Hope and Anchor: Royal Leamington Spa

In Royal Leamington Spa, Nicole, the person for whom I will be watching two adorable rag doll kittens for the next eight days, picks me up from the train station. We make the short drive to her flat, which I am surprised to find is situated directly above the main thoroughfare. I am also surprised to find the area so urban. I had assumed via the photos and its proximity to Stratford-upon-Avon that it would be a similarly quaint, English town. The pictures online did not convey the bustling main street lined with modern stores, shopping malls, and no small amount of restaurants. On this Friday afternoon, the place is teeming with revelers celebrating the end of the workweek. The warmer weather has pushed everyone outdoors. Motorcycles speed by and buses trundle in every direction.

At her building, Nicole helps me navigate my 50 pound suitcase into the tiny elevator and we ride to the second floor. As the doors open, I am hit with a casuistically pungent smell. I silently plead... please don't let that be coming from her apartment. Nicole swings the door open and a combination of cheap cat litter and something akin to rotten fish sauce nearly knocks me over. I resist the urge to cover my nose as I make my way through the door.

"This is it!" Nicole says brightly. Despite its odor, the apartment is actually lovely. It is inside a converted regency style building that dates back to the mid-1800s, when Leamington Spa was actually a spa. The windows are at least 4 feet wide and reach to the ceilings. Their height makes the place seem bigger than it is, though the two-bedroom layout can't be more than 900 square feet. Grecian molding surrounds the light fixtures and the top of each wall, which are painted a light gray. The matching furniture is simple. From outside, the sound of a car horn presses through the heavy wooden blinds. "It's a busy area, I know," Nicole offers with a hint of apology. "I guess I just wanted to be in the thick of things after the divorce." There is hesitancy in this statement, as though she were bewildered by her own decision. I tune into the cacophony of sound rising up from the street below. How does one sleep?

The air is thick with heat and the nauseous odor. Nicole explains, as another means of apology, that most British homes don't have air conditioning. Summers tend to be mild, though the last few years have brought unusual heat waves. We are in one such one now. Because there are no screens in the windows, they can only be cracked a few inches lest the cats escape. I nod and perch gingerly on the edge of a fur-covered chair. Nicole disappears from the room and returns waving a bottle of strawberry scented Febreze. "Something in the trash I guess..." she trails off. I attempt to keep my face free of grimace as I nod my head.

Nicole retreats to her bedroom to gather her belongings, and then she is gone. It is then that the the full weight of my decision hits me. A low-grade panic bubbles to the surface. What I have I gotten myself into? Have I lost my mind? Is this what the next four months of my life will be like? I step gingerly into the kitchen, which I suspect is the stronger source of the two smells. The floor beneath my feet is sticky. I crouch lower, inhaling as I try to trace the source. Definitely the floor, though the garbage can against the wall is a strong contender. It smells as though an entire bottle of fish sauce has been poured onto the linoleum. I peek under the sink for cleaning supplies. An assortment of odor-fighting products in fruity and florals scents peer back at me, but nothing that looks strong enough to kill the actual source.

Determined, I grab my purse and head for the Tesco down the street. I fill a basket with coffee, milk, water, and a bottle of bleach. Back at the apartment, I set myself to a deep clean. I take the trash to the dumpster in the garage. I douse the garbage bin with cleaner and fill it with water to soak. I sweep, vacuum, and mop, the kittens delightedly chasing my tools as I go. In the guest bedroom, wedged between the small nightstand and the bed, I discover a pair of worn underwear, a single sock, a shirt, and an old bottle of lotion. Dust bunnies cling to the pile. I empty the overflowing garbage bin under the desk in the corner.

Several hours later, when my jet-lagged body climbs between the sheets, I discover that they too need laundered. Bits of errant kitty litter press into my calves and something that might or might not be cookie crumbs. It will be another three hours before the bedding is washed and dried. By 1 am, I am staring at the ceiling listening to the sounds of drunk men vomiting onto the street below. What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing? I chant to myself as I lay in the bed sweating.

The heat is stifling, too hot for the thick duvet on the bed. I kick it off and begin to do some mental math. It is the sort I should have done before I left but that I knew would have kept me from getting on a plane. I calculate exactly how much I can spend each day before my savings run out, careful to leave room for my daughter's college expenses. Her job as a photographer at a summer camp in upstate New York will cover most of her fall tuition. I feel a flush of love for her and pride that she has so been so unflinchingly determined not to accrue student loan debt, willing to work her way through. I whisper yet another prayer of thanks that she received nearly a full ride to such a fantastic school. Still, there will be books and film and flights home and the myriad other unexpected expenses that happen at that stage of life.

A spurge of anxiety rushes through me as I again realize how very far from home I am. The decision to take this trip is unquestionably among the most irresponsible... if not the most irresponsible... that I have ever made. I imagine tongues wagging back home. And yet, it never really felt like a decision. It felt rather inevitable.

In the days leading up to my departure, I thought a lot about what it means to be known. I acutely felt the warmth of being recognized by the same checkout person that I’ve interacted with for more than a decade at my local grocery store, the joy of running into friends at the Saturday farmers market, of attending an event where you don’t expect to see anyone but then you see a dozen someone’s and find such delight in familiar faces. It is an affirmation that we, here on this tiny planet in this massive universe, belong among a people. To be known by others surely must be the most meaningful point of our existence.

But therein lies the crux. The beauty of life's hardest moments is that they inevitably invite us to grow. And growing involves change, and change can make life as we know it uncomfortable. I had encountered losses these past five years that required me to change. Yet the sameness of the life around me—the way I was known to others and the way I was known to myself through others—was keeping me from fully stepping into the growth that I believed was possible. I needed to know myself and to be known in a different context.

Most importantly, I needed to write. Writing has been the one, constant anchor in my life. A way of sense-making and mapquesting. It's like boarding a ship to some far off place, one that is more tangible and real than the daily busyness of life. As my daughter will attest, however, I become horrendously moody and terribly distractible when writing. As a consequence, I've done much less of it than I would have liked during my years of parenting. I was a better mother that way, and I have no regrets. Now, though... now it seems the universe had handed me a precious window by which to put pen to paper.

And so, this trip has two singular goals. The first, to write my heart out. The second to find a job. In Nicole's apartment, I find it impossible to do either. I don't know if other writers are as peculiarly particular as I am, but I find that getting into the flow requires very specific conditions, the most crucial of which is silence. The cacophony arising from the street below is maddening. The crosswalk emits a high-pitched beeping to alert pedestrians when it's safe to walk. The buses beep too, as they raise and lower for passengers to board. A constant stream of motorcycles pass by with mufflers altered to make them louder, more visible, to drivers. And it is immensely hot.

I do a quick google of local, quiet workspaces and toss my laptop into my bag. The rest of the day plays out like a sitcom. The co-working cafe I arrive at sounds more like an underground night club. Nineties hip-hop music pulses through the speakers. Several folks are yelling into cell phones to be heard above the din. I marvel at this modern workday phenomenon and then amend my coffee order to go. I spend much of the day walking across the city, trying out various coffee shops and cafes, all of which are crowded with summer visitors.

Eventually, I pass a pub on a side street that appears remarkably peaceful. I enter. The interior is dark and cool, and in the early afternoon, nearly empty. Classic rock plays quietly in the background, but it is nothing that my headphones won't drown out. It's not yet 2pm but it feels wrong to sit in a pub without ordering a drink. I ask for a Guinness. "Good choice," the bartender nods, introducing herself as Nell while she starts the first pour. A gentleman lifts his own glass in agreement from his perch at the counter. I ask if there's wifi and if Nell minds that I work. She enthusiastically provides the password, as though she wished more people understood the brilliance of working in a bar, and helpfully points to a quiet corner booth. I settle in immediately. How has this never before occurred to me?

For the remainder of the week, I take the bus several towns over to a university library. There is nothing quite so beautiful as the impregnable silence of such a space. I make progress on my writing. In the evenings I stroll through the local gardens, which are beautiful, and read. The smell of the apartment, which I've only been able to marginally improve, as well as the constant presence of the cats on the kitchen counters, prevents me from cooking. I find cheap places to eat out. I sleep very little. I try not to wish the days away, but I yearn for the cooler climate and quieter spaces ahead. There are a few lessons to be learned here. But mostly just passing time.

On Sunday, Nicole arrives home several hours before my train departs, and I again take to the streets to find a place to write. This time, I stumble onto the Hope and Anchor. It is a small and humble establishment. A cheese and cracker tray has been set out on the bar for general use, a Sunday offering, I imagine. The corner tv is tuned to a motor race. Several customers watch halfheartedly. After serving my drink, the bartender joins at the table next to me. I sense he is curious about this American who has just stumbled into what feels like an intimate family gathering, but I am too acutely aware of my presence as an outsider to make conversation. I will have to get over this if I'm going to have any human interaction on this trip. Each new person who walks in the door is greeted by name and questioned about their week. The accents are so thick that I have trouble discerning them. A collective shuffling of seats occurs as room is made for new arrivals. Soon, the place is full to the brim.

At the Hope and Anchor, I am flooded with nostalgia for Sundays at my grandfather's house, the football game playing in the background, cheese plates set out on the kitchen island while he prepared Sunday spaghetti, family trickling in until the place was a riot of sound. I haven't felt this sensation in so long that I've forgotten what it feels like. Somehow, 5,000 miles from anything familiar, I feel the most at home that I've felt in decades. I have stumbled across something magical, something I hope to find more of. It is only now that I feel my trip has truly begun.