My Appalachia

by Sidney Saylor Farr

  “I will gladly pay for a taxi,” I said.

  “That will take a long time. Just look at those long queues!” she said.

  Bruce rushed off; Kim and I struggled with the bags, eventually reaching one of several long taxi queues. Kim kept crying, saying it would take us an hour to get one. I began affirming Divine Order, saying a prayer acknowledging God’s will and letting go. In twenty minutes we were on our way home.

  Alone in my room that night, I experienced new depths of depression and despair. I missed Grant; I missed my dog, Taylor; Bruce was working; Kim was resting; there was no radio and no television; and the damn lights were too dim for me to read. I took a pill and tried to rest awhile. It was a very low evening for me—the worst.

  Bruce and I both slept late the next day. Kim had to go to work at 10:00. We ate toast and jelly with instant coffee, then got dressed and headed downtown. Bruce wanted to take me to Harrods, and from there I was going to sightsee on my own.

  We went to Harrods, found a lunchroom, and ate first, then we shopped. It is truly a magnificent store. You can buy anything there—trips, airplane tickets, even a chalet—anything you can imagine they can get for you, for a price.

  After Harrods I went with Bruce to the Marriott Hotel, where he worked. I called the hotel where Ethel Capps, a friend from Berea, had told me she’d be staying. Ethel invited me to go with her tour group to the National Theatre that night to see Chekhov’s Wild Honey. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get a ticket—they were sold out for the whole weekend. I agreed to meet Ethel at her hotel at 10:00 the next morning. She and I would spend the day sightseeing with Wayne and Marybelle Allen, two former Berea Country Dancers who had moved to England.

  Later that day, after I got home, I took a walk to High Street-Kensington to do some browsing. At a department store that was having a sale on kitchen utensils, I bought some things for Bruce and Kim—a dish drainer, a dishtowel, and a soup ladle (Bruce ate so much soup and had to use a teacup to dip it out), all the same color: deep cherry red. Kim was delighted with my purchases. She said that they made their place finally begin to look like a kitchen.

  The next morning I got up at eight o’clock, quickly ate breakfast, then walked down to High Street to catch Bus 73, which would take me straight to Oxford Street near Ethel’s hotel, Stratford Court, where I was to meet Ethel at ten. I was leery of riding the underground by myself, though Bruce insisted it was safe. I preferred being above ground at all times, even back home.

  The bus stop was at Selfridges department store and, since I had a few minutes to spare, I went inside to see this famous store. At a quarter to ten I went outside and asked a policeman where the Stratford Court Hotel was located. He told me, but I misunderstood part of his instructions. I walked down Oxford Street, block after block, until finally I was way down in Oxford Circus and knew I had gone too far. I asked a number of people but no one knew the hotel. At last I found a security officer who told me where to find the hotel. To my chagrin, it was only three blocks from Selfridges! He very kindly let me use his phone to call Ethel. She did not answer; I wondered if she had already gone.

  So here I go, walking fast as I can, through the dense crowd of shoppers downtown for the after-Christmas sales. Finally I found Ethel’s hotel and called her again from the lobby. This time she answered, and told me that of course she would not have left before I arrived. The Allens hadn’t arrived yet, either, so Ethel and I chatted in her room. Wayne and Marybelle and their two kids arrived sometime after 11:00; we all visited a bit and then set out. Ethel had thought Wayne would bring his car and take us sightseeing, but he had parked on the outskirts of London in order to avoid the traffic, he said. We took a bus to the British Museum first, to see a special exhibit on the Anglo-Saxon Golden Age (960-1060). Ethel insisted on paying my way into the exhibit, which was great; I am so glad I got to see it.

  The children got tired and hungry, and their parents decided we should all go to the lunchroom and eat. We went through the cafeteria line, and Wayne paid for everybody’s lunch. He and Marybelle had graduated from Berea College in the mid-1960s; Wayne’s career in the Navy was what had brought them to England. Ethel and the Allens decided that if we were to have any chance of seeing the Tate Museum, Westminster Abbey, and St. Margaret’s Church, we needed to leave the British Museum after lunch. So we did. We only had to walk a few blocks to see Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. Part of Westminster was closed because of a choir rehearsal. It was nice to look around, though, as we listened to the choir sing. When we left Westminster Abbey, we went next door to St. Margaret’s, a very old church dedicated to women. I was even more impressed with St. Margaret’s than I was with the Abbey, which was wonderful.

  After that we took a bus to the Tate Museum. In the Tate we saw hundreds of paintings. I fell in love with the works of John Constable and J. M. W. Turner.

  At the end of the day we were tired but happy. Wayne and the children took a bus back to Ethel’s hotel, but we women got a taxi in front of the museum, splitting the fare.

  After a brief rest in Ethel’s room, the Allens left. “What are we going to do now?” Ethel said to me. “We can’t stop now,” she said. “The day’s not over yet!”

  After looking through newspapers for a movie or play, to our surprise and delight we found that there was to be a preview of Dickens’s Great Expectations at the Old Vic. We reserved tickets, grabbed a taxi, and took off.

  As we rode the taxi across the Thames, we marveled at the lovely sight. Christmas lights shone on both sides of the river, down near the water, with the rows of lights outlining the curves of the river. Beautiful! It cost us £9.50 for each ticket and we spent £6.00 on taxis, but the experience was worth every bit.

  I had asked Bruce to come to Ethel’s hotel when he got off work at 11:00 (it was only a short distance between the two hotels) and wait for me, because I knew it would be too late for me to catch a bus and I was scared to ride the underground alone, especially at night. By the time Ethel and I got back, Bruce was impatiently waiting. He and I had a twenty-minute wait for the tube, and then while we were in the train somebody pulled the emergency stop. We had to sit and wait another twenty minutes while the officials went from car to car, trying to determine what was wrong. I began to get a suffocating feeling, sitting there in the dark tunnel. Finally we were on our way again, and got home around 1:00.

  The next day, Sunday, December 30, Bruce and I went downtown because he wanted me to see the famous Portobello Road Flea Market. The weather was cold and misty. Again, as was the case everywhere I went in London, we had a long walk to the flea market. When we finally got there, no one was in sight. It turned out that the flea market was held on Saturdays, not Sundays, as Bruce had thought. We were very disappointed.

  Bruce and I ate lunch in—of all places—a Pizza Hut (it was his choice). The pizza was good, but it tasted different than what we were used to in the States. After we ate, Bruce left for work and I took a taxi to the Victoria and Albert Museum. I spent a delightful afternoon seeing things at my own pace. That is the way to visit museums, I decided. I saw exhibits we had not had time for when Bruce and Kim had brought me to the museum a week earlier.

  I went to the china and pottery floor and saw dishes from the earliest days up through modern times. I went to the rug and tapestry room and saw a large exhibit on the Lake District and an exhibit on William Wordsworth. I saw great paintings in oil done by British artists of the past two hundred years; then I went back to the Italian rooms and spent much time looking at the larger-than-life works of Michelangelo. I browsed in the card shop the last ten minutes before the museum closed, then took a taxi home. I waited up to share a bite of supper with Bruce and then went to bed. I was restless all night because I was sore from all the walking.

  Monday, December 31, was to be my last day in London. I wanted to cram in as much as possible. Bruce had the day off from work. We first went to the British Museum. We ate breakfast at the coffee shop before we saw any exh
ibits. I had a meat pasty. I had read about meat pasties in British mysteries and always wanted to taste one. The pasty was so-so, meat and vegetables mixed in a sauce and baked in a small pie.

  We spent a long time in the museum library. I enjoyed looking at some of the first-edition books and the manuscripts. The music manuscripts in particular awed me. To see Beethoven’s, Bach’s, and Liszt’s original scores in their own handwriting was awesome. Beethoven wrote his scores in incredibly small handwriting, and so did Liszt and some of the others. Bach, however wrote in large, bold script.

  Then we went to the Egyptian room and saw all kinds of artifacts, including mummies. I did not care for that room at all, and could not wait to get out of there. I was getting very bad vibrations there, whether from the mummies or the living people, I did not know, but I did not like that place. From the Egyptian room we went to see the clock exhibit. I was astounded at how many varieties of clocks had been manufactured over the centuries, and the intricacies of the models from two and three hundred years ago. I had trouble dragging Bruce away from the clocks, because he was so fascinated with them.

  We went to other exhibits also, where we saw china, furniture, textiles, ancient writing on stone, a special exhibit on Germany, and a room full of Japanese artifacts and paintings. I know Grant would have loved the Japanese room.

  I had promised Bruce that I would buy him a pair of pants as my Christmas present to him. Reluctantly we left the British Museum in order to get downtown before the stores closed, and before we were due at Ann Colcord’s for tea at 4:00. (I had gotten to know Ann the previous year, at a writer’s workshop in Hindman, Kentucky. Ann lived most of the year with her family in London, and she had invited Bruce and Kim to stay a night or two with her when they first arrived in the city, until they could get settled in their jobs and find a place to live.)

  What a madhouse downtown was! The shoppers were all pushing and shoving to get at the after-Christmas bargains. Bruce lectured me about not fighting the crowds; he said I should just flow with the stream. He had learned to do that, he said, and it made walking so much easier. So I tried to flow. It was all right as long as we were all going the same way, I said to him, but what if you crash headfirst into people “flowing” in the opposite direction?

  He laughed and said, “Come on, Mom, we’re almost there!”

  Selfridges was even more crowded, if that were possible. I knew I could not get through a crowd like that to find pants for Bruce, so we caught a bus and went back to High Street, near his lodgings, and went into a men’s shop there. He found a pair of jeans he liked, and I bought them. I also bought him two pair of woolen socks at a store nearby.

  We had a pleasant visit with Ann and her mother, eating mincemeat tarts and drinking delicious tea. (Tea in England is so much better than what we get in the States.)

  Kim had made reservations for the three of us to eat New Year’s Eve dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Covent Gardens, but Kim was delayed more than an hour getting home from work. We dressed and took the subway, having to change twice before we got to our destination. Already crowds of young people were on the subway, passing around bottles and cans of drink, talking loudly, and pushing each other playfully. In Covent Gardens hundreds of young people were drinking and milling around in the streets. We speculated the pubs were all filled to overflowing, and would-be patrons had spilled out into the streets.

  The restaurant was a gem. We were taken to a small, empty dining room downstairs and soon the other table, a round one, was filled with three Italian couples. I felt truly cosmopolitan, to be sitting there as one of three Americans in the same room with six Italians and a Chinese manager and waitresses to serve us. I ate the best Chinese food I had ever tasted. We had seaweed sauteed until it was crisp, barbecued ribs, sweet corn soup, sweet-and-sour prawns, a chicken dish, and a plate of stir-fried vegetables over rice. Dessert was toffee apples.

  By the time we finished dinner, it was late. Kim urged us to hurry so we could get home before the drunken crowds poured in from the big celebration that took place at Trafalgar Square. Bruce said that Trafalgar was like Times Square in New York on New Year’s Eve. When we got home, we listened to the radio together until 1985 was born. Then I went to my room, did some packing, and went to bed.

  I got up early and finished packing, and Bruce and I took the subway all the way to Heathrow, a thirty-five-minute ride. Part of the trip was underground and part was above ground. Bruce helped me get checked in, and then we went to find some breakfast. After breakfast, Bruce and I said our good-byes.

  The plane took off on time. I had asked for a window seat in the non-smoking section and was told no window seat was available in that section, but an aisle seat was. I took the aisle, thinking that it would be better than sitting in the middle seat. I was disappointed about not getting a window seat because I had hoped to be able to see the ocean. (As it turned out, no one saw the ocean; it was cloudy and we flew high above the clouds all the way.) My ticket said 25G, so I went to what I thought was my seat, sat down, and got settled in. A few moments later a young man came and said I had his seat. I looked and, sure enough, I was in 25C; 25G was an aisle seat in the middle row of seats. The young man said that was okay, he would just take my seat. I thanked him warmly, and settled back to enjoy the ride.

  My seatmates were a middle-aged man and an Asian woman, who had the window seat. After awhile I noticed the book the man was reading, an autobiography of a yogi. I spoke to him, and we talked a bit about his book. Soon we were talking about meditation, past lives, spiritual growth, Zen Buddhism, and other related topics.

  His name was Dennis Carney, and he was a clinical psychologist from Connecticut. He was reared a Catholic, but never found spiritual satisfaction in that church. Dennis told me that he had begun his spiritual quest after a Zen Buddhist leader came to his hometown. Dennis had attended study groups, conferences, and meditations in California, Puerto Rico, Honolulu, and other places. He had read a lot of books on spirituality I had not yet read. He gave me a list of books I might be interested in. We had a fantastic conversation.

  When we left the plane Dennis walked with me to the baggage claim area. Once we were there, we shook hands. I told him I was glad I’d made a mistake in seats and got to sit with him. He looked into my eyes. “It was no mistake,” he said. “We’ll see each other again.”

  I had no trouble finding my bags and then going to the customs counter. The customs man looked surprised when I said I was bringing back less than ten pounds in merchandise. “What did you go for, then?” he asked. “To spend Christmas with my son,” I replied. “Didn’t he give you any gifts?” he asked. “The trip was the gift,” I said. He just waved his arm for me to go on through. I suppose I looked trustworthy. I felt a little bit like the fictional Mrs. Pollifax, who traveled to exotic places and worked for the CIA.

  It was now 3:15 P.M. New York time (8:15 in London), and I was sitting in a coffee shop in the Pan Am Building, looking out across the landing field as I waited for my flight home. It felt good to be on American soil again, and closer to Grant.

  22

  Tom Sawyer

  I often wished that just once a person could come

  back from the dead and tell everyone what God

  was really like.

  As a little girl I needed to know what God was really like, and I kept asking the adults around me. I heard many answers: “God is love.” “God is this really old man with a long white beard.” “God is everywhere and sees everything you do. If you are a bad girl you will make God cry.” “God will be angry if you are not good and then he will let Satan take you to hell.”

  I had a hard time trying to understand why, if God loved me “like a father,” he would be willing to let the devil take me away. I grew up wanting to be shown the reality of God’s love. I believed in it; I knew there was something like grace that could show us God if we had enough faith. I prayed; I read; and I searched for the reality that I knew must be there i
n the mist, or beyond glorious sunsets or thunderstorms that lashed the trees on the hillsides and brought rain to flood the creeks and streams.

  I often wished that just once a person could come back from the dead and tell everyone what God was really like. I believed that Jesus rose from the dead, but in my heart I did not believe it was possible for an ordinary human being to come back from the dead; otherwise someone would have come back to tell people about it long ago.

  My parents belonged to a religious group that believed if you did not serve God the same way they did you were bound for hell. Even as a child, untutored in spiritual matters, I felt there must be more to God than that.

  My good friend Phyllis Henson knew of my search, and in 1987 she invited me to join her in attending the Southeastern Conference of the Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship in Lynchburg, Virginia. That conference—and a man I met there named Tom Sawyer—would change my life.

  I flew to Phyllis’s house in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, on July 18, 1987. Phyllis’s house was old and big, with lots of trees in both the front yard and the backyard. After a restful night, we left for Lynchburg late the next morning, arriving around 3:30. There was much confusion as the teachers, consultants, and other staff worked to get organized before the week-long conference began. Phyllis, one of the staff, was scheduled to attend a banquet that night.

  I awoke the next morning to the smell of coffee from Phyllis’s room next door. Her roommate Roberta, Phyllis, and I went to breakfast together. Phyllis was scheduled to work at the registration desk, and I went with her. As Phyllis worked, I looked through some brochures and announcements. One flyer announced that a man named Tom Sawyer was to arrive on Wednesday of that week. He would talk about his near-death experience. I wondered what in the world that would be like!