the converted landscape is impressive. It looks amazing and I love it!

One thing is for certain, I shall not be buying any cotton web-like decoration. My resident spiders provide plenty on their own. It's the first time in decades I've felt a neighborhood momentum of excitement for the 31st. What a sense of pride. In the next two weeks I'll get my own modest collection of decs out. I'm ready with my mini Crunchie Bars and snack size Maltesers.   

In case you were wondering, yes - indeed those are British candies. I planned ahead. Kids calling at my door will be in for something a little different from the usual Snickers and Hershey's minis.

Hallowe'en falls just before Bonfire night/Guy Fawkes, so more of the celebration in the UK happens that night with local fireworks.  I saw a slow progression of some communities there somewhat embracing Hallowe'en since 1992, the first one I spent there. 

I recall in the early 2000's in Wales that it seemed to be a night for aspiring ASBO* teenagers to get up to no good, throwing eggs and breaking car windshields.  (*anti-social behavior order)

Later when I lived in Bristol, a colleague from work said she refused to let her children trick or treat, "It's beggin', in'nit?"   

It must have been 2011 when we had a warmer autumn in London that a few parents actually brought their small kids around. No rain and a candle-lit jack-o-lantern in the window brought a decent turnout (four!). I was thrilled to have been prepared. 

As for adult fun, I had the honor of attending a friend's birthday/H'ween party (Ebony & Ivory) five years in a row, always in a different venue somewhere in East London. Each year I had to get more creative with my costume. The best was my doping cyclist, complete with syringe. 

In both London and Bristol over the past two weeks, Christmas preparation was much more prevalent.  Shops already selling Christmas themed gift boxes, ornaments, crackers and mince meat pies. 

Refreshingly, I haven't seen a single Christmas display or circular/paper advert in my county of California yet. 

Still in the expat-transitional fog, I can only describe my visits 'home' to London/UK as weird. 

Within the first day of landing there were a few cultural idiosyncrasies reminding me I was glad I had moved away from there. 

I rode the 108 bus from North Greenwich station one day - my old commute route - thinking to myself, "My god, sitting on this bus is the LAST place I'd ever thought I'd spend part of my holiday…" 

Bermondsey underground station on the Jubilee line: still seemingly pointless with never more than five people on the entire platform waiting to board and maybe two getting off the train, even during peak hours. It's been that way as long as I remember it.  Even as a non-resident I am still questioning the relevance of it and irritated that we need to stop there. 

Yes, it rained. People shut down into their compressed personal-space bubbles on the street, on the trains, on the bus…  The free Metro paper still litters the trains and station benches.

The deeper substance comes from meeting with loved ones and dear friends, dining out, sitting on a damp bench in Greenwich Park. Those memories have been the most meaningful, and definitely drive my incentive for keeping up regular visits (along with professional interests now and then).

Whilst packing up to leave, the extent of my duality occurred to me as I accounted for two wallets, two passports, two phones….

As my plane descended towards towards the airport in California, I looked out at the terrain of my current home and still couldn't figure out how to decipher where I feel most rooted.  For now, home is where the doggie is. 

~ Em

Neighbour Vs. Neighbor

A few weeks ago I was ambling through the De Young Museum when a security guard smiled and made a comment about the exhibit I was viewing (the charred remains of a church hanging in mobile-fashion). We chatted a few moments, and when I said I'd recently "moved back from the UK", he responded that his colleague in the corner was also from that part of the world.  I walked on and eventually the other guard appeared to introduce himself. Turned out he was from Ukraine. We both laughed. Then I asked, ex-pat to ex-pat, which he preferred. He said Ukraine. He could afford it there, and the weather was better than in San Francisco.  Home is home, even Ukraine.


What strikes me about my neighborhood in Marin county is how friendly the neighbors are. Only seven months as a resident and already I've met most people on the street and around the corner, all who've made an effort to welcome me and introduce themselves. Having a dog I walk four times a day helps, but even when I leave the house solo, people extend their greetings.

Earlier this month someone hosted a community social event at their home, offering a chance for neighbors to meet each other.

All of what I just described was pretty much unheard of in every neighborhood I ever lived in in Britain.
That includes:
Notting Hill Gate, London
Stockport
Cambridge
Pontcanna, Cardiff, Wales (two homes in different sections)
Clifton, Bristol
Charlton/Greenwich, London.
I can count on one hand the number of neighbors I met during that time. The two I've stayed in touch with were also born outside of Britain and part of the ex-pat squad.
Once in a while an immediate neighbor (sharing the terrace wall) would make an effort for reasons of safety/neighborhood watch, but suspicion flowed just beneath the surface.

I got used to it after about three years. I learned whilst living in Wales that the only way to make friends on the street is if you are a mother with a kid who meets another mother. I'm not part of that squad.

"Keep themselves to themselves" is a common expression in the UK. When a crime story hits the news,  neighbors are often interviewed. "Did you know the Taylor family, ma'am?"
       "Well, it's an awful shock - we didn't really know them - - kept themselves to themselves, mostly".

Seeing the same faces day in, day out -  at the bus stop or riding the tube, no one dared extend a "hello, again".  People buried themselves in their Metro papers or faffed around with their iPhones like security blankets.  I imagined those internal thoughts, "Musn't make eye contact… too complicated! Ah, relief, here comes the 108".

Of course, here in Northern California we pedestrians may be friendly towards one another, but give us four wheels and an engine and we become foes competing for asphalt space.

I am by no means popular in my home state. I know more people, but my friends got used to me as their friend abroad, and I became relegated to annual visits.  Despite my residence in the same region as many of my old friends, not much has changed. Folks have their own lives and patterns with their local friends they're used to seeing. I was a novelty for a few weeks. It's even weird for me that I'm back.  I can't blame them, but I am glad I got a dog.

The Bread Affair

A year ago today I was counting the hours till my flight to SFO. It was the first stage of my move (back) to California.

Of all the delights on offer at local farmer's markets, my favorite grocery stores and bakeries, a crusty, chewy, sourdough bread ranks among the top favorites. Sadly, it wasn't until about 2013 that I found a semi-decent sourdough loaf at Marks and Spencer in Blackheath. The Kensington Whole Foods sold one and it was so remotely sourdough that I would only describe it as 'an attempt at being sourdough-ish'.

My partner who longed for Irish Soda Bread was also disappointed by the lightweight version of that offered at Whole Foods.

If ever I wanted a 'proper' French baguette in the UK, Le Pain Quotidien would satisfy the craving.  Pret a Manger was the last-resort. I made the mistake in 2004 whilst living in Wales of trying a Gregg's bakery sandwich. NEVER AGAIN.  With my disappointing bread eating experiences there, for 9+ years, bread was not the staple in my diet it once had been.

So in the year since I replanted myself in California, I've embraced an all-out bread binge. Nut loaves, Dutch Crunch, San Francisco sourdough sliced, wheat sourdough, sourdough loaf, French Roll, Kaiser Roll, and salted bagels. (Ok, I may have only had one bagel in the past year, but it was heavenly).

You'd think I'd be enormous but somehow that has been avoided. Maybe because I eat breads in moderation with careful savoring of every chewy munch. (If anything, it would be my cheese consumption that would add girth).

Perhaps my bread affair is leveling off. I never made a secret of it. The availability of so many delectable bread options at my fingertips is almost enough - just knowing they are within reach the next time I fancy the crunchy, the chewy, the tangy, the sour….

As for having been back a year, my feeling is best described by a young woman I met at the Red Hill dog park, "It's like you're on a stay-cation".

Back to the Land of Hugs and Handshakes

When I was staying in the UK as a student in 1992-93, I was greeted in various ways by the locals. Sometimes a single kiss on the cheek, sometimes a handshake or light hug, other times a controlled nod. They seemed to do the same among each other. 

So it felt as though something was a little strange when I resettled in 2004 and people, whether new in my life or old friends, were all greeting me with the double kiss, comme les Francais. 
Qu'est ce qui passe??
I didn't remember people greeting each other in that manner when I was living there in the previous decade, but I went along with it. Since I was in Wales at the time I thought perhaps that was a regional custom. It followed as I moved from Cardiff to Bristol to London.
Apparently the European left-right-smooch custom had swept the nation and there was no going back. 

I suppose I went along with it, but it felt contrived and, in this age of germ-phobias, swine flu and noro-virus, it was just plain hazardous. 

The only place I didn't feel under threat of the left-right-smooch was in Scotland where I was traveling regularly for work in 2010. Their smile-and-nod greeting felt more relaxed and genuine.  

I laughed out loud at a party in London last year when a Frenchman who'd been living in the UK for several years expressed his ennui with the custom. When the British lunged at him with the left-right-smooch he accommodated, but not without saying, "Oh, you want to kiss both sides, now? I never know what they are doing here!"

If a hand-shake feels too formal, there is something that feels very false - even remotely stand-off-ish, by the British-style left-right-smooch. It reminds me of the similar move spoofed in films of wealthy housewives in Beverly Hills. Going through the motions while sizing each other up. "Oh, hello darling - smooch smooch - we must get together soon."

Very few people in my home state of California attempt the left-right-smooch, and most of those who do were raised in Europe and moved here as adults. My own father, aunts and uncles from France and Italy do not partake in the double-kiss. They seem to have let that go during their acculturation to the US, yet they remain demonstrative and cuddly. 

As I start a new job here and meet new neighbors, the interactions between people feel more natural and less pretentious. I know there are some English who disagree and believe most Americans are arrogant hand-shakers. They're certainly entitled to their opinions, though I won't pay any attention until they've actually lived here in the US for a decade -- try that, first - then we'll be on a level playing field to compare notes on culture. 

Cheerio and au-revior, awkward left-right-smooch. 

The Return

It's true, I returned to the UK four months and five days after I left. 

I was greeted with "Welcome home!", and "At last, you've returned to us."

People kept asking, "How does it feel to be back ?" 

I feel as though I have been on a summer study holiday in California and have just come back to the reality of cold air, angry commuters, high prices and traffic congestion. It feels like only a few weeks have passed - those months I spent sequestered studying and passing the clinical licensing exams in California are all compressed into a smaller memory block. 

As I sat on the old familiar fuzzy seats on the Piccadilly line from Heathrow, I felt grateful for the comfortable flight, the empty train car, and my old functioning Oyster card.

It was only a short visit (3 days in Bristol; 7 in London). I wasn't able to see all of my friends, or even half of them. But that is what I have encountered for the past decade of traveling back and forth to the US. I am well rehearsed in the art of short-stay-meeting-up coordination and inevitable sacrifices. 

Nothing much seems to have changed in the UK. The air, chill, and hard water were always hard on my skin and sinuses, and that all came flooding back within a few hours of landing.  

While I miss the ability to see friends here more regularly and eating at my favorite restaurants, I can't say that I really miss the UK yet. If anything, I was reminded of the reasons I left. 

For now, I am very confident I made the right move. I felt reminded of this when seeing the overflowing display of bags of crisps in every shop, adjacent to the rows and rows of chocolate bars. The free 'news' papers with melo-dramatic headlines. The hideous UPVC windows everywhere. The passive-aggressive anger on public transport. The "should" and "should not" attitude. Jon Snow still on Channel 4. The bureaucratic red tape of trying to sort my pension transfer. The mediocre dental care. Royals spending money, reproducing, and adding nothing. Separate hot and cold water taps....

The things I take pleasure in, such as my favorite parks in decent weather, my favorite galleries, seeing friends, dining out, and knowing that Paris is only 2 hours away on the Eurostar are the brilliance of living in London for me. 

What was most wonderful about my return visit was seeing friends and feeling welcomed home - like I belonged there.

I am grateful for and proud of my citizenship. I did, after all, spend a decade of my life there (plus my student terms abroad in the early 90s).  

Towards the end of my visit, I realized something that stopped me in my tracks: the UK is still 'home' to me now, more than California, where everything is still temporary (and I don't even know if I will settle there).  I realized that I will never feel like a tourist in a place where I lived and worked for so long.

So I enjoyed the visit as a citizen and recent resident whilst still looking forward to the future, wherever that might be. 

Here's what happened while I was away: I GOT OLD

I guess a decade will do that to a person, especially when you come back to a place when you are over 40.

I have noticed that on the television news programming, both network and cable channels, the news readers and pundits are all suspiciously youthful. I don't remember it always being like that. Sure, Generations Y and Z might have a few interesting contributions, but I like my news readers varying in ages and prefer pundits more on the sedate, mature side. (Actually, pundits are often annoying at any age; what am I saying?) I'd better stick with National Public Radio.

Here's what else happened:

A group resembling a quasi-rabid pack of small, irate chihuahuas has gripped a corner of American politics and are attempting to contaminate the country. So far they seem to be successful in giving most people a caffeine-related headache. Thank goodness I have always stuck with herbal tea.

And finally, picking up one of the free local newspapers, the last four pages are covered in adverts for weed. Now that's definitely new.

Catching up with California

"While California is not perfect, it is in our nature to try new things."
~Bill Maher

While I am admittedly catching up on things here from the past decade, Bill Maher sheds light on why whenever I was asked where I was originally from whilst living abroad, I would always specify California (and never generically the US). I suppose a lot of us from the Golden State consider ourselves a sub-culture of the rest of America, and those in certain regions may consider ourselves from yet another sub-culture within the state.
So for as many stereotypes as there are out there about Americans, and Californians, this 'New Rule' segment highlights some of the better things about my home state.  If you scroll down past the text you can view the video.