From where I'm sitting…

As I mentioned last week, we’ve moved offices. And (joy of joys) I can see the entrance to (and the roof of) the British Museum from my desk. Well, I’ve thought of something to do with this amazing opportunity: I’m going to go through the hundred objects in the BBC Radio 4′s fantastic 2010 series A History of the World.

First up: the Mummy of Hornedjitef, an Egyptian priest who died around 250 BC. I’m listening to the show now, and very much enjoying it. To quote Ahdaf Soueif in this first episode: ”It reminds the world of our common heritage”.

So now I’ll head to the museum to see the mummy. And then I’ll go home and do some reading. Life is good.

Once or twice a year, I find myself in Dublin for work. It’s a nice enough city. Like Amsterdam, the hotels are (on the whole) disappointing, but the Guiness is good and I enjoy both the compactness of the city centre and the weather. Also, the food in our office has improved dramatically in recent years.

But Dublin is also a city of sad memories for me. In October 2009, the day Andrew and I got home from one of my favourite-ever holidays (to Dubrovnik), my grandmotherfell while standing up . She was 97. She broke her hip, and while she lived for about 6 weeks afterwards, she never really recovered. I’m thankful for having made it home to say goodbye, and that she died at my parents’ house, with her family at her side, but I do miss her. On Saturday night I had an extremely realistic dream of visiting her at the apartment where she lived until her accident, and halfway through the dream I realised it was a dream. I was still sitting next to her, but dream me was crying at the realisation.

I still remember the hotel room where I was sitting when my mother called me with the news. I can still remember prosaic things like the location of the switch for the heater under the tiles of the bathroom floor. I can still remember searching online for a parish in the neighbourhood where I could go to mass before work the next morning. I can still remember the mass itself. In fact, I still go to morning mass at the same parish every time I’m in Dublin.

My grandmother was probably the most remarkable person I’ve ever known. Her quiet piety, her love for all of creation, her selfless support for the people in her life. There are so many things about her that I try (and fail) to emulate, and I’m extremely grateful for having grown up with such a strong model of unconditional love.

When I was in graduate school, I spent 5 or 6 months each year in Spokane, and at least once a week I’d take her out to lunch and to run errands. If I have one regret, it’s that I didn’t impress upon her how much I enjoyed those afternoons–that I didn’t spend time with her out of duty, but out of joy.

I suppose I’m extremely lucky to have a family where that line is so blurred. I remember in autumn of 2008–about a year before our grandmother’s accident–my cousin Christine and her now husband came to visit London, and stayed with me. It took us a few days to realise that we wanted to spend time with each other: I was worried about intruding on their holiday together, and she was worried about intruding on my daily life, but in the end we figured out that it wasn’t duty but joy. And that’s a nice feeling.

Today marks five years since Andrew and I started going steady. The incident that precipitated that decision was both alarming and hilarious, and ended with me trying to lean against a fence which was really a gate and falling backwards down 3 steps where I landed flat on my back in a giant puddle while a cold February rain poured down on me.

What do I do in such a situation? I laugh at myself. I have trouble taking things, even serious personal things, too seriously. I’m far too lucky. In America most people would swap out lucky for blessed. But I think we are all blessed, so something else needs to explain why I have so many privileges and other people have so few. And in the meanwhile, I think it’s important to treat those with fewer privileges with dignity and compassion and not to take too much notice of the minor misfortunes that might beset me. I’m reminded of a passage from Howards End (my favourite novel):

“But after all,” she continued with a smile, “there’s never any great risk as long as you have money.”

“Oh, shame! What a shocking speech!”

“Money pads the edges of things,” said Miss Schlegel. “God help those who have none.”

“But this is something quite new!” said Mrs. Munt, who collected new ideas as a squirrel collects nuts, and was especially attracted by those that are portable.

“New for me; sensible people have acknowledged it for years. You and I and the Wilcoxes stand upon money as upon islands. It is so firm beneath our feet that we forget its very existence. It’s only when we see some one near us tottering that we realise all that an independent income means. Last night, when we were talking up here round the fire, I began to think that the very soul of the world is economic, and that the lowest abyss is not the absence of love, but the absence of coin.”

“I call that rather cynical.”

“So do I. But Helen and I, we ought to remember, when we are tempted to criticise others, that we are standing on these islands, and that most of the others are down below the surface of the sea. The poor cannot always reach those whom they want to love, and they can hardly ever escape from those whom they love no longer. We rich can. Imagine the tragedy last June, if Helen and Paul Wilcox had been poor people, and couldn’t invoke railways and motor-cars to part them.”

“That’s more like Socialism,” said Mrs. Munt suspiciously.

“Call it what you like. I call it going through life with one’s hand spread open on the table. I’m tired of these rich people who pretend to be poor, and think it shows a nice mind to ignore the piles of money that keep their feet above the waves. I stand each year upon six hundred pounds, and Helen upon the same, and Tibby will stand upon eight, and as fast as our pounds crumble away into the sea they are renewed–from the sea, yes, from the sea. And all our thoughts are the thoughts of six-hundred-pounders, and all our speeches; and because we don’t want to steal umbrellas ourselves, we forget that below the sea people do want to steal them and do steal them sometimes, and that what’s a joke up here is down there reality.”

Anyway, Andrew and I are looking for a flat to buy. I have a strong preference to stay in our neighbourhood (and indeed in our building if we can), but real estate websites have an amazing ability to pull you just a little bit outside your ideal (both on location and price), so I’m trying to be disciplined. I’m also writing to everyone in the building that owns a 3 bedroom flat and asking them if they’d be interested in selling (thanks, land registry!).

Everyone here has warned me that estate agents are awful, and the process is awful, and it will make me want to shoot myself in the foot before long. I hope they’re all exaggerating. But I also suspect that they’re all way more particular than I am. I went and saw a massive four bedroom flat yesterday, for example. Massive. Currently has four undergraduate rugby players living in it (yes, it might be heaven). The owner has been renting it to students for the past 5 years, but we could easily gut it, reverse the direction of the staircase, and make it habitable. I guess what we (read I) really need to decide is how much work I’m willing to have done on a place, and how flexible I’m really willing to be on location.

And I’ll keep hoping that someone with a 3-bed duplex on our floor is looking to sell in the next few months. Because that would really be the bees knees.

So…the funny thing about being at a resort and doing very little other than lying on the beach (in the shade, obviously) reading between meals is that time rather collapses. It’s been a few days since I posted, but there’s not been all that much going on to put together an update. Here’s my best effort:

On Monday: Andrew went water skiing. In the process, he lost one of his contacts. That’s bad in the short term for obvious reasons, but good in the long term because he’s finally agreed to have his eyes lasered. He also stepped on a sea urchin, which put two spines into his left food. He had to go to the infirmary so they could pull them out. He was much less complainy about it than I would have been.

On Tuesday: We went snorkeling. Which was fun, but my back got a little sunburned despite putting on waterproof SPF 30. Oh well. It’s already just tan, so it wasn’t a real sunburn. We saw lots of cool fish, but the coral itself wasn’t nearly as pretty as when we snorkeled at the Blue Hole near Dahab.

Today (Wednesday): We hired a driver to take us all over the island. We went to the botanical gardens (to see the ivy, obviously). Then we went to The Adventure of Sugar, where we learned more about sugar than we ever needed to know. Also a lot about the history of Mauritius. I, for example, didn’t know this is where dodos had lived. Please can someone genetically re-engineer them? Also that there were no native inhabitants. So that was pretty cool. There was TONS to read though. And, at the recommendation of the BA High Life magazine, we went to the attached restaurant, which was good though the service wasn’t great. Andrew had tuna carpaccio and a local sausage dish. I had an aubergine/mozarella thing and then a dry curry with local venison (was this chicken born on this plate? because if it’s any less local than that I can’t eat it).

After lunch we headed to Port Louis, where we visited an old British fort, and the market, and then took the scenic route over the mountains back to the hotel. Now we’re just chilling out before dinner.