Crossing the Seas and Dotting the I's

Land ho! Brooklyn Cruise Terminal with Sarah Swift. 

I had to fly to England to get back to America. I was joining a group of writers on a transatlantic crossing on the Queen Mary 2.  The Craft and Publishing Voyage workshop, called “Rebirthing Your Book” probably should have been called “Reberthing Your Book.” Or “Rebooking Your Birth,” for those of us who are memoirists. 

London

View from Royal Lancaster 

I first spent a few nights in London with my friend Susan who moved to England five years ago. We stayed at the Royal Lancaster just steps from Hyde Park. Susan had asked for a room with two beds,  which translated to two singles pushed together with just an inch in between. We were cozy. 

Our room had a large window with a view as far as the London Eye can see, and I could see the London Eye. The window had electric blinds, allowing us to produce instant night or day. The street view replaced the Weather Channel;  we could read the forecast by the presence of wellies, brellies, and hoodies

Susan is an excellent navigator who got us all over London using Google Maps. The first time Google Maps tells me I am going in the wrong direction, I want to throw the phone on the ground. But Susan has mastered it. She is married to a pilot, so her skills in this regard are critical. 

Nothing says America like snack food, and apparently The British are a snack-deprived nation. Susan requested that I import an extra-large bag of Stacy’s Pita Chips, and Trader Joe’s Ginger Snaps for her stepdaughter Helen. I carefully stowed these goods in the overhead compartment so they wouldn’t arrive in a thousand little pieces. We met Helen at a shilling-sized bakery called Fabrique in Notting Hill. She acted as if I had given her a bag of gold. I asked what the neighborhood was famous for and she said the movie Notting Hill.

When we got to Marylebone I knew it was famous for something even if there wasn't a movie about it. Because everything in London is famous. Marylebone is where Charles Dickens and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle grew up and where Sherlock Holmes "lived" on Baker Street. It's also where John wrote "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and Paul dreamed up "Yesterday" while staying with Jane Asher's family.  

We had a quick lunch at Nathalie, spare, bare, and bougie. Salmon and quinoa, way too healthy for me. 

High tea at the Wolseley

But clotted cream and clogged arteries were coming up. We enjoyed high tea, high ceilings, and high spirits at The Wolseley in Mayfair. A triple decker tower of food arrived. We started with our dainty tea sandwiches, egg salad, salmon, and Coronation chicken salad. Then we threw reserve aside and each ate two supreme scones doused in clotted cream and strawberry jam followed by eight lovely desserts. What were we thinking? That we would never eat again.

But we had to have a Greek salad around 11 p.m.

We went that night to see Six at The Vaudeville Theater, built in 1870 to accommodate tinier people who could fit in little seats with narrow aisles. Six is a pop concert musical about the six wives of Henry the Eighth, and the theater was only a few minutes away from decapitation central, the Tower of London. The play was cheery and fun and bright, and mercifully over in 90 minutes. 

Wimbledon

The next day we went to the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club, home of the Wimbledon Tennis Championships since 1877. And every blade of grass was perfect. The tour guide was also sharp as a blade. She confirmed that the requirement to wear white is to hide the sweat, on the Queen's behalf, but she called it "perspiration." She showed us Court One and Center Court, Henman Hill, the BBC Media Center and told us about the warren of underground tunnels that the tennis players use to reach the courts. We learned that Wimbledon goes through 1.9 million strawberries (38 tons) and 54,000 tennis balls each season. Ball boys and girls have to go through 4 weeks of rigorous training and are favored for their ability to remain expressionless during matches.

The Queen Mary 2

View One

View Two

View Three

I joined our writers’ group on a jolly van ride to the port city of Southampton. We were laughing about the fact that our colorful travel agent had told us to dress on the ship like the woman in the Viagra commercial. When we stopped in Winchester for tea we saw two crows in what appeared to be a sexual frenzy in the road.  In a Keystone Kops arrival in Southampton, the van drove us to the wrong dock three times. We grew increasingly alarmed as we pulled up to cruise ships that looked like waterborne skyscrapers, and were relieved to arrive at our ship, the elegant, streamlined Queen Mary 2, as restrained and reserved as a queen herself. 

My stateroom

I had a king stateroom with a balcony for the view, but soon realized the picture out my window was always the same, like a movie on a loop. Mostly blue, sometimes gray, white with “swells” (nautical euphemism for huge waves). The sea is all you see, nary a bird nor a land mass. For ocean lovers, the crossing is your chance for oneness with the sea, for days you are in it, on it, of it. 

Workshop leader Allison Williams and Captain Andrew Hall

                                                        (courtesy writers' group)

I found Captain Andrew Hall's daily updates soothing. In his calm British manner he told us where we had been and where we were going. I was glad he knew. He taught us that the crossing, despite its name does not cross the ocean in a straight line, rather in a “great circle” since the circumference is the shortest distance between two points. He ended each update with a non-nautical joke. “If at first you don’t succeed, don’t try skydiving.” Or “Insanity is hereditary, you get it from your children.” 

The Brittania Dining Room (courtesy writers' group)

Things to know: We were all confused about the time of day. If you think daylight savings time is annoying, try changing the clocks 5 times in 6 nights. But I loved telling people I was on “Nuuk” and “Grytviken” time. Despite this, the gentle rocking motion of the boat is excellent for sleep. I hope the Sealy Perfect Sleeper Mattress will develop a rock-a-bye-baby setting. 

Fellow writers at the Black and White Gala

The ship offers continuous activities from 6:30 a.m. to 12:30 a.m., bridge or watercolor lessons, trivia contests, a casino, a spa, a pickleball court, live music. But we writers had our dance cards filled. We spent most of the day in windowless rooms learning about everything from punctuation to publication. There were 28 women and two men in the group and assorted plus ones. We dined together for a four course, if not four star dinner, in the Brittania room. Writers are good dinner companions. Our conversations were rich with storytelling and devoid of grammatical errors. 

Our teachers (l to r) Amy, Dinty, Allison, Jane

I ran into dear friends Porter and Matt on the ship!

Game tables with a view

They say a transatlantic crossing is life changing. It was for me.  If my paternal ancestors the Goldbergs hadn’t crossed from Ukraine in 1891, and if the Foleys hadn’t crossed from Ireland in 1912, where would I be? I would not be.  And maybe the grandparents did not travel with turn down, and  24-hour room service, but we all ended up in the same place.  Thank God.

Approaching land (courtesy writer's group)

Goosebump-producing Statue of Liberty (courtesy writers' group) 

A note of gratitude to the organizers of the Craft and PublishingVoyage and to all the inspirational writers I met along the way.