A Springtime Epiphany

And that is:

Life in England is approaching normality. I've gotten used to it. England still holds wonder around corners, but I'm used to the corners being there. I'm finding America harder and harder to remember, and with the amount of growing that I've had to do, just as a person, time has warped, and I feel more and more like America is a distant past rather than an eventual future.

That said, of course it's perfect timing that I'm reaching this state now, a handful of months before I have to go back. By "perfect timing," I mean both that it's too bad - all sarcasm included - but also that it makes sheer sense. I don't have my deadline of a return to America in the near future, and I've been here long enough to feel like it's a significant amount of time.

And it is a significant amount of time! I've been here for five months! Five crucial months of my college experience, which couldn't be spent at Kenyon, which couldn't be spent with all my friends at home, which couldn't be spent moving around in the little friendships and intricacies, which I couldn't spend playing with my dog, or spending quality time with my family, or exploring America, or seeing American theater, or working in an American job, participating in American politics, reading American magazines...

There's probably a lot more to that rant, but I'm going to cut it off there. This may end up being one of my more ranty, impassioned entries. I don't quite know yet, it's kind of a strange place to be.

There are who seasons of shows that have come out that I've missed entirely, not that this is unusual since these things rarely penetrate the Kenyon bubble, except through filesharing. But I don't even have that! I have the BBC. When I went to Scotland I had Scottish TV. I had the Glasgow regional network. There's not that much good on. And I'm a token - remember how I used to say that being in England made me feel special because I was novel? - I'm a token. Take American politics, you get asked a lot about Barack and Hillary. People talk about Hillary like she's this evil witch that they can vote out of office. And they look at you, like the fate of the world is resting on you, and I guess in some ways it is, and then they change the subject to British politics because you aren't saying anything. Or if you do say something, you drop words like "democrat" "republican" and so on, and they nod knowingly and have large conversations, but who in England knows the reality of dealing with democrats and republicans?

Maybe I'm just angry at England for being normal. This isn't a disillusioned "the magic is gone" rant, but maybe things are starting to get to me. People not saying what they mean, is one. My run in with my directing lecturer after the class was over ("Griffin, I read your portfoilio, and it was really funny." when I didn't mean it to be funny at all), or just unexpressed thoughts you can see - or think you can see - lurking behind people's eyes ("The nerve, did he just take my place in the cue?"). I'm tired of stratification - people can talk about class here to no end - and hills, and endless drizzling, and the complete and utter lack of winter. Maybe that wanderlust that England ignited in me is now spurring me onward, I don't know.

Few. That rant is out of the way. I leave you, as often is the case, with Shakespeare (in particular, more Richard II):

This land of such dear souls, this dear, dear land,

Dear for her reputation through the world,

Is now leas’d out,—