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[a-broad-abroad-blog1]

home.

I think I’d like to keep this final entry relatively brief. 

It’s a few weeks after we’ve returned from the trip and surprisingly I haven’t had any issues with jetlag. I slept the whole plane home, thanks to two Benedryl and a bottle of in-flight red wine with dinner. Upon returning home I’ve noticed a definite maturation in the way I’ve been living, and like most changes of character I think it happened more or less without my awareness or consent. I wake up at 7:00am now, wide-eyed and ready for a full day; I appreciate my mother more; I relish in the luxury of owning more than one pillow. 

And there’s a solidity to my psyche now, something that’s locked in deep inside that has made me unafraid in ways I used to be terrified. I’m noticed more, I think. I stand a bit straighter, look others in the eye, apologize less. I have never felt more my own. 

While in London I heard a lot of people say that they were willing to move there at a moment’s notice, ready to abandon life in the states -- especially as the political climate in our country dissolves more and more each day into dystopian absurdity -- in favor of London’s ancient nooks and crannies, their art, their rolling fog. 

I did not share this sentiment, but not for the reason I expected. I’ve never felt patriotic. I’m characteristically void of a sense of nationalism or pride in country, for I never really felt that there was much to be proud of considering our troubling history. However, London has changed me as an artist and the way that I feel about and interpret art. I think it is, unironically, the most important thing in the world, and will continue to be essential in the challenging days ahead. 

Which is why I think I felt not only compelled to go home, but to dig my heels in, to bear witness to whatever comes to pass and to do my duty as an artist and interpret it. This isn’t a time to run away -- at least not for me. 

[a-broad-abroad-blog1]

friendship.

I think I have cried almost every day while in London, though mostly for good reason, my tears the byproduct of emotions stirred through exposure to beautiful sights and experiences and art - though there are two notable instances where this was unfortunately not the case. I was initially unsure if I wanted to discuss them here due to their academic irrelevance, however upon reflection I feel that they are necessary to share, as they both proved to be influential incidences of life learning that were not included on the syllabus. 

 The first incident occurred only a few days into the trip. I should preface this story by describing our setting; the Generator hostel is clean, mostly, and though their elevator is slow and stops at floors out of order their facilities are entirely functional, and the water pressure in the showers is to die for. The hostel basically operates as a 24 hour nightclub and while that may seem like a dream come true for any irreverent 20-something abroad, for this one it is not. Music is never not blasting, and it is usually only a question of what kind - typically Christmas music in the morning and bad house/EDM at night. The hostel is also equipped with a fully-stocked bar that’s open until 3AM, and it serves as our classroom in the mornings and our watering hole at night when we return from the day’s adventures. 

It was after one such evening when I was returning upstairs to my room alone around 1:00 in the morning that I passed an open doorway of rowdy men who were also staying on the third floor, and while I couldn’t make out what else they were discussing so loudly the “Hey, fatass!” they shouted at me from their room and the laughter that followed was pretty clear.

My ears were still ringing when I returned to my room where Kiera and Taylor were getting ready for bed, and the look on my face must have been indicative of something awful because the both of them immediately froze and asked me what happened. Even now, my reaction baffles me. I had endured my share of playground torment, and now that I had transformed into a generally self-confident young woman with a brow game like no other it seemed unfair to me that a stray comment from some raucous, international frat boys should so quickly lodge itself in my psyche and suck away at me like a parasite, draining me of all esteem and replacing it with mortification. And yet, tequila has a way of letting you and everyone else know how you really feel, and before I could even speak my face was hot and wet and I was sobbing, hard, into my pillow.

In a flash, Kiera and Taylor were immediately at my side, and when they coaxed the story out of me there was a palpable change in the air, an electricity that was rapidly charging until I blinked and they were both gone - Taylor and Kiera, tiny, blonde, braless and PJ’d Taylor and Kiera - had both stormed into the hallway.

I can only imagine what it must have looked like, seeing as I was only in a position to listen from the safety of our room, but I could hear the shouting loud and clear from my position in bed. I could only imagine the stunned looks on the men’s faces seeing Kiera and Taylor whip into frame, breathing fire. They were like gladiators, the both of them, risking life and limb to defend my honor. without question, without doubt. “What did you say to my friend?!“ They shouted. “Don’t you ever talk to her like that again!”

I was absolutely floored. Had I ever had friends who so willingly, fearlessly, charged into battle for my sake? (Rather, had I ever even been in a scenario where I would need someone to?) A women’s college is a wonderful place to foster positive and meaningful female friendships, and yet in my time at Sage I haven’t managed to construct all that many. (I credit this to the fact that I happened to be closer to the men in my department and not on a dearth of great women at Sage, FYI.) Still, their gesture had me entirely touched, and all the next day I couldn’t stop thinking about how lucky I was to have them take care of me in that desperate moment - a humiliation I would have endured alone at any other time, but with them I was given not just base comfort and validation, but justice. I’ll never forget it. 

And then, over a week later, when an unprecedented banking issue had me fleeing a Nandos in a controlled panic, it was James who found me, weepy and nauseous with snot and guilt, curled up in a booth in the hostel lounge. After tearfully divulging the details of my situation he advised me that it was, indeed, not the end of the world, which of course is not necessarily what one would like to hear when they feel that it most certainly is. Despite my pragmatic nature I tend to feel things in technicolor. I have a demeanor that is often stoic and level-headed and yet I embody the essence of something more volcanic, something that could sleep for a hundred years before one day deciding to burst with magma. Which is precisely why it was so good to have a friend like James there in that moment of unproductive self-loathing to remind me of the rational world, to give me comfort in the concrete: Stop crying. Call your mother.

It wasn’t until about 20 minutes later that I was truly struck. Having hung up with my mother I retired to my room to continue to mourn my incompetence alone when there was a knock on the door. James had brought me a sandwich. He told me to let him know if I needed anything, that he would not let me starve. There is a goodness and generosity of spirit in James that allows him to do this sort of thing for anybody, but as I ate that sandwich I reflected on the last three years that he has been my best friend, unable to think of a time he needed me to pick him up and dust him off the way he’s usually had to do for me twice a month. Did I even have the right to consider myself a good friend, to anyone, after all this? When all I seemed capable of was needing my friends to rescue me?

There have been times on this journey that have tested my boundaries, jolted me into areas of awareness that are not only artistic, but personal. It has taught me that not only must I be vigilant in my awareness and appreciation for the people in my life who are always caring for me, but to know that they will not always be there to defend me, to comfort me, to feed me. I must learn how to do these things for myself, and I hope that when my friends need it, I’ll be there to do it for them.

[a-broad-abroad-blog1]

documentation.

Whoever said art wasn’t a contact sport clearly has never attempted to see a Van Gogh at the National Gallery around midday. I’d compare it to a kind of passive aggressive rugby – all of the elbows and grunting with none of the mud, people maneuvering about the white lines for their ideal vantage point, phones poised for the perfect pic. I stood at the mouth of the corridor leading to the small, circular space dedicated to their Da Vinci collection, examining the teeming crowd at a safe distance and contemplating what strategies I’d have to take in order to catch a glimpse inside, wondering if it would even be worth it.

It’s been that way at the museums, as well. At the British Museum the first magnificent artifact to greet me upon arrival was the Rosetta Stone, dimly lit and protected by four plexiglass planes, mobbed with a grubby-fingered flock of tourists who only seemed to bother to look at it exclusively through the blinking screens of their camera phones. And, just as I stood near the crowd surrounding Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers”, through some sort of infectious mob mentatility I too at once felt inclinced to fight for my photographs under the assumption that perhaps I was missing something, that perhaps this is The Way one engages with historically significant history and art.

So I did, at first. A glance through my camera’s memory will reveal that through several of these museums and galleries I often photographed with wild abandon; as we will be required to reflect academically on what we saw on these outings, if a piece moved me specifically it was only prudent to snap a photo of it for reference, right? Even if I engaged for only a moment? Even if the only academic participation I had with learning about the piece involved taking a picture of the description on my phone for later so that I might move along quickly to the next? And of course some of these photographs were taken with pure intention; for example, I’ve long harbored a dream of seeing Monet’s water lillies in person - a dream fulfilled several times over this trip - and so those photographs may prove to hold nostalgic significance after I return home.

But I mean other than that, honestly, what’s the point?!

Isn’t the concept of photographing already well-documented artwork sort of ridiculous and egocentric? Do my followers on Instagram really, truly, desperately need to see another filtered photo of “Sunflowers” simply because I was the one to stand there and click? I ask this seriously, am I missing something? Is this simply an example of gallery etiquette that I have failed to connect with somehow? Because as soon as I came to the realization that spending my energies taking careful images of some of some of the most famous, celebrated, and studied pieces of artwork known to the world - AKA, a job nobody needs me to do - I could not possibly imagine a reason why anyone would care!

Oh, but then the Tates were a different experience entirely. We went to both the Gallery and the Modern within a few days of each other, and both were tucked away in pockets of the city out of convenient tourist reach, requiring two trains and a fair bit of walking each way. Both feature significant British artists, and some of what I - with absolutely no authority or actual study, mind you - found to be the “underrated hits” of art history - “Ophelia”, at the gallery, Rothko at the modern, etc.

I absolutely credit my rewarding experience to the fact that A.) it was relatively tiny in comparisons to structural beasts like the V&A and, B.) there was hardly anyone there. I was free to explore the rooms at my own pace - I actually read the descriptions and could make the effort to learn about what I was witnessing - and for the most part my camera lay forgotten around my neck.

There are two noteable exceptions; at the Modern, a pair of young boys no older than five sat and colored with pencils in front of an original Picasso. I asked their mother if I could take their photograph and she obliged; and then, while entering a new room at the Gallery, I was struck somewhere deep in the recesses of childhood emotion and memory as I saw, for the first time ever, “Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose”. Enraptured by its exquisiteness, I shed genuine tears as I stared at it, momentarily oblivious of the photographer behind me who was patiently waiting for me to complete my spiritual experience so that he could take his photo.

After he left, I returned to the painting and had the thought that I too might want a picture of my own. I raised the camera to my eye, focused, clicked. I promptly examined my handiwork, noted how flat the perception felt, how pale the colors. And, smiling, I hit delete.

[a-broad-abroad-blog1]

"effishiency"

In lieu of resolutions, I’ve decided to pursue this new year with a focus on one word: discipline. Being spoiled by excellent theatre over the last week, in combination with the fact that I graduate next year and that I stand at the edge of the rest of my life, has inspired me beyond articulation. Simply put, it’s time to get to work.

Challenges in discipline are already manifesting themselves in multiple and sometimes surprising ways, particularly in the diligent implementation of patience. I’ve learned that travel can be hard, and it can become more difficult and more time-consuming when traveling in a pack of 5 and up. The joys that come with attending exhilerating shows, making discoveries in museums, and exploring the nooks and crannies of the city streets are almost always tempered with gaps of exhaustive waiting. For the subway, the bus, the queue, waiting to gather in lobbies or on sidewalks before you can move on to the next destination - and always the penetrating test of nerves when you have finally accounted for all of your tribe and are at last ready to leave when, inevitably, at least one person has to double back for something crucial to survival that they forgot, and the waiting begins again.

I fear my tone in these entries may be coming across as ungrateful somehow, to which I would like to briefly clarify the opposite. There are times when I wake up in my bed at the hostel before my bunkmates, our room dimly illuminated by a blue morning and I feel overcome that I’m being steeped daily in the most incredible art, an ocean away from all I’ve known.

That being said, having to deal with some of the people in this country is awful. Either someone is in my way or (more often than not) I’m in someone else’s, and a poorly-timed train ride at rush hour can land you and your cohorts crammed against the walls of the tube, sardine style, often with a stranger’s knee or elbow lodged securely between your organs. We went to the Sea Life aquarium in Southbank (it was lame, I don’t want to talk about it) and the stress of having to navigate through the ungodly horde of tourists before and after the exhibit made any value of the ticket itself void. I was seperated from my group when the small courtyard of walking space between the London Eye and the aquarium was clogged like an artery, and I found myself landlocked between strollers of distressed children and their equally irate mothers, the crowd so congested that we were at a literal standstill with nothing to do but push.

Despite those moments of inconvenience, nothing could cloud my elation over getting rush tickets to “Nice Fish” that night. For a meager £15 I was front row, mere feet away from what felf like a Mark Rylance masterclass of some of the most engaging, genuine, pure example of acting I’ve ever been lucky enough to witness. “Nice Fish” was precisely what I needed - a light-hearted, hilarious, and accessibly absurd piece of theatre featuring two men ice fishing in Minnesota, swapping prose monologues about appreciating all that is simple and complex about life. What else did I need to see on a challenging day, but a piece of theatre that reminds us to be grateful for both the arduous and the fleeting? I’ll remember that lesson during those quiet, blue moments alone in the mornings.

[a-broad-abroad-blog1]

genius.

After a whirlwind first few days in London spent dueling exhaustion and sore ankles, I’ve come to the conclusion that I ought to slow down. With about a third of our trip completed the pressure to “do it all” is on; as I sit in the hostel lounge writing this entry my friends surround me at our table, planning the next 9 days down to the underground commute times; they eagerly engage in crosstalk, “Let’s see “Nice Fish” tomorrow night?“ - “The aquarium closes at 6.” - “They’re selling rush tickets at 10:00AM!” and back and forth. I find the sense of urgency intimidating, and I feel like I’m poised at the start of a marathon I haven’t trained for, wishing desperately to keep up with my running mates.

At the same time, I’ve been so steeped (happily!) in sensory that I’ve found myself in the peculiar position of being unable to engage with certain things intellectually, or commit them to memory. Directions continue to befuddle me, as well as the names of places. On our third day we went to the V&A - one of the largest museums in the world, a magnificent, sprawling creature with seven stories packed with some of the most fascinating and historically significant art I’ve ever encountered - and the sheer volume of it all made it impossible to spend quality time on much of it.

I found myself entirely enamored with the Weston Cast Court. I spent the bulk of my focus in this room, ogling these impossible stone and marble effigies, all varying in shape and size but never lacking in intricacy. I stood at the foot of Michelangelo’s David for quite some time, surrounded by a mass of immortalized religious iconography, feeling curiously comforted by it.

Thematically, an artist’s relationship with God has been present in the bulk of the art I’ve seen the last few days. I saw “Lazarus”, Ivo Van Hove’s sometimes self-indulgent but visually and technically spectacular David Bowie jukebox musical that I think could have been about Christ, or gender, or…something. Regardless, Michael C. Hall’s vocal talent implies undeniable divinity of some sort. Then we all saw “Amadeus” at the National Theatre, which I was particularly excited for, as the film is very special to me and I had never seen a stage production of it. We nearly didn’t make it; Lucas and I both sprinted from the underground and I landed in my seat, panting and nearly faint, moments before curtain. But it was not to disappoint, as expected. A full orchestra was present on stage the whole time, moving about as an ensemble and appropriately personifying the music as the character it is in the show; the actor playing Mozart had beautiful physicality, and he delivers a vulgar and eloquent monologue about composing so that the audience can become God, and I had a palpable reaction to his death at Salieri’s envious intentions.

I think there is something about Salieri’s perspective that is very present for many artists. Is there anything more terrifying than the thought of being truly, inescapeably mediocre? Some might argue than an artist’s doubt in their talent is indicative of their lack of it, but that continues to be an issue that I consider often. I’ve read that the Greeks thought that genius was something borrowed, not possessed; if an artist created a beautiful piece it was through divine intervention, and so they could not take all the credit; likewise, artistic failure did not have catostrophic implications for the artist and their creative ability - it was simply not heavenly intention.

I like to think this way about theatre. The theatre is, above all, a service. It’s a creator in and of itself, and whatever talent I do have has never been about me. Consider Artaud: “We must believe in a sense of life renewed by the theatre, a sense of life in which man fearlessly makes himself master of what does not yet exist, and brings it into being.” There has been nothing more vital to the human condition than theatre. Anything else you can think of - happiness, breath, God - the theatre has it all.

[a-broad-abroad-blog1]

navigation.

If airport travel can be characterized by its purgatorial wait times, claustrophobic methods of herding throngs of weary, luggage-ridden cattle, and the general martyred misery usually associated with the subjects of Biblical trials, then I would venture that navigating a city like London for the very first time requires a similar mode of endurance.

There is something both very cruel and very funny about unleashing a band of jetlagged and delirious American students on the streets of London for a scavenger hunt, of all things, but it became immediately clear to us that the true purpose of The Shakespeare Rally is not to learn a damn thing about the Bard, but to put you through the inexorable process of what I have come to call Tube Boot Camp.

It’s actually quite genius! We’re given a list of Shakespearean landmarks to see and photograph, and it’s up to you and your chosen cohorts to plan (or not to plan, that is the question) your own route to capture them, making frequent and judicious use of the city’s underground. Historically, I would not say that I have the traits that might be associated with a “natural-born traveler”. I am notoriously bad at directions; I have a tendency to be forgetful; I am not particularly patient; and there have been a number of occassions where my own lack of situational awareness has forced those around me to save me from myself.

Tube Boot Camp made me cut that shit out. I lost count of how many times we had to traipse underground, and the repitition was wonderful in forcing me to become acclimated with the rhythm of London’s travel. Get in the queue. Ticket in. Ticket out. Find your train. Mind the gap. Repeat.

We had a ball! I can’t say I really like the idea of obligatory sight-seeing, but when we took our time at places like the British Library we were rewarded with a wealth of experience. Art is ancient and I love being surrounded by things that are old, older than me, older than my own country, even. I saw the Magna Carta; I saw Mozart’s handwritten Requiem; I saw the lyrics to “A Hard Day’s Night” written on the back of John Lennon’s son’s birthday card. (Or was it Paul’s? Like I said, forgetful.)

Truthfully, the most fun parts of the day weren’t when we were immersing ourselves neck-deep in culture, but when we were simply together and enjoying each other’s company. Fueled by equal parts exhaustion and exhileration, we learned to navigate the city as a team, making mistakes, doubling back, testing each other’s nerves, and laughing all the while. It was probably some kind of unforgiveable Theatre Major Sin, but by the end of the day when we got to the Globe and we hadn’t the energy to take the tour, we just took a load off on the benches overlooking the water and posed for goofy photos with London’s night skyline and laughed and laughed. It was enough.

[a-broad-abroad-blog1]

en-route.

I think that crossing an ocean is among the few forgiveable reasons for knowingly breaking your mother’s heart. But after a year of anticipation, a few tears, and enough baggage for a month we are incredibly, impossibly bound for London at long last.

Well, Montreal first. We were on the bus to the airport, winding our way through snow-dusted pines and rock formations, every so often the trees bending apart to reveal patches of steely gray ponds in shafts of ice. You could see some mountains in the distance, too, purple and imposing with low-hanging clouds curled around their shoulders like opaque mink coats.

We sang. I read something funny about the theatre bringing together “the worst kinds of introverts (English majors) and the worst kinds of extroverts (Drama kids)“, and I (lovingly) think that that’s a pretty appropriate summation of this ragtag group of kids I’m traveling with. Any given gathering of theatre artists can and will inevitably turn into a performance in its own right, and I think this is the purest kind of performance, because it is always for each other. I wanted to make a bet to see how long it would take before Michael had us singing the carol set. I think we made it a mile over the border before we started up a rousing (if not questionable in pitch) chorus of “Ding Dong Merrily on High”, the non-performers in the back of the bus our terrorized audience, and I was filled with the kind of supreme affection reserved for people and places that you know are bound to change you. It was a great start.

Leave it to us to find the nearest bar, and in record time. With 2 and a half hours until we boarded our flight, a line of us were huddled at the bar near our gate, giddy like kids playing dress up in their parents’ closets. With most of our creed over 18, we are well-qualified to participate in the luxuries afforded by flexible international drinking laws, and though I am only mere weeks from the coveted milestone of 21, I still felt like I was “getting away” with something. I bought my First Ever Legal Drink (a Budweiser, how exhilerating) and had the surreal experience of sipping a cup of plane wine while watching my in-flight movie, because that’s what grown-ups do, apparently.

I was delighted to watch “The Sound of Music” on the flight a convenient choice, as I knew that by the time it was over with I’d be halfway through the flight - and it resonated with the very Maria Von Trapp-ish confidence that I’ve felt while approaching this trip the last few weeks. I haven’t much of a plan, or much of an idea of what to expect – but I know that the next time I step on American soil that I won’t be much the same.