Philists

I was just thinking about everyone who goes abroad today, because of Alison and also Michael Shaeffer and others, and then even my own experience and other K'Nexers' experience too. I went abroad because my life experience wasn't going to be complete just living in America, and it seems like other people here have the same feeling. It's not that we're going to settle in Europe, to immigrate back to the Old Country, it's just that our lives aren't complete without being somewhere else.

And why is that?

So I've decided everyone has another country in them, mine I think is England/UK, making me an anglophile. Other people are probably francophiles or allemandophiles or who knows what else. It's like a hobby, this second country, filling in for something in America that is somehow lacking. Maybe it's just the fact that we don't really have any neighbors (except for two), and so we're kind of the shy awkward kid in the farmhouse that wants to have more friends.

Today, also, was Remembrance Day in England, which is a very big thing. And of course it was another of the days I picked to roll out of bed and show up late for Church. The building was packed, and I had to walk down the chapel - arranged like a Traverse theater, by the way - with everyone staring me down. I felt stuck in a gauntlet, but luckily I wasn't alone. Everyone did keep looking at me though.

So we sat through the service, which was great, and included poetry from wartime. The pastor also added things like, "for those of you that know the Lord's Blessing" (I didn't, that may not even be the right name for it, it's just a benediction blessing at the end of the service which we were all to say together and it wasn't in the leaflets we got.), and quick little truths - he wasn't embellishing or accusing - that made it seem like he was very conscious of the fact that the church was full of people that didn't usually come to the service and just came for Remembrance Day. The hymns were great, and it was good to see so many people there. There weren't enough hymnals so a lady next to me ended up sharing hers, I felt bad for the people down the row from me because they were left without one, so I tried to sing up for them.

By the end I had really gone through an experience, I kept thinking of my grandfather, Big Bob, who I never met but who fought in the Battle of the Bulge (he made it through the whole war, though, so it wasn't quite Remembrance but nonetheless, that's something I thought about). It was sobering. Once the service was done, everyone got up slowly and started to make their way out, and I felt something on my scalp. I picked a big yellow leaf out of my hair, meaning that as I was walking in late, as I was walking down the gauntlet, as I was singing profound hims, and as I was contemplating my grandfather, there was a big yellow leaf sticking out of my hair. My only conclusions to draw from this are either that it was a message not to take things too seriously, divine punishment for showing up late, or both.

Then we had lunch at the Impy. All in all a good day so far. I love England.