Grey's Journal:
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I was walking in the center of London when an emergency vehicle rushed by. This is by no means a rare occurrence in London. I've adapted to the near constant sirens and their Doppler-shifted wails. Living down the street from Her Royal Majesty's Womens' Prison they are a daily part of life. I tune out the sirens just as I learned to ignore the smell of cow dung on the air when the wind blew in from the farms back at my college in rural Geneseo. The only time I'm aware of the sirens is when one goes by the open window of my room as I voicechat with my mother; I feel her tense on the other side of the world, concerned about the well being of her child. After the first emergency vehicle passed by me as I continued to wander in central London, there came a fire truck, then a police car, then another ambulance, followed by a riot van. Terrorism had been much in the news in London after the Madrid attacks. I didn't think there had been a bombing at 3PM in the touristy part of town, but the thought still crossed my mind as the number of emergency vehicles screaming by grew larger. From the news I read, it seems that Americans are obsessed with the idea that terrorists will kill them. Let me stress that this fear is not on my mind. I face greater dangers. A dozen or more times a day, I attempt to cross a stretch of pavement on which 10 ton vehicles traveling at 40 miles per hour are under the control of people talking on cell phones or eating slippery fast food. Crossing a street without the blessing of a lighted green man is flirting with the Grim Reaper. The odds that a double decker buss and I will attempt to occupy the same space at the same time -- with me losing the contest -- are far greater than my being a terrorist's victim. So, I'm not an American afraid of terrorism, even though I live in one of the likeliest targets for a major attack. The mayor of London himself, Ken Livingston, said it would be miraculous if the city wasn't attacked. And the Police Commissioner said an attack was inevitable. But what I like about London is the press isn't berating the men over these comments. No one is calling for tighter security and bag searches on the underground as they are in the States. Perhaps it's London's history of terrorism from the IRA, but the response is so much more rational. What can be done simply and effectively is done -- but no more. Making the underground completely secure is an impossible venture, so resources and manpower are not wasted on the task. Of course, no terrorist attack happened in London that day as I walked through the city but, after my moment of discomfort, I decided to buy a portable radio so I could be in touch with the news when disconnected from the `net. I haven't listened to the radio in years. In college, I didn't bother because mp3s flowed like wine over the dormitory intranet. The last time I remember turning on a radio on a regular basis was in high school -- listening to Z100 to find out what was cool in New York or listening to Howard Stern in the morning while getting ready for school. I didn't know what stations were popular or good in London, but as I dialed around on my new radio I heard this: ``And welcome now to Gardeners' Question Time...'' This may not seem a sentence that would grab one's attention, but it stopped my thumb from continuing to rotate the small dial. I had just read about Gardeners' Question Time in Bill Bryson's book, I'm a Stranger Here Myself. There, Bryson described the frighteningly detailed and involved questions that English guests asked their horticultural hosts. The passage, like most of Bryson's writing, was very funny, but I assumed he exaggerated the abstruseness of the program for humor's sake. He didn't. Whoosh! All the questions and answers went straight over my head. Now I understood what my physics major friends and I must have sounded like in college when we went to the regular Friday Happy Hour hosted by our astronomy professor. No wonder people edged away as we spoke of event horizons, light cones, quantum uncertainty and thermodynamics, often quite loudly as more alcohol was imbibed and disagreements grew intense. I had found the world of BBC Radio 4 and it sucked me in against my will. Though I didn't understand a word, I listened to the whole gardening program with fascination. I started listening regularly as I puttered in my apartment or wandered around London. I discovered a great deal of BBC4's daytime schedule is composed of radio dramas. These seem to be like the daily soap operas in America except for the radio. I imagine the demographics of the BBC4 listeners are heavily slanted toward old people in nursing homes listening to the programs on radios the size of trash cans that take several minutes to warm up. In the US, the soaps are filled with dramatic events: Hanna's evil twin is trying to take over the family business and Steven impregnated his wife's sister and is plotting to have her murdered. Big dramatic events for a big dramatic country. Not here. I listened to a 30-minuet program on BBC4 that focused almost entirely on a middle aged couple's discussion of the possibility of moving out of London into the country side. Mind you, this was presented as a fictional drama. In another hour-long program, the high tension seemed to center around grandmother's inability to sleep through the night. Simply riveting. Audio dramas have the disadvantages when compared to movies or books. Unlike a book, audio dramas have no narrator to describe the events and, unlike a movie, you can't just see the actions and objects. The result is very chatty and overly descriptive conversations containing lines of dialogue like: ``Emma, would you like to go to the Turkish coffee house? The one with large red cushions, the faint smell of spices in the air and a raven-haired waitress always nearby.'' I think this is why I like listening to the dramas. This highly stylized way of speaking is hypnotic. Listening to these also reminds me of when I was a kid, and I used to listen to audio dramas with my father when we drove in to Queens to visit my grandfather. My dad had a huge collection of Louis L'Amour western tapes and Alien World space dramas that I enjoyed listening to. People on these tapes had the same descriptive way of talking as the people on BBC4. But the westerns and space dramas also help set the scene with the sounds of gun blasts or laser cannons as appropraite. On BBC4, it's the constant gentle clicking of tea cups and saucers. Also, it seems that I have finally discovered where all the British girls spend their time. They aren't in New York or locked in a castle as I originally guessed, but they are working in the BBC tower. ``...Yes, and flowers will be much cheaper now that it's the day after mothers day,'' said a radio announcer. `Mother's day?' I thought. `Can't be. Must be an old program.' As if in response, the announcer then added, ``And that's all we have for today, Monday, March 22nd, 2004.'' Mother's day? Oh. Holy. Christ. I had forgotten to send home a card, or call, or anything. I missed the holiday. My bowels clenched up and my skin went cold. When I was growing up, my father always gave me gentle reminders of the impending mother-related holidays. With a voice that gave away the seriousness of his words, he would try to casually say, ``You know, Wellington, mother's day is next week.'' ``Sure do!'' I'd reply, even though it was a surprise every year. Though she insists she did, I don't remember my mother giving me the heads-up about dad-related days. But perhaps I don't remember because there wasn't any fear associated with forgetting my father's birthday. Whether or not it was true, I felt that it wouldn't really upset my dad if his birthday passed unnoticed by me. But the thought of forgetting a mom-related day froze me to the core. I didn't think she would be angry, just deeply saddened that I forgot her. This would be bad enough, but I was also sure there would be retribution from my father. Once, I forgot my parents' twenty-something-ith anniversary, and my theory proved true. Mom was upset, and there was the strong feeling that I better avoid dad for as long as possible. As much as it disappoints my mother, I'm just not able to remember when dates and holidays are except in exceedingly vague terms. My parents got married in the summer. Valentine's Day is when it's cold out. Mother's Day is after winter. And when the new school year rolls around, I know it's time to sneak into my father's closet to find his driver's license and determine his exact birth date. When I moved out of my parents' house five years ago, my father was no longer around to notify me of impending holidays and, as a result, there had been a few close calls -- cards handed to the mailman as he made his last visit of the day to the mailbox or, phone calls made just as the last rays of sunlight faded from the sky -- but now, the worst had happened: I missed mother's day. I imagined my father checking the mailbox repeatedly the previous day and frowning each time he found it still empty. Perhaps he avoided using the phone to ensure the line was open for the transatlantic message that never came. I saw my mother engaging herself in busy work to distract herself from the mounting evidence that her only child had forgotten her. I swear I felt the disappointment of my father from thousands of miles away, so immediately I started grasping for excuses. There had been a terrorist attack on the tube and I was trapped underground for 24 hours? Too dramatic and easily proven false. I had been involved in a whirlwind romance and lost track of time? Mom would like that one. I decided to go with it. I opened my web browser, preparing to describe the Duchess of Essexshire I was madly in love with (and hint at grandchildren in the future) when I noticed the google logo. Because of the time difference, I still see the google holiday logos after the day has passed. But now it was blank. No flowers as usual on Mother's day. Confused, I googled for the date of mother's day, and much to my relief, I discovered that the British and American versions are on different days. With a huge sigh of relief, I leaned back in my chair and relaxed. Oh. Thank. God. But then I realized I was now in worse trouble than before. No more could I hope to notice the Mother's day sales in stores as a clue the holiday was approaching if the English celebrated on the wrong day. I may have been saved on this time, but I realized with cold certainty that I would never see the real mother's day coming. Not now. Not as long as I remained in Britain. So, let me say it now for all the times I'm sure to miss it. Happy Mother's day mom!I love you! |
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Copyright © 2004 Wellington Grey  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License. |
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