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LONDON DIARY

2002-03-07/8

Queen Elizabeth I (b. Elizabeth Tudor)
B. 9.7.1533 Greenwich / D. 3.24.1603 Richmond
Cancer

2.12.02 - VIRGIN ATLANTIC / Slept on the plane for maybe three hours. Awoke to hear my spirit returning. The altitude and the mid-North Atlantic locale had afforded it the opportunity to go up and pay a call on someone or something named "Raleigh." My spirit was still effervescent and chatty, although it had nothing to say for my poor ears, attached as they are to this humdrum vessel, this aging body. Something like a crystal sparrow twittered "Raleigh said. . . Raleigh"—I couldn't make out any more. Thus I realized that I was on my way to London, England at the dictate of this spirit, which has been prompting me to make the trip through years of dreams. I've carried something old here for a visit to its friends. Finally. That's what "I" am doing in London—all this talk about having my own reasons. . .Bosh. I am being commanded. Wander down that street. Turn left. Circle back—I don't know what's going on.

10.95 - JAMAICA PLAIN / "In a dream I have just before waking, I decide to quit my job as desk clerk at the residential hotel. The young girl who shares my responsibilities in a part-time way is simply too derisive. I buy a subway map of London with the intention of visiting Westminister Abbey for the first time since I have been living and working in the city. This decision makes me happy; it feels like the end of a bad dream. How could I have let my job become so constricting? Now I will go where the sights are—and I will sleep somewhere in my clothes and in the very early morning I will see the early morning light on the Thames on the houses of Parliament, and then I will go into Westminister Abbey and let my gaze be drawn upward upward, and then I will sleep a little more."

Consolation Site: It is monstrous that the feet should direct the head

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FOOTNOTE