AJ Lee aged 14 years old, at home in the UK
I have two apologies to make. Firstly, I have been MIA for a couple of weeks, frantically speed-planning and then enjoying a long awaited trip to the UK to see loved ones. Secondly, this edition will not be like the rest. Instead of an interview with a creative visionary tucked away in the Catskill hills, I am going to share some of my own reflections and writing, and I’m afraid they will be more Brit-centric than usual. Perhaps this return to my homeland is making me more sentimental and solipsistic (a heady combo) — feel free to tune out now if parochial narcissism is not your thing… but do come back next week when normal programming will resume, I promise.
Of all the tragedies and hardships borne by people all over the world due to COVID, me not setting foot on British soil for two years is very low on the seriousness spectrum; but, in my head and heart, it felt significant. Apart from the frustration of the kids missing out on making new memories with grandparents as I did at their age (I can still recall the distinctive smell that trailed my Grandma: rose-tinged face powder blended with boiled peppermints from the bottom of her handbag), I have also experienced a nagging sense of confusion over where I belong. As a voluntary immigrant to the US, it’s a bit embarrassing to admit I cannot let go of my Britishness; and, in an extended period where I could not visit, I’ve felt a strong desire to come back and fill up my spiritual tank with some sort of essence of GB. What is it that I’m craving: The sardonic humor? The pub culture? The miraculous NHS? The accents that shift postcode to postcode? The two year olds in Premiership kit in every playground? The city style, mixing lady-like length with mad prints and leather? The higgledy-piggledy, 400-year-old cottages that only a gnome could move comfortably around? The pompous pigeons perched, coo cooing, on every rooftop?
Truth be told, it’s all of the above and none of it in particular. It’s the familiar shape that growing up in Britain molded me into, and around which I continue to evolve. I couldn’t be who I am today without that core, and yet — like my teenage New Look dresses — I know I can’t fit back into it. In a year of chaos I was longing for the safety that the UK represented, but in reality I can’t divide my existence neatly into distinct buckets — familiar or strange, content or troubled, old me or new me. Life is too like baking for that: Once you mix the ingredients together you can’t separate them. Part of me belongs in the UK and always will, but that doesn’t mean I can’t also belong in my home in the Hudson Valley.
AJ Lee, aged 39 years old, at home in upstate NY, USA
Jolting events present opportunities for this type of reflection. My own thoughts on belonging actually started before the seismic shifts of the pandemic, when an old friend, whom I had lost touch with years before, died suddenly, far too young. I couldn’t really fathom why it made me so sad; and I felt guilty for that sadness when his wife, children and close friends were experiencing real, devastating loss. Weirdly, since I’m married to an author and I tend to be “the more visual one” when it comes to the arts, I turned to writing fiction to work through why — despite not physically or virtually being in contact for close to two decades — losing this friend from the world felt like losing part of myself. Below is an extract from the short story I wrote — titled White Horses — which helped me realize that belonging is not binary: you belong to the people and places that shape you along the way, and them to you, even if they are no longer present. And letting go is part of life, wherever you choose to live.
Cornwall, UK in 1996 (image by AJ Lee)
Two extracts from White Horses, a short story by AJ Lee
They first met at the tail end of her fourteenth summer at the bottom of the British Isles. By socio-economic coincidence, their parents had chosen the exact same corner of Cornwall to holiday in. He knew some boys that she and her best friend, Jessica, had met — for a week, they congregated in the same beach-side cafe by day and under-age drinking spot by night.
She didn’t take much notice of him. He was chubbier then, baby seal fat attached to a huge man-to-be. Same kind, amused eyes, and same self assurance wrapped in insecurity wrapped in ease. She has a photo from that holiday somewhere. He’s folded onto a chair and therefore neatly into the corner of the print, looking at her, the camera, smiling. Face tanned and hair ruffled genuinely by wind and waves.
She was obsessed with herself, in a loathing sort of way. Not as pretty or as thin as Jessica, and willing to give herself over as a consolation prize to arrogant boys who showed more interest in her bustier friends. Her hair was neither shiny nor thick, tangled into a dense mass below her neck after a shrieking dip in the Celtic Sea. She wore no make-up and too-small tops to show off her flat, white torso, for lack of other things to show off. They spent a lot of time watching boys do stuff on the beach, moving aimlessly between the cafe with peeling paint walls and their patch of towels. One afternoon, she wasted at least an hour lying on the top of someone’s dark blue Renault in shorts and an oversized sweatshirt, smoking and listening to the muffled sounds of Jessica and a boy groping inexpertly on the back seat below.
He was staying in the campsite on the hill. The campers had jokes and stories from the night times that she couldn’t be part of, and she wished that she too was in a tent, glugging and toking by a fire late into the night, sharing random moments of connection as they emerged, bleary, in the morning to look at the white horses on the waves below. The road up to the campsite gate was steep and winding. You couldn’t see round the corners.
The local pub was legendary for being lax on age limits. The interior is hazy in her memory: a dominant bar, rough walls, stone floor, a sharp draft as you unlatched the door into the hallway for the toilet. Perhaps someone taller and stubbled bought the drinks. The beach wall opposite the black and white facade was lined with teenagers enacting a complex play: Pretending to like the beer they had triumphantly obtained, convincing themselves they wanted to be there — chilly and self-conscious — and not on the sofa with their parents and the dog, doubling over in fake laughter at something someone in their huddle said to make it clear to anyone watching just who was missing out.
He sat side saddle on the wall, talking to a floppy haired friend, half his size. She was alone, sort of. Jessica was two feet away, pouting and cranking up coy to eleven as she entertained the bluff flirtations of a rugby-shirt-wearing twenty three year old who should have known better. She found the least lumpy spot on the wall, settled, and nervously took a damp, slightly crumpled cigarette out of the packet. Clasp lighter, thumb the wheel, spark, flare, filter to lips, inhale, deep breath, and blow, lower lip jutting just a little. It was comforting.
He turned. Oh hi.
They chatted, her, him, his floppy haired friend, feigning resignation at what their families had planned for them tomorrow. A trip to Padstow to get seafood, a last day on the beach hoping there would be sun, being dragged to see parents’ friends who were staying nearby. Not much. The sky silently mellowed into darkness and whispers of clouds reflected on inky bay water. Clink clink clink, boats bobbing. Closing time loomed. The crowd grew louder and pint glasses smashed intermittently, knocked off the wall or out of hands, or just dropped randomly, crunching underfoot with butts and pebbles.
He handed her a bottle.
Has anyone ever told you that you look a bit like Uma Thurman?
Ha. No.
I think so, he said.
Well, she’s beautiful and has much bigger boobs than me, but thanks.
He looked embarrassed.
She half closed her eyes, bent her knees slightly, held her cigarette between the tips of her fingers.
Ladies and Gentleman, Now the moment you’ve all been waiting for, The World Famous Jack Rabbit Slim’s Twist Contest!
Slowly she screwed her toes into the floor, and drew her hands across her eyes, humming Chuck Berry’s ‘You Never Can Tell’.
Very impressive, he said.
She smirked, and flicked the end of her cigarette over the wall,
She couldn’t remember much else about what they talked about that summer. But she had the faint impression that he could see things that she couldn’t.
…………….
The air was hard and whipped off the East River in unforgiving gusts. She kept running, away from her infant daughter who was unaware of the separation. A rare hour to herself, taking advantage of her Mum’s visit to snatch moments of freedom without responsibility for another person’s safety and happiness. Her legs moved just for her, relishing their release. She breathed puffs of icy vapor, feeling strange in her baby-addled body and anxious about returning to work in a day or two. The Staten Island Ferry moved in sympathy, relentless, an orange whale in the distance.
Running and thinking, one making space for the other, was cheap therapy. Her mind drifted over the life she’d arrived at, decisions small and big stacked precariously upon each other like Jenga pieces. Every piece taking her further from where she started, every piece essential. Looking down she saw the same long thighs moving up and down, running straight from the dusty field behind her parents’ house onto the tarmac by the whipped waves of the New York harbor. A teenager trapped in stretched skin and expensive lycra. Still the same body, made more imperfect by nine months of endless prodding and growing and peering up inside. Still the same restless mind uniquely blended by genetics and experience, despite nurses calling her simply “Mom” the moment she became one, like she had permanently left her identity behind.
Gliding above the pat pat pat of her feet on pavement, her brow wrinkled at the strangeness of having created a new human being. She thought about the day she and Jack had sat on the bench of an A frame pub table by the River Thames, eating Salt ‘n’ Vinegar crisps, and admitted they loved each other, grinning because they had said it out loud without irony. She thought about her daughter’s intense stare, nipple clenched between pink gums. About the all consuming terror of bringing Liberty home for the first time, and jerking awake every half hour convinced that the wardrobe would crash down — for no reason — upon her cream bassinet. About the people she missed back home in Britain. About the hours and years she had spent hating her body because it refused to look like the girl in the magazine, and how she had laughed at the weird way her belly button had become hard and cone shaped as her bump expanded. About how she missed dancing, and caught herself murmuring it’s OK it’s OK it’s OK to sooth her daughter’s screams, making the OK sound like it does on Smooth Criminal. About how she needed her friends’ texts like water. About the extreme sweetness of watching Jack carefully trim Liberty’s soft, scag nails as she slept, propped up on his knees in bed. About the relief when her Mum arrived at their apartment, because finally someone would stroke her hair.
She passed the supermarket, eye catching on the wall of sale posters that covered the windows, giving it an unintentional air of tackiness and mystery. Pat pat pat pat pat pat the sidewalk came back into view as she pulled off her gloves and reached for her phone in the neoprene bag pulled tight around her waist.
She scrolled through Instagram absent-mindedly as she slowed to a walk on the way back to her apartment. Her hands were cold, and she despised herself slightly for checking her phone rather than looking up. A few bits of scattered litter strained against the railings, pushed by the wind. The old guy who roamed their two blocks had retreated inside the bodega. She thought about getting a coffee, but felt her breasts starting to tingle and swell with milk. Her time was up.
A picture of him glided up the screen in time with her thumb. A surge of nostalgic warmth. She read the caption. “As many of you know, our dear friend passed away in an accident on Wednesday. There will be a memorial service in St James Church at 12pm this Tuesday.”
She let out a yelp, like a dog stepped on by a child. Ten maybe fifteen years, not even exchanging pleasantries on Facebook. Years without really thinking about the other except in random moments when teenage memories bubbled up like air pockets, but knowing the imprint was there, buried: a hidden energy source, of simply being liked before she understood why. Occasionally wondering, should I get his email and drop him a line, see how he’s doing? Not acting on it. Life moving and changing so far there seemed no justifiable reason to reach back in time.
Pulling off her running shoes, she breathed out heavily and put the key in the lock. It crunched into position and immediately she heard her daughter start to mew. She stepped into the apartment and reached over to drop her phone in the bowl of ones and keys that Jack emptied from his pockets every day. She lifted her little one up, a dollop of limbs and cheeks, grateful for her soft neediness. Waiting for the whine of the kettle boil, her mind searched for somewhere to settle. She put the hot tea down on the side table and took her spot on the sofa, nestling Liberty into her arm crook and resting an elbow on a cushion shoved into position by her mother.
She told her Mum the news. There wasn’t much to reveal beyond the sparse details a mutual friend had sent her: an accident, in the water, he was fine that morning. She felt confused, in that obvious way you do when someone dies — but they were just alive! It wasn’t grief, she couldn’t claim that, but she felt conscious of the negative shape he left: a shape created by moments and feelings and memories that formed borders for other pieces of her.
The blunt starkness that there was no chance their lives would intersect again jabbed at her side. She wasn’t going to take her family to visit his, to walk on the grainy, grey beach by the house he built. He wasn’t going to take Jack for a pint and she wouldn’t get a kick out of hearing how well they got on. They wouldn’t watch the kids run together through wet sand, dragging sticks to make marks that looked like worms. They wouldn’t get drunk and dig out old photos from boxes and make fun of the hair cuts they had and the clothes they wore. He wouldn’t give her a bear-size hug when they said goodbye, just like he did when they were seventeen. That was never going to happen. But then, it never was.
She left Liberty, sleepy eyed, in her mother’s arms. Turning on the shower, she looked in the mirror. Same face, same body, same mind, pieces added and pieces missing. She turned to the side, observing the different lines life had given her so far: marks of laughter and cigarettes by her eyes and mouth, the outline of breasts she’d always dreamed of (a temporary bonus), the wave of a stomach in flux, hips adapting afresh to old rhythms. Hair hanging oddly, thicker than before. Arms taut and ready to hold a person at any hour of the day or night. A space inside left by him and all the others that she had needed and left behind. She stepped into the shower and let the water run and run.
She told Jack when he got home that night, and messaged her school friends who knew him. How sad. God how awful, what happened? Six messages absorbed into an ever present flow of news and videos and exclamations and emojis to let each other know they were not alone. A ripple that melted into the sea.
Her Mum asked about dinner. She put her phone aside, and opened the cupboard to find the puree that her daughter was least likely to throw on the floor.
Meanwhile in the Hudson Valley, Hasbrouck House Sunset Flix movie nights are going strong throughout September, everyone’s favorite local knitwear brand Eleven Six will open its doors on its first retail store in Kingston on September 17th, and I will be returning for Fall activities in short order. An interview with irreverent, mixed-media artist Jen Dwyer and much more to come.