London, part 1

I hope, when Aryn grows up, her earliest memory will be of the time she got to see Peter Pan’s statue in Kensington Gardens.

She’s of the age when those earliest memories are formed, when she’ll be able to look back and distinctly remember certain impressions or images and relive that moment forever. Julie’s is of a trip she took to New York City with her parents when she was Aryn’s age. Mine, about the same age, is seeing Disney on Ice at the old North Star’s stadium (where Ikea and the Mall of America now are). I especially remember the bleacher seats—the grimy concrete underfoot, smeared with gum and other garbage. I remember Mickey jumping out of the birthday cake, but I don’t know if that’s a mixed memory, altered by subsequent Disney on Ice performances and hearing my Grandma talking about it.

But Aryn’s face-to-face encounter with Peter Pan, who plays his flute overlooking the water, buoyed up by fairies, contains all the ingredients of memory. It is anticipated (for her, our trip to London was to go see Peter Pan, Wendy and all the others; and every clock tower she saw since our first, aborted attempt to bring her here has been Big Ben); it’s outside the routine (that is, a vacation or special event); and it is individual (Julie remembers the hotel in NYC having beds her size and getting lost, feeling totally alone, in a strange city; I remember the grimy floor not because someone pointed it out to me but because I laid down on the bleachers and looked, observed, all by myself). Aryn stares and stares at the statue and its vision of Peter atop Neverland. She tries to climb it. She reaches up to grab ahold of Peter’s ankle, tickle his toes, anything—much the same way she may someday reach for some boy band obsession if she scores front-row seats.

She won’t leave him. How could she? How could any child, encountering the deity of Youth? I’ve gladly assumed adult responsibilities, but I grin from ear to ear at the bronze likeness of the Boy who Wouldn’t Grow up. We don’t let her climb it at first, but, in the spirit of Pan, she keeps at it and keeps at it. In the end, who am I to desecrate this holy ground with another arbitrary parental edict? She can’t climb very high, anyways.

I hope, at least, that her earliest memory if London is Peter Pan, and not the projectile vomiting that has hamstrung our Sunday plans. She’s thrown up two, maybe three significant times in her life, but today is not her day. First on the elevator, completely out of the blue. We push fluids and rice crispies at breakfast, but they end up on my shirt and all over the bathroom. And the shower.

So Julie takes the first watch and Alyson and I head out for an open-top, hop on/hop off bus tour. We return for lunch, when I relieve Julie and she sets off to drink in one of the greatest cities in the world. (Alyson, my cousin visiting for a few weeks, gets the best part of this deal, since Aryn is starting to feel better even before Julie heads out the door.)

I am, as I listen to a much-revived little girl sing through her “nap,” completely head-over-heels in love with London. The gardens, the black cabs, the busses, the language (and languages), Speakers’ Corner, the Thames, the history, the literature (our hotel is right next to a Dickens Pub), the royalty, the deep, deep complexity, the feeble British sun shining on the burqa of a wealthy immigrant.

I’ve seen the city center, now. I’ve ridden a double-decker and taken a black cab. I’ve walked, wide-eyed, over the Tames at Westminster and through Hyde Park and Kensingon Gardens. I’ve inched through crowds at Harrods and peeked over the crowds to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham. I’ve had fish n’ chips and cider. In the whirlwind, Eurail way I can say I’ve “done” London. But Samuel Johnson once said, “When a man is tired of London, he tires of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.” I’ll likely never be done with this city. And it sounds like our little princess is feeling better, so once I stuff her with a few more crackers and another banana, I think we’ll be off to let her gaze at the golden immensity of Big Ben and maybe take a soggy cruise down the magical river Thames.

Aryn loves to open our window and watch the people stroll by five floors below. Wow, I can’t stop thinking. Wow, we’re in London.