I'm a typical white American girl who, typically, is descended from a mix of Western European immigrants and feisty all-American pioneers.
I went to mostly white Arizona schools, a mostly white private college in Minnesota, and, as an adult in Chicago, worked primarily on the mostly white North Shore. So I don't know much about being a minority. Sure, there have been a few occasions here and there--mostly when attending multi-ethnic churches or working at places like McDonalds--when I've been a racial minority or had a different background from my peers, but I never knew what it was like to be marked by any distinguishing socioeconomic characteristic.
Until, of course, I moved to England. After a year being introduced as "Steph The American"; of smiling through endless, familiar conversations with new acquaintances about the differences between America and Britain; and of having all of my silly actions and comments explained away by friends with the slightly infuriating blanket comment, "Well, she's American, you know," I now have a tiny glimpse into life as a member of a minority group.
Please don't send the race police after me. I'm not complaining, and I know my experiences haven't exactly been a hardship. In fact, I enjoy most of them because I like connecting with people for whatever reason (even if I sometimes get tired of having the same conversation over and over and over again).
However, I now have a small understanding of what it is like to go through life with a marker, one that carries all sorts of associations and baggage over which I have no control. Is this what it's like to be black, I wonder? Or in a wheelchair? Or obese? Deaf? It is true that, despite their best intentions, many people will see the characteristic first, and this impression will inevitably color their perception of the person who bears it.
I was at a barbecue in May when I met a friend's fiance. My friends Laura and Tim, who were on the Discipleship Year program with me, were sitting across from us, and as Carl asked the familiar questions about America, I happily discoursed about the differences in our speech, language and culture. Then Tim turned to Laura and I heard him say,
"Is it wrong that I'm getting tired of hearing Steph talk about this?" he asked. "I've heard her have this conversation four or five times this year."
Laura just patted him on the shoulder.
"If you think you're tired of it, just think how Stephanie feels," she said. "She must have it all of the time, even when we're not around."
"Amen!" I said, and we all laughed.
The worst that's happened to me is that I've once in awhile been frustrated or slightly insulted by the way people here make blanket assumptions about the United States and then ask me to defend my country. For an extreme example I need look no further than one day a few weeks ago. I was chatting to a politically liberal friend from Continental Europe and said I was really looking forward to visiting the States next month.
"I won't go there until George Bush is out of power and has finished destroying the country," he responded.
Today is the fifth day of blessed sun and warmth! I've spent most of the preceding four days out in the garden (which is so large it's like having a private park), working, dozing, eating, reading and entertaining. Whenever I've been at home, I've wanted to share this bounty of green heaven, so I've had three different groups of friends over. We've lounged on the lawn under the cherry tree eating sausages and ice cream; we've lolled about checking our email before heading inside to watch BBC costume dramas ("A Room with a View" and "Pride and Prejudice"); and we've sat at the little table under the ripening apples chatting far into the night, cups of tea firmly in hand (of course).
I love talking about weather. Some people may think I can't think of anything more interesting when I talk about the weather, but it fascinates me. This must be the inescapable legacy of being from Minnesota, for though I grew up in Arizona, I lived until the age of 9 in St. Paul-Minneapolis and also returned there for college. You may notice that native Minnesotan Garrison Keillor introduces every episode of his Lake Wobegon stories on "A Prairie Home Companion" with a weather update, and I realize that my dad (born way up north in International Falls, MN) does exactly the same thing. And now so do I.
And so the weather in Nottingham the last few days has been lovely, even quite hot at times, although I was surprised to read it hasn't gotten much above 80 degrees so far! It's all relative. I'll be spending the first week of August at New Wine, a Christian conference/camp my church helps run in Somerset, and then the following week renting a holiday cottage with friends in Wales' Gower Peninsula, and this weather has really been encouraging me. However, current forecasts show that the showers and cool temperatures return tomorrow, lasting through my Wales holiday. Rats!
With this in mind, I've just rearranged my schedule for the day. If today is the "last day" of summer, then I want to enjoy it, so I'm pushing my considerable pile of work back for a few hours and have persuaded my housemate Julia to go with me to a nearby lake. While there we'll swim and lay out in the sun and, no doubt, ponder the burning questions of life.
One of these burning questions concerns English society. Why do the Brits leave the soapy water on dishes after they've washed them? I was so surprised my first weekend here, nearly a year ago, when I was helping someone wash up and she handed me a plate covered with soapy water.
"You forgot to rinse," I said, handing it back. She looked at me puzzled and just turned away, so I rinsed the plate and then dried.
But I soon learned that is the norm around here in Nottingham. Is it like this all over England? My casual observation is that 19 out of 20 people do not rinse their dishes of soap after washing them. They say that, when you dry the dishes, the soap gets rubbed off by the tea towel. But what about when the tea towel is covered in soap, or if dishes are left to air dry? As someone who likes to eat organic whenever possible, I find the prospect of consuming more chemical traces than necessary rather disturbing, but I try not to argue about this or press the point. I'm friends with an international married couple (he is Austrian-British and she is Israeli-Arab) and they don't understand, either. In fact, they don't let anyone English wash the dishes at their flat because they don't want soap left on them.
When washing up by myself I rinse my dishes, of course, but when helping others I try to just suck it up and not insult people by insisting dishes be rinsed. I meekly wipe them off, soap and all, with a tea towel. After all, you can't change a whole culture, even if it is a bizarre practice. But the I do rinse all of of my own dishes before using them. Just in case.
My dear friend Emma and I have been meeting nearly every week since September for tennis, tea and a chat with prayer and, on one memorable day last January, decided to take our exercise outdoors, in nearby Derbyshire. We enjoyed a vigorous day-long hike (here they call it a "walk") along Froggat Edge, and since Emma and her husband are about to move to New Zealand, we thought we'd explore the Peak District one more time. We also thought it'd be a refreshing experience to visit in the summer this time!
It was a lovely day and even bordered on hot (I'd wager temperatures reached somewhere near 80 degrees) and it got very warm when the sun was out as we climbed steep hills. This time, Em and I drove to the Upper Derwent Valley, in the northern part of the Peak District, among what's known as the Dark Peak. No, it's not the home of the Dark Lord (my first guess) and is, in fact, not even one peak, but a series of rolling moorlands with cliff edges. With help from a friendly National Peak District park officer at Fairholmes Visitor Centre (where we parked, north of Bamford and the A57), we crafted an 8-mile hike with plenty of ups, downs, sweeping views and even a stroll through meadows and along the reservoir. It took us four hours with two short breaks for lunch and tea.
I'll let these photos with captions tell the rest of the story.
We set off from the Visitor Centre by crossing a field and arriving at the Derwent Dam wall. After climbing a set of stone stairs, we were level with the dam's top and had this view.
We didn't have a well-marked path (a detailed map is a must while walking on England's public footpaths) and managed to get a bit turned around during the early climb up these hills. But as the ranger instructed, we just kept on going up.
After wandering about the tamer hills a bit, we finally found our way onto the main path leading along the moor. Emma and I discovered that the moor in July looks pretty much like the moor in January (with the exception of a few wildflowers).
At last I'm enjoying a gorgeous summer's day in England. The temperature is somewhere around 70 degrees--quite warm by recent standards--and the sun is shining. It was another day to hang out the washing on the line and be grateful for the warmth. I remember with disgust the day two weeks ago when I hung out my laundry only to watch it get soaked...three times...by sudden, inexplicably heavy showers. It took a full two days for everything to dry inside the house.
In the longer essays I posted last month, Laundry Lessons I and Laundry Lessons II, I used this anecdote hanging out my washing instead of throwing it in an electric dryer to explore some of the themes of this year in England. It seems apt, now that Discipleship Year has ended and I look ahead to another year of service here in Nottingham, that I now conclude these thoughts with Laundry Lesson III.
I wrote in the last essay about my grandmother Patricia Young Smith, who did all of the washing by hand while raising three toddlers as a single mother and getting a university degree in small-town Minnesota during the 1950s. Grandma's emphasis on education and self-realization has been a steadfast theme in my life, often taking the form of useful gifts: from the children's version of an Edmund Spenser tale I received at 7 and my first Jane Austen novel at 13, to when Grandma took me on college tours and even sent me a check to cover college application fees. Even now her influence continues. Grandma recently sent me a list of novels she recommends from her book club (a formidable, brilliant group of retired professors) and when last month that same group of academics read an Austen-inspired play I wrote several years ago, she flooded me with emails passing on their comments and urging me to keep writing.
It is because of Grandma--and the encouraging messages I've long received from my mother's parents, parents, and bevy of aunts and uncles--that I am here in England at all, actually. Nobody in my family has had a very easy life, yet all of these adults who've shaped me have a passion for learning and, more importantly, temper that drive with wisdom and compassion. Grandma and the others have taught me to take the challenging road, the one I know I'm meant to follow, even when it flies in the face of common sense.
There were a few raised eyebrows when I left a teaching job in Phoenix back in 2002 to get a master's degree in journalism at Northwestern, but they all supported me. They rejoiced with me when I got a great job as a features writer at Pioneer Press in 2004, and, amazingly, gave me their blessing when I left that job three and a half years later to move to England in September. Those who I thought would most protest were the most supportive.
"It'll be a great adventure," one aunt told me. "Do it now, while you still can."
I wasn't sure of the reception, however, when I announced to them a few months ago that I would not be returning to full-time journalism, at least not anytime soon. As a Christian, my sense of personal calling is always inextricably entwined with where I feel God is leading me, and this year of service at the active, vibrant church that is Nottingham's Trent Vineyard has shown me that my place for the near future is within a church setting, learning to serve and help lead members--and the greater community--into the transformation I see possible through Jesus Christ.
I will keep writing for both profit and personal satisfaction, of course, as I've done this year as a freelancer, but I have committed my next year to more work with the church in Nottingham. I am planning to spend one more year serving at Trent Vineyard here before discerning the next step and so, after I spend a month in Chicago and Phoenix, I then return to England in mid-September.
Discipleship Year, the service program I began in Sept. with 14 other young adults (and the reason I came to Nottingham) has now ended. We had our final community day yesterday although, in true Discipleship Year fashion, we still have some cleaning and serving commitments to complete in the next few weeks.
it was a sad day in many ways, since serving and being stretched has been a transforming experience, and since the 15 of us have experienced this process together, and since it's been, in many ways, a raw process that's exposed who we really are, we've bonded together in an amazing way. Of course every season must end, and it's better for us to finish the program and our structured time together on a high note, before we're all sick of it, but I am surprised by the depth of regret I feel that it's over. This program hasn't always been easy, and being the American in a crowd of Brits (plus one Austrian and one Israeli Arab) has had its challenging moments, but I feel that these folks are true friends.
Here we all are, 15 "disciples" with the two pastors who led us, on our last day together.
No, it's not the end of all things, of course. In fact, I am planning to spend one more year continuing to serve the church here in Nottingham, so I don't have to say goodbye to this new land and this community yet. And, in fact, yesterday had some new experiences.
One of them was trying a Pimm's cup for the first time. You may know about Pimm's because of Wimbledon...it's the "posh drink of choice," as one friend described it, quite suitable for enjoying with your strawberries and double cream. I'd tried it once before in Chicago (when my expat Brit friend Alison served it to me) but never with an entire salad inside the glass! The cucumbers were especially surprising. But it was delicious. What is Pimm's? I think it's a fruity, light liqueur that you mix with Sprite or 7-up (what they call lemonade here in England) and serve with fruit. And cucumbers, apparently.
I find myself becoming more and more British. When I first arrived last fall, I made an apple pie using apples from the backyard tree. The pie was delicious and I proudly served it to my English "family" but then they asked for the cream or custard.
"Cream or custard?" I asked, perplexed. "Don't you just eat the pie?"
I worked for two years as a server at Baker's Square, so I know how to serve pie. I am a pie-cutting expert, and I can serve it warm, cold and even a la mode. What on earth could be missing from my apple pie masterpiece?
But then David explained that dessert will--almost always--come with custard or cream to pour on top or alongside.
Yesterday we had a gala feast at my house to celebrate David's successful completion of phase I (basic training) in the Royal Navy, my successful completion of the Discipleship Year program at Trent Vineyard and three new jobs in the family.
We gather for drinks, nuts, olives and cheese sticks in the garden before heading indoors for a full roast dinner, pudding and a fruit and cheese course. After this soporific feast, we managed to wake up again by playing croquet out in the garden. So very English. Here my former housemate David and I grin proudly over our joint achievements.
"Don't we have any cream?" asked "English sister" Julia as she piled her plate high with desserts. I suddenly remembered that yes, indeed, we had cream (left over from a fruit salad the previous week) and, by golly, I agreed that a nice serving of double cream would make these desserts taste even better.
I poured the cream over my tarts and chocolate roulade without batting an eye, just as I poured the cream over the West Country strawberries I'd enjoyed the previous week. And, I've learned, an apple tart enjoyed in the winter is ever so much nicer when accompanied by hot custard.
Now that it's summer (well, sort of...it's been so cold I had to turn the gas fire on while watching a movie last Saturday night), the British dessert is, of course, strawberries and cream, most famously enjoyed at Wimbledon, though eating them at home is pretty tasty, too, especially when they come from a neighborhood garden. Much as I adore strawberries, however, fresh raspberries have always been my favorite summer fruit (cherries and blueberries are also high on the list), so I loved this article comparing the merits of the fruit in today's Daily Mail newspaper.
...would a "barbecue" consist of 30 people happily crammed into a sitting room watching Wimbledon with bated breath (and remarking intelligently on all strokes) as the rain poured down outside;
...would afore-mentioned barbecue-goers happily venture outdoors during brief breaks of sun to throw around a Frisbee, soccer ball and rugby ball, thus creating the aptly named "Think Fast" game;
...would players be forced to climb 10-feet back through overgrown ivy bushes (this is not an exaggeration) to reclaim said rugby ball;
...and, finally, only in England would I find myself standing in the back garden during yet another sun break with a cup of hot tea clenched firmly in my left hand as I throw and catch the Frisbee with my right. And I am not alone in performing this act of great coordination. I am playing Frisbee with three others, all of them young men, who have cups of tea clenched firmly in THEIR left hands (except for leftie Ben, who has his tea in his right hand), and throwing the Frisbee about with their other hands, until someone calls, "The match is back on!" and we all troop inside.
I love England. Here I am adding to my lectionary of fun.
Last Wednesday I rolled the gas grill around the corner of the house to the main garden and set up a table with drinks, crisps, cheese, tomato and all of the other barbecue trimmings. It was time for Summer Barbecue #5, but this one I hosted. It was a farewell party for members of our small group (a sort of family unit I belong to within the church) who are moving to Cardiff next month to help start a new church in Wales.
As I mentioned in a previous post, summer barbecues seem to be all the rage in England, and I'm loving it. My barbecue last Wednesday was a quiet, pleasant, dry, warm-ish evening here in Nottingham and just perfect for an outdoors event. I felt like we were cocooned in a peaceful greenish haze...the green of the lawn, the holly hedges, the ivy covering the house, the shrubbery and the fruit trees grew ever darker and more enveloping as the twilight deepened and we feasted.
Thanks to commenter Jill, who asked after an earlier post just what the Brits eat at their barbecues. Do they have the same burgers, hot dogs and potato salad that we trot out, she wanted to know? Well, yes and no. It looks the same, but it doesn't always taste the same!
