climbingivy | Country and city

Sunlight was softer in England. I always felt that way after making the crossing from its shores to those of America. When I lived in England I never burned beneath the sun, not once. My first sunburn was acquired while I made one of many attempts to maintain a jobs I wasn't physically capable of doing. I have no great arm for lifting crates from river barges, or moving much of anything if it's more than a quarter of my body weight. Never mind that, though.

I came out on the train ride out of London and into Sussex. For the trip I sat across from Emily eating Jelly Beans and watching the urban sprawl melt away to forests and later fields where ramblers kept their sheep and cows. Further still and we entered the hills of Sussex, the chalk quarries and downs you look at from a distance and think running up one would be no difficult task when, indeed, it would be. The sunlight came through the train as though filtered through a faint fog, and believe me it had nothing to do with my eyesight. I was (and am) home. I hope that one day we might visit Wales.

For now, London is enough. I walked with Emily through the central portion of the city and looked up at the buildings that sprang to life years after I was alive, long after my family disowned me and I made a home in Louisiana. It's a new city, but still the old one I knew so well.