From the Rose Tree Blog

I breezed my way through immigration and customs, my mind in a complete fog.  Appropriately, it had been foggy and spitting rain as the plane landed;  apart from that, I had seen absolutely nothing London-like at all.  A ball of anticipation, excitement and sheer terror, I followed the train of people into the Arrivals area.  I had not looked long before I heard a familiar voice, deep and Anglican, boom, “Roz!  Roz!”  Red coat (check), “ginger” hair (check), glasses (check); must be Phil.  We embraced warmly like old friends and collected my few bits of luggage.

It felt strange sitting in the left front seat of Phil’s red Vauxhall estate (wagon) and not driving.  It felt strange sitting next to the man that I loved but had only just met, in a country populated by roundabouts.  The wet, verdant countryside flew by as we chatted about our plans for my stay and listened to his favorite albums.  I recall one particular song, “One Night Stand” by The Aloof; amazingly soulful and yet anthemic, the artist sings, “What am I doing here?”  Indeed, but in a slightly different context, what were either of us doing here?  Philip somehow managed to hold my hand between gear shifts, and it felt nice and not at all forced.  I think there was a great sigh of relief from both of us.

Mostly, I just sat back and enjoyed the scenery, or what scenery that could be viewed from the motorway.  Everything held my fascination: the zippy little Euro cars, the Little Chef signs at the rest stops, pubs with funny names like “Slug and Lettuce,” snug little semi-detached houses with postage stamp lawns, and roadsigns denoting the direction to such amusing place-names as “Dorking.”  It was at this point that I found myself beginning to fall deeply in love not only with this man beside me driving on the wrong side of the road but with this weird and wonderful new world, Inglaterra.

I stared out the airplane window into the clear, dark night and tried to breathe slowly.  I had taken two Valerian root, hoping to take the edge off of the inevitable anxiety that seized my mind.  It did occur to me that  I might indeed be insane, however by this point it simply did not matter.  I had unloaded my story to the young man seated beside me.  It seemed somehow significant that he was a dual-national, the offspring of a British father and a Louisiana mother; his accent was most unusual.  But he had taken delight in the romance of the whole affair, whole-heartedly supportive in spite of my alternating waves of buoyancy and nausea.  He sensed my moment of doubt, lifted a hand to my arm and squeezed gently with an empathetic grin.  I smiled back, trying to rally.  I tried again to push aside emotion and instead focus on the carefully detailed instructions Phil had given me for navigating Gatwick airport upon my arrival.

It had all been decided quite suddenly, during a conversation about Christmas presents.  ”What would you like for Christmas?” I had asked.  It should have been obvious: “Well, you here would be nice.”  And why not!  I had never been across the Atlantic and had always dreamed of going to England.  And so the adventure was set into motion much sooner than expected.  I would arrive dressed in a silver coat with black faux fur; Phil would be wearing a red coat and “ginger” hair–something not to be missed in and of itself.

But it was the particulars of our meeting that were eating me up.  What would this long-distance “e-mail” relationship amount to in reality?  Could the love we had so passionately professed down the phone lines translate into something more concrete?  I had had Hollywood images of me walking out of customs, spotting him–traced in a golden aura–across the crowded Arrivals area, casting aside my luggage and us running in slow-motion toward each other to fall weeping into each other’s arms.  But as I closed my eyes and allowed myself to sink into the welcome waves of drowsiness from the Valerian, I suspected that my expectations were, as always, too high.