Recently someone nonchalantly commented You have no friends – nobody in Cambridge likes you.
This is approximately true. Rachel, Sarah, and David moved away. Jean is about to go. Paul and Karen are still around, though busy doing whatever it is they do. Even though a hundred guests will turn up for one of my parties, Satnam is the only person who reciprocates invitations.
The shopkeepers at the corner store, farm store, Bacchanalia, Rick the bike mechanic, and the coffee guy in the market square are all up for a congenial chat. Fellow boaters nod hello.
Other than my offspring, that is the sum total of my social outlet.
Living in such a truncated fashion has been fucking with my head – hence the frequent forays to London, where Xtina, Iain, my agent, a dozen new friends, peripatetic visitors, and fun are located. Though that is obviously just a temporary solution. Unless or until I make a more permanent move, I still have to deal with the reality of life in this small city on a daily basis.
The other evening I was chatting with some pompous academic types (this is a cultural subset, I have no particular problem with academics as a larger sociological phenomenon) and I said something offhand about the fact that I am not friendly.
One of the people interrupted and said No, you are extremely social and charming…. with people you enjoy.
The underlying and unstated truth? When I encounter a posh accent I am filled with loathing and a strong urge to smack someone. This is the main reason I have taken to listening to an ipod at all times – the accent is hard to escape in the town that provides the definition of Establishment.
Obviously a character flaw, but who knew? This hazard never occurred to me before I moved here. I was the spoiled and fancy one back home.
Something else I’ve noticed after a couple of years of amazed bewilderment: my acute powers of nonverbal self-defense make no impression on beggars in this city.
While nobody in the states would ever panhandle me, the hardcore homeless (and there are only about a dozen permanent residents living rough hereabouts) see me as one of their own. They don’t even try a scam – they just expect me to share, as if paying duty to a fellow traveller.
They are of course correct – and some of the nicest people I’ve met in this country.
How peculiar and interesting.
None of this, however, has at all alleviated my spring trip anxiety. I have exactly three weeks in the states (or anywhere beyond the boundaries of the UK) between now and …. the mythical date I acquire a British passport – quite likely two years hence.
Given these parameters, it is fairly important that I do my best to maximize not just familial responsibilities (visiting dying grandma is on the top of the list), and see as many friends as possible, but also get in enough time doing the things that truly make me happy.
Like riding the ferries around the Puget Sound. Over and over, for no good reason.
Or just sitting on the docks at Illahee or Southworth, alone, staring at the water, for endless hours.
Four and a half years of brutal social isolation has given me abundant time to work, think, and figure stuff out. At the same time I have grown convinced that I do not belong anywhere, and that is, in fact, true.
Though this week I compiled a list and started to write to the folks I might see during the trip.
I was not expecting much and was thus amazed to instantly have offers of places to stay in NYC, Boston, Providence, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle.
It is not at all clear where I will end up, but I am truly humbled to have access to so much hospitality.