My last real meal is poorly thought out. So much so, I don’t remember what it was. There is no Da Vinci painting of the occasion. I am starved, but drugged. I haven’t eaten but apparently I can take a sip of water with my Xanax. I take a sip of coffee. The last thing I remember is being complimented on my titsoak t-shirt. I tell the dentist, I wore this for you. It’s true but I don’t know why I said it like that. I am out.

I have memories of choking. I am swatting away their hands. They are down my throat. I can’t breathe. What have I done. Why are they doing this to me. I wake up, refuse to engage. I want to be small. Don’t touch me. Don’t ask anything of me. I have survived but barely. My mouth is stuffed with gauze. The only thing I know, is that I am not safe, and I do not want to engage.

Josh later tells me, I was mean.

I can’t stress the level of fear, and betrayal, I brought home. I cry all day. I just want to lay in bed. I don’t want to change my gauze, or take my meds, or drink water. Please, please just let me lay down.

I learn something about myself: if I was ever tortured, I would give up everything and more for a lie down.

The next few days are a blur, like a windshield smears every-time the wiper blades swish. Visibility is impossible. I will sink if an iceberg appears. My metaphors continue to be terrible as I eat only soup. I am a good girl and do not smoke for a week.

I return to work, covering a coworker’s shifts plus my own so that I can have 6 days off. Maybe Travel.

It is hell. Storms hit Kentucky. The state floods. Flights are delayed. They come in, during torrential rains. I have a follow up appointment at the one week mark. They tell me to exercise opening my mouth. I must try to return it to normal. They give me a syringe to clean out the wisdom holes. They give me a Doctor’s note for light duty. But, I will be put inside and that’s not without stress or teeth gritting. Passengers are being having like toddlers. There is a moment when I threaten to close the gate door until everyone calms down. There is a moment when I almost take someone boarding pass so that they have to wait until last. I would have called security but all I can think about is whether I took Ibuprofen or Tylenol last? How long until I can take the next one?

I keep the note in my purse, brave the storms and the heavy lifting. Practice opening my mouth.

I am going to London and if I can, I’m going to try for Flagship First Class. A bucket list item because it is going away to be replaced by the very similar Business Class.

We wake up at 4 am to zero seats available on the 6 am flight we originally selected. I side-eye a later flight out of Covington. I am tempted to bail on the first flight, just to get Josh to take us, ergo, spend more time with him, but we might as well try for Lexington and have an agent transfer us to a later flight.

I stop at the ticket counter. They can tell me if it’s full, or if it’s best to transfer to another airport.

“It’s always worth a shot,” they say, adding that two people haven’t checked in yet.

We do get on. We are given the last two seats on a very full regional jet to Charlotte. I text Josh (who has already fallen back asleep).

Our Charlotte connection is tight and we scurry like mice, Mom leading the way, weaving through travelers like a professional.

We arrive in JFK, with 8 hours to kill. I want to see the TWA Hotel & Museum, and specifically, Connie’s Cocktail lounge, which would require exiting the airport and riding a train to see it. I ask multiple people, “We have time, yes?”

“8 hours?” They laugh, “Yea, you have time.”

It doesn’t matter how many times Mom hears it, she can’t fathom LEAVING THE AIRPORT. Relinquishing Eyes On The Gate.

I take command. We are doing it.

Connie’s lounge is closed and won’t open until 4 PM. The hotel lobby is beautiful though. It’s an atrium right out of Mad Men, which I haven’t seen. There is no soup, so we eat savory crepes from a food court. It isn’t impossible to eat because my mouth still can’t open wide. I can feel food in my wisdom holes. I swish too-cold water, and it shocks nerves. I save most of mine for later, trying not to focus on how hard it is going to be to eat on this trip.

We are back in our terminal by noon. Still 5 hours to go. There is a gate change so we lays eyes on the new gate. We find a comfy place to sit and gather ideas for our time in London. Even though there are a hundred seats open on this plane, and Mom and I are at the top of the standby list, I am still not comfortable booking a hotel. It would be too arrogant. Too cocky. How dare a standby assume they will get a seat, or that the plane will leave the airport.

We get Flagship First. The seat assignment is sent to my phone but I insist on presenting my ID to receive my paper copy.

Boarding begins and I want to be first in line. I am offended that the those in group 6 are boarding with me. I am Group 1, bitch, get out the way.

Apparently, this first class ticket is my ruin. This is how the rich and famous fall.

We are greeted with Champagne. There is a pillow, blanket, but also a mattress pad. The first attendant is lovely, experienced, and professional. The second calls me love when she offers me a hot towel before our first meal. I want to put them both in my pocket and take them with me. Another side effect of the First Class ticket.

The captain announces that we’ll shave an hour off, making the 7 hour flight, only 6 hours. Which means, despite this beautiful first class seat, I will get no sleep unless I forgo the meals. And, dear reader, I will be damned.

Mom wants the last lobster so I take candied figs for dinner. Order a 15 year Scotch. Accept the pajamas offered to me and begin the first Harry Potter film. When the attendants ask, I tell them to wake me up for breakfast. I’ll sleep when I die.

Everything is so hard to eat. I have to give up on most of it. Then, the turbulence is so bad, it wouldn’t have mattered if the flight was three days long, there was never sleep in my cards.

Before landing, I go to the restroom to change back into my clothes, syringe my wisdom holes. Lo and behold, I start my period. This is a triple whammy folks: Recovery, Malnutrition, and Menstruation. But who’s keeping count? (I am)

I snag two pads from the airplane bathroom. It’ll have to do.

I get us out of the terminal, on a train to London city center. We spend the train ride booking a hotel. Find one in a residential neighborhood I remember from more than a decade prior.

We check-in to our hotel, expecting to only to drop off our backpacks and find our room is ready. Where some would take this opportunity to take a quick little power nap, we begin our first day of London as if we are already late for a very important date.

Per plans made in JFK, we start at the Tower of London, Just walking the perimeter and making our way to Tower Bridge. I give mom the spiel, this isn’t London Bridge. That extremely mundane bridge over there is London Bridge. In fact, the London Bridge before that bridge is in Arizona. She offers to pay to go into the Tower of London, and up in Tower Bridge but I act like I don’t care. Best to save money.

We begin the Queen’s walk and I get sidetracked in the Borough Market attempting to photograph a location from the Harry Potter movies (the second location to the Leaky Cauldron in the third movie). I lose the Queen’s walk (even though it’s just the path along the river.) Maybe we should find a metro station. Google says it’s a two mile walk to Buckingham palace where we expect to see the changing of the guards. Mom says she’s good to walk. How is she not exhausted. Is it just me?

I remind myself she doesn’t shed the lining of her uterus anymore. She has forgotten. Menstruation is another lifetime away. Much like my college travel enthusiasm, and my (once upon a time) willingness to jump from a plane, and my first marriage. A life time away. I don’t know that person and I couldn’t advise anyone like them, except to say, you idiot.

The two miles are long and not worth it. When we arrive at the Westminster Bridge, we take selfies with Big Ben, who is not under construction, and shines with a gold glimmer that I do not remember from before.

I want her to see Westminster Abbey. I remember it so fondly when I was here last. I think it will wow her.

It’s not that it doesn’t wow us. It’s just that if we stop, we will drop dead. Only one of us will acknowledge that. We keep moving. Just forty minutes until the Changing of Guards, and still twenty minutes to walk.

Mom has to use the bathroom. I panic. Bathrooms in England are tricky. There aren’t free public bathrooms. There aren’t bathrooms in every establishment. We find a public WC but it cost coins we don’t have. I have to accommodate mom. Also, survival means not stopping. I am so exhausted. Also, the Guards are about to change. Mom says she can wait.

When we arrive to Buckingham Palace, the crowds have already filled up the space along the fence. I can see more from the iPhone screens held high in front of me, than I can with my own two eyes, on my tippy toes. There is a band parading towards the Palace. There are tall furry black hats bobbing up and down, like ants over a landscape of heads, hair and hats.

Without a view, I’m uninterested. My toes can’t hold my body up and iPhones come and go; can not be relied upon. Mom and I decide to go find a bathroom. My withered mind deduces we can walk into a grocery store, use my single ten pound note to get change for the WC.

Next on our pre-decided itinerary, pre-arrival and pre-exhaustion, I will show her Trafalgar Square. On the way is another Harry Potter filming location: the Scottish Yard. If you’ve seen the movie, you’d recognize it as the location where Mr. Weasley takes Harry into the Visitor’s Entrance.

Onward.

Mom wants to walk into the National Gallery. When she expresses this, all I hear is, Mom wants to walk into an establishment where the only thing to do is to walk in convoluted circles. There is a moment when I think it is no longer free, panic. Mom figures out that I’m just panicking at the wrong entrance. We wait in line for our free entry, and I look up the things that I really want to see, so that the convoluted circles are kept to a minimum.

We make it inside. Hello, Van Gogh. Hello, Degas and Monet. Yes, a selfie with Bathers at Asnieres. Benches! Yes, a seat on a bench. Yes, benches. Yes, yes. Okay, Okay. I’ll keep going.

Mildly reinvigorated, I begin to look closely at the artists I know. I photograph the portions I love. Brush strokes, I’ll otherwise forget. We manage to go through most of the gallery and decide food must be had, or else.

Mom wants a classic pub. Fish and Chips. Easy. There is one around the corner. I order Bangers and Mash because I figure mash potatoes will be easy enough, and I really need protein. We order a pint with our meal. I might pass out. I could sleep in this pub booth. I could lay in the streets outside the Scottish Yard. Just let me sleep and dream of witches who can bring me back to my youth: getting no sleep in the economy class, napping on long train rides, and backpacking for days in dirty streets.

I tell mom, “I need a nap.”

I barely get us back to our hotel. Public Transit is using every ounce of mental ability I have. I put on my First Class eye mask and put in my First Class ear plugs. I do not change into my First Class pajamas, (yes, I have packed them off the plane).

I wake up three hours later. I syringe the mash from in my wisdom teeth holes.

Mom wants to ride a double decker bus so I google the bus routes to get us to Harrods.

The bus doesn’t disappoint. We ride in the front, on the second floor.

Harrods is another place that I remember loving, for some reason. It is an enormous, high-end (unaffordable) department store. I remember buying my mother a purse for Christmas but would not dream of it now. The prices are laughable. We peruse the beautiful and well organized sections: Toys, formal wear, housewares, luggage, chocolate, perfumes. We ride the escalators up the Egyptian Hall. There is Egyptian decor. I don’t know why. We visit the Harrods Gifts section, where we can buy souvenirs to commemorate the Store. Mom buys two 5£ chocolate bars, offers me one right away. It is not unlike Professor Lupin attempting to reinvigorate Harry after the dementors. The milk chocolate is very tasty but I can’t bite it off like normal. I must shave slivers off with my front teeth like a f*king chipmunk. When we leave, it is dark.

We take another double decker bus to Piccadilly Circus. I have memories of break dancers and other street performers drawing crowds so large, I had to step into the street to circumnavigate them. This time they are gone. It is still a sight to see, if sights like Times Square are things one wants to see.

I lead us to China Town. Mom wants food and we catch a small (very small, only two-table) restaurant just before they close. We split noodles and I am able to eat most of it.

We are close to one more filming location: Godricks Court. A narrow alley that inspired Diagon and Knockturn Alley. It is absolutely pitch black, and I will walk the length of it anyways. The bowing bay windows are so old, the glass panes have the ripple marks from where the glass blowers stick was attached. A fact I know only from an instagram reel.

When we arrive back to the hotel, I manage to speak with Josh briefly before crawling back in bed. Mom tells me we walked 13 miles. She says it like, we should be expecting trophies in the mail any day now. I hear it like, it is permission to finally stop moving.

Day two

I sleep almost 12 hours without a single moment of cognizance. Mom is surprised that she has as well.

It is 10 AM when we head to the British Museum. I am greeted with round two of the National Gallery panic. I thought the museum was free and yet they are checking for tickets at the front entrance. Mom is faring better than I, using her ears and her mind to deduce, that those without tickets are being directed around to the back of the building.

This is not a short walk. This is not a small building. In the back, we stand in line as bags are searched. I only have a Fanny pack so I am waved through. There is no grand entrance hall for the free entry. We are dropped into a room with no idea what we are looking at. The first thing I read is:

Funerals in northern Australia are concerned with both helping the dead on their journey to the next life and comforting those who mourn.
In eastern Arnhem Land, Aboriginal Australians practise rituals to ensure that the spirit makes a final transition to the land of the dead. In the last ritual, some years after the death, the dry bones are cleaned, painted with red ochre, and then broken and placed in a hollow log coffin. As this happens, relatives dance, acting out the soul’s hazardous journey to the land of the dead. They stand the coffin upright and leave it to be worn away by the weather. This ritual is now less common.

Ah, this is an exhibit on “Life and Death.”

The Hunt for the peyote
Each year, during the dry season, Huichol pilgrims travel long distances to the north-central desert of San Luis Potosí (Wirikúta) to collect the hallucinogenic peyote cactus. According to Huichol beliefs, peyote originally appeared on earth as a giant deer, and the quest for peyote resembles a hunting ritual. The pilgrims
‘kill’ the first peyote cactus gathered each year with a bow and arrow. Peyote ceremonies conducted by the shaman take place after the pilgrims’ return home.

I am learning, my father’s passion of hunting and drinking are older and (possibly) more spiritually connected than I realized.

Benin divination
Birds symbolise prophecy and appear on diviners’ staffs in Benin, Nigeria. The oba’s (king’s) power over destiny is celebrated at an annual ceremony by court officials who strike gongs in the form of birds.
This commemorates the sixteenth-century Oba Esigie, who was victorious in battle, despite his diviners’ warning that ‘birds of ill omen’ foretold disaster.
10 Cast-brass plaque and gong
Edo people, Benin, Nigeria,
16th/17th century

Ifa divination in Nigeria
Ifa priests advise their clients using divination that draws on the oral history and literature of the Yoruba people.
The priest holds sixteen sacred palm nuts in one hand and tries to grab them with the other. If either one or two nuts remain in one hand, the priest makes a mark on a sand-covered tray. These marks relate to particular sections of Odu Ifa – a vast body of oral literature that has sixteen principal sections, each with sixteen sub-sections.

Shona diviners in Zimbabwe
Shona diviners throw four inscribed tablets to diagnose their clients’ problems.
The carvings on these four dice represent old women, old men, young women and young men. There are sixteen possible throws that the diviner can make.
Each has a special meaning.
Like Ifa divination among the Yoruba of Nigeria, these tablets may have developed from khatt al-raml or’sand-writing.
This form of Islamic geomancy, practised for at least seven centuries, also depends on interpreting sixteen signs.

I am learning, that life, when it is not thinking about death, is obsessed with predicting the future, as if death is not surest bet.

Demons of disease
An all night exorcism ceremony performed by an exorcist, actors and drummers is designed to control a demon that is disrupting a person’s internal balance.
A crowd gathers and the patient’s family joins in the dramatic and often comic spectacle. Offerings are made to Buddhist deities for protection and masked actors dance one by one in front of the patient.
The mask that provokes a response indicates which demon is present.
The demon is challenged and forced to accept a gift from the patient.
This breaks the connection between them.

I am learning, that confronting demons is as simple as gathering all your loved ones, and dancing.

African textiles as historical documents
The Ethiopian altar cloth (11) was woven in’ the 1700s from imported Chinese silk. Its makers may have been Jewish weavers from the Yemen commissioned by the Ethiopian Orthodox Christian church. Today Ethiopia continues to be involved in a global network of trade.
Making and trading cloth has been vital to African life and culture for at least 2000 years. Textile patterns, materials and means of production can reveal much about a particular moment in history.
Textiles may also chart the movements and migrations of people over a much longer period. They tell not only of trade within the continent, but also of Africa’s long engagement with other parts of the world. Textiles offer a means of recording significant events, or of communicating important political or social information.

I am learning, those who have wisdom will put it into anything. I am waiting for mention of teeth. Who first put wisdom in teeth.

3 Ntomo Society Mask
Wood and metal
Bamana people, Mali, 20th century This mask was used in Ntomo society ceremonies associated with the progression of young Bamana boys into adulthood. Traditionally Bamana children are believed to be born androgynous.
A man must pass through six different initiation societies to prepare him for his later life. It is only when these ceremonies and rituals are complete that boys attain their full male status. The number of horns indicates whether a Ntomo society mask is androgynous, female or male.

I am learning, we all wear masks and by our masks, we reach our fullness.

Power figures (minkisi)
Wood, iron, textile and resin, with encrusted patina
Kongo people, Democratic Republic of the Congo, 19th century
Figures of this kind acted as containers of power and could be used to help solve problems of health, wealth and good fortune, or to catch thieves or witches.
Powerful substances are concealed in the belly and head. To provoke the figures to action, they might be insulted, gunpowder might be exploded before them, or metal driven into their bodies.

I am learning, the pain I feel may just be a provocation to action. A pus pocket, to eradicate wisdom. A means to catch a thief. A catalyst for good fortune.

I take my mom to the central atrium. There is food, souvenirs, and bathrooms. After a coffee and a slice of cake (cause with wisdom gone, this is an acceptable breakfast) I take mom to see the big ticket items: the Parthenon frieze and the Rosetta Stone.

How has Britain not returned any of this yet? I wonder if it has anything to do with Brexit. I want to create a soap opera in my mind, dwell on the injustice, but ultimately, it’s not my baby—a phrase I have stolen from a friend who recently gave birth.

I photograph the marble tushes and phallus. I make note of how many limbs and heads of the statues are still in their Greek home. Maybe one day, I will see them and can play some role in relaying messages between the parts.

We continue upstairs but are already waning. We are crescent moons, slivering through curated rooms.

The Lindow Man gives me pause. In a glass box with two walls and a roof, the eerie remains of a man found in an English peat bog is shaded from even the dim museum lighting. His face is flattened, barely more than a relief, resembling Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.”

I have watched a handful of shows about this man, also known as Pete Marsh. Also known as Lindow II, implying there was a Lindow I or III. I feel I know Pete now, the way you watch a TV personality and start thinking about them as though they are close friends. 

My friend, the Lindow man, is only a torso. The men who discovered him, cut him in half while commercially cutting peat. Discovery and Destruction. For my friend to stay whole, would be to stay hidden forever. There is a fork in the road between fame and forgotten. Rest In Fame, Pete.

A google search tells me The Lindow Woman, Lindow I, was mishandled by the police. All that remains of her, is the bony skull fragments, of which were used to date her to the roman occupation of Britain. This tracks, I think, as I bleed into airline maxi pads.

It’s another double decker bus to the nearest stop to Camden Market. We walk past graffiti, shops with giant VANS on the facade, and a window filled with Rock’N’ Roll saints: Taylor Swift touches her bleeding heart with her left hand, and holds her right up to bless the viewer.

Officially in the market, we see rows and rows of vendors weave endlessly on top of each other. I do not remember it being this big. To my recollection, it was a single street, but this is alleyways, and tunnels, and nooks and crannies filled to the brim.

 Mom finds hot-wheel double decker buses with built in pencil sharpeners for her grandsons. I find a print of the Last Supper, where the disciples look an awful lot like David Bowie, and Prince, Amy Winehouse, and Kurt Cobain. 

We happen across the Coyote Ugly bar, glimpse the dancers on bar tops. We find food, dumplings for me. I nibble some more Harrod’s Chocolate. 



We take the bus to a tourist trap. It is a “free” view of London, from the Sky Garden, or Horizon 22, or something like that. Which ever one is still open now. When we arrive, we are told to wait thirty minutes and come back to a separate entrance, at which there is a sign that informs us the cost of entry is a $22 cocktail. 

Which is to say, it is not free. And out of spite, we do not come back.

We walk to St. Pauls Cathedral. I know it will be closed when we get there but the walk is eventful in its own right. We are passing through the business district of London at rush hour. Suits and Business Casual dresses are flocking to pubs. Flocking. There is no room to walk. Pints are inhabiting a decent portion of the real estate on the sidewalk, some suits holding two at a time. 

St. Paul’s dome greets us over the sea of pub goers.


Mom wishes we could have gone inside. I wish I had know she wanted to. The staircase to the top is a filming location for the Harry Potter movies. We walk across the Millennium bridge and I think about the part in the Harry Potter movie where it twists and breaks. Will I ever be able to look at this city without thinking of muggles? On the other side, there are steps down to the Thames at low tide. I look for rocks to take home with me. I find some smooth stones, and hardened wood, and even bones. I can’t help but think these artifacts could be from yester-day, or yester-millenia. 

We continue the queens walk, this time to its end.

Fatigue and injury slow us down and keep us quiet. Mom says her knee is acting up. I’m hearing that we have over done it, but mom would never admit to ever being over done. Regardless of what we are willing to admit, we hardly stop to take a photo of the London Eye. 

It is a beeline via the Queen’s Walk to the nearest metro that will take us to our hotel. We stop by a Sainsbury Local to gather snacks for our train ride in the morning. I grab a bakery item labeled Yum Yum Sticks then, promptly pass out in the Bayswater Inn for the last time.

Day three

We get up too early, per usual. We arrive at Kings Cross before we can enter the platform. I think to look for the Harry Potter prop: the luggage cart in the brick wall at the (incorrectly placed) Platform 9 and 3/4. I saw it the first time I was in London. It was tucked away, away from the real platforms. A very silly thing that I remember being disappointed by the first time. Since the unstoppable expanse of the franchise, the luggage cart now resides next to a gift shop. It is installed each morning at precisely 8 am inside a roped off area, where a line of sorted wizards may form. Now, they take your photo and sell you a print as you exit the area through the gift shop.

I am too old for this shit. But I also can’t…not.

Our early arrival gets us second in line. I am instructed to point my wand at the wall, hold my foot up and smile for the camera as an assistant makes my Hufflepuff scarf “blow” in the wind. I do not buy this photo but settle for mom’s phone capture. I do buy a souvenir train ticket for Platform 9 and 3/4 because that’s actually kind of cool…nevermind. There is no recovery from this.

The train is boarding at the very platform that is filmed in the movie, between 4 and 5. Our seat, however, is facing backwards and doesn’t have a window. We’ve technically reserved it, but there are seats available that face forward and have windows. I ask Mom to move with me. It is not something I would do normally. The pressure of the obligation to sit in our reserved seats and suffer is there, but it is weaker than it one was. I am taking advantage of this apathy or reasoning, which ever it is.

The train ride turns out to be uneventful. The scenery is forgettable after an hour or so. I listen to a book, when mom and I are not playing Texas Hold’em.

We eat our snacks. The Yum Yum sticks are like a croissant had a baby with a donut and I eat the entire package. I am nervous about the olives, though. Maybe they should have been refrigerated. I eat them regardless but don’t finish them off. As if only a portion will be safe, but the whole would kill me for sure.

Edinburgh greets us quietly. I google how to get to our hostel and can’t find the metro. Or the bus stop. Right, there is no metro. I don’t know how to do the things. Mom is staring at me and I can’t handle it.

“I don’t know!” I say with a little too much venom.

Mom suggests we ask someone.

The Scottish accent of a ticket counter woman is difficult to decipher. I’m already hard of hearing, speaking through small holes in glass, and I’m exhausted. The lady repeats herself 3 times. I finally look at mom who heard the first time, “There are no tickets, just hop on a bus and tap to pay.”

Which sort of answers the question, if the question was how do we buy a ticket. But in my head, the question is how do I get to where I am going?

We walk away as if we have all the answers we need. The walk would only be 20 minutes but mom is insisting we not walk everywhere. Her knee must really be bothering her.

Once again, I’m trying to figure out which bus, which stop, and why google keeps telling me to hop on an airport shuttle. F*k it, we’ll wait for the airport shuttle.

We miss the airport shuttle. We, also, miss the number 31. I seriously should not be in charge of navigation any more. We catch the number 14, and I watch our moving dot on the maps like it can’t be trusted. I refrain from getting off a stop early, an urge that stems from a fear that I don’t understand which stops belong to which routes, and what if the stop I think we need is, in fact, not a stop, and when we pass it by, the bus will continue on for miles and we will have to find another bus back to a non-existent stop. But the stop is real, and is really and truly just across the street from our hostel.

Mom finally lies her eyes on her first hostel establishment. And if I may say so, it is a fine specimen. There is a buzzer at the door, a cork board inside the foyer for events around town and a whatsapp group chat. A vanity with hairdryers welcomes us to the communal area at the top of the stairs. There is a woman making her own smoothies, and another woman corralling us to the front desk where we check in. This same woman gives us the tour: the shared kitchen, the rules, the community refrigerator, the labels for the food we store inside it. The commual bathrooms, the dorms, the bunk beds (some draped in towels concealing sleeping persons). Mom widens her eyes at me. This is possibly (definitely) more than she bargained for.

She remembers stories of hostels in my wandering youth. I think she thought they were fun. And they can be fun, but mostly they are cheap. Bare minimum accommodations. This is a weird bucket list item, even by her standards. At least, I do not say this aloud, she is not staying here after the movie Hostel has just come out. And she has a bed in an all female dorm. I have the last available bed in a mixed dorm.

We leave our things and head out towards the Edinburgh Castle. We make it a block when I realize I’ve left my passport in my jacket. I know it’s safe. I know it. Would put money on it. But the way my mom looks at me as if I already told her I’ve lost it…it makes me wonder if the universe would be cruel enough to prove me wrong. Lose all my money, on top of losing my passport.

There are worse places to be stuck.

We turn around and, surprise, the passport is right where I left it.

We head to the castle for a second time. We walk because I do not have the mental fortitude to attempt a bus route again.

We buy tickets when we arrive, at the top of a very high hill. The grounds are a self guided situation. Turns out I do not have the fortitude for asking for a map either. Instead I pick up an abandoned map in Spanish. So what if I can’t read it, I can see that the path we are on will spiral to the left and that’s honestly all I wanted to know.

We spiral all the way to the top. There is a museum of the Scottish jewels. We wait in line, and find that even upon entry, the line never ends. It is a crawling queue that winds through this ancient building. There are museum plaques, diorama’s, and paintings on the wall. It’s underwhelming and when we get to the jewels, we must move at a brisk pace, as if lingerers get shot.

We exit through a gift shop. Mom buys scotch for my brother and I buy Scottish Gin for Josh. Inexplicably.

We explore a few more buildings but since we aren’t into war and monarchies, we find ourselves mostly moving along. The prison barracks are set up like a diorama. Audio plays as if the barracks are full of men. I’m sure it was filled with dissenters and dysentery but it actually looks very cute and fun with its hammocks slung in crisscrossing patterns. Conversations with new found friends would be so easy. Prison wouldn’t be that bad.

I grab a coffee and a slice of cake before the Castle Cafe closes and we head towards the royal mile.

I find a wool scarf for Josh, something he has been hunting for since before Amsterdam. We wander down and barely don’t catch a church before it closes. We continue and spot a street performer closing his act. We stop at the Worlds’ End and snag the last table. Order Haggis fritters, chips and a scotch. Watch the waiters turn everyone else away. “Sorry, we are taking no more reservations.”

When we get our food, I want a water and ask what I owe. The handsome Scot tells me, “this isn’t England. Water is free.”

I am charmed. This is how to charm me. Give me free water, and make a jab at those who charge for water. The scotch gives me either bravery or apathy to attempt the bus routes back to our hostel.

The unwillingness of us both to walk a mere miles, shows we are withering at a rapid pace. Our original plan is to leave Scotland and go to Rome to meet Jenny and her father for a last hoorah before she moves to Florida for the Pilot’s Academy. Mom is still under the delusion we can do this. I know in my bones, I will not survive it. I talk mom into going home instead. With flights booked, and the sun mostly set, we part our ways to our prospective bottom bunks.

Day four

I, miraculously, wake up before my alarm. It’s not the most glorious of miracles. I wake up several times in the night, and promptly fall back asleep. When it is 6 am and I haven’t heard from mom yet, I give up and resolve to make some coffee in the communal kitchen.

Which is locked.

No big deal, there are coffee shops.

A Black Sheep Coffee shop draws me in. It’s fancy like a Starbucks. I get the impression this is a UK chain. “Fire and Rain” is playing over the intercom and I am overcome with emotion. My late father is present, here in Black Sheep Coffee. How has he found me all the way in Edinburgh. I hold back tears as I browse the pastries.

A Scottish man at the counter asks me a question in a strong accent. I assume the content of his question. Tell him, I want a black coffee. Another question, and after a minute of processing, I answer, “Yes, I’ll drink it here.”

As James Taylor fades to another American song, I can finally appreciate how handsome the barista is. He is trainspotting-meets-Victor-Krum handsome. How are all the Scots so handsome.

I take my coffee to the window and watch Edinburgh wake up. I write in the notes app on my phone so I don’t forget this is where my father made an appearance. Where a Scot saw my eyes tear up, and probably asked me questions I didn’t answer, and still gave me a sweet smile with my coffee.

When my mother wakes up, I tell her where I am. I watch her cross the busy street to the coffee shop. We leave for our bus tour when I finish my coffee. I wouldn’t dream of missing the very specific meeting time but getting the buses wrong. We will walk.

We have still managed to arrive too early so go around the corner to another Sainsbury’s. They do not have the delicious Yum Yum sticks I found at the previous store, and when we run out of time, I panic-choose granola bars.

Our Highlands tour guide, Anthony, greets us as we board the bus. Asks us where we are from. I say America, and he rolls his eyes. “Of course you’re American, what state?”

While we drive out of the city, Anthony plays bagpipe versions of songs, like Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing.” He tells us every song we will hear on the tour will be, in some way, connected to Scotland.

Things Anthony teaches us:

Kelpies, will eat you, spit your liver on the shore. Their appearance in the Scottish landscape is a sign of the regeneration of the area.

If you see a handsome Scotsman, it is a kelpie. Handsome Scots do not exist. Scotland is a weathered nation.

I make a note that I have encountered a lot of kelpies so far.

Our first stop is Kilmahog, where we are given strict instructions to order our breakfast first, visit the bathrooms while we wait for our food, and then stop by the Hairy Coos at the edge of the parking lot. Do not let the coos distract us from food or we will go hungry or get left if we do not return to the bus on time. Mom and I follow the instructions to the T. I ask for a breakfast sandwich and let mom pick the meat for us to share. She picks bacon, which is the hardest thing for me to eat. I will tear it apart for the next two hours.

“1000 miles” by The Proclaimers plays.

There on the right at Dune Castle, is the filming site for the coconuts scene in Monty Python.

The “outdoor club” on Loch Lomond is a nudist club. We’ve been warned.

A song plays, says the dead will take the low road home. I think of my father. It is the called the “Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond” and is actually about brothers fighting over who will sacrifice their life for the other. Here in Scotland, it is played at the end of every wedding. I’m reminded of my husband and I, almost having our first dance to “No Children” by the Mountain Goats.

Never trust a Campbell (my mom leans over and says that is her mother’s maiden name).

When it rains, Glencoe fills with waterfalls. It is nicknamed the Weeping Glen, for the massacre of Glencoe. “Cruel is the snow in grave Glencoe.”

The short stop at the bottom of the Glencoe mountain pass is just a photo op. We are warned to not cross the bridge to where the lambs are. It’s very important we do not threaten the mothers, because they will abandon their lambs. We snap photo images of the most photographed house at the bottom of Glencoe. We watch other tour buses flock over the bridge, towards the lambs. I want to leave. I don’t want to see mother’s abandon their children all because idiots think a digital cube in their iCloud is worth it.

The Scots love Braveheart, even if it got everything wrong. William Wallace will forever inspire a Scot.

We stop at Fort William for lunch. Most of the bus flocks to a large restaurant on main street, but after sitting for twenty minutes without so much as a water, Mom and I decide we don’t have time and don’t want to risk not getting food. We walk back down towards the bus stop and find a sandwich shop. I eat soup, and because mom can’t find anything, she gets a cheese scone. The soup is divine and it’s the first I’ve had something easy to eat here. Every meal has been difficult.

We finally arrive at Glenfinnan Viaduct and Loch Shiel at just past 1 PM. Anthony tells us, the Jacobite train will come around 3 PM. Our bus will leave at 3:25 PM. If the walk to see the train at the viaduct is twenty minutes, and the train is 6 minutes late, we will live here now.

Mom and I start at Loch Shiel. It is a beautiful landscape. Yes, it is most often associated with the site of the Black Lake in the Harry Potter films. And it is why I have come, but it is also a stunning landscape. It’s beach is made from rocks that sparkle like diamonds. I try to capture the glitter effect on my phone. I pick up the rocks and inspect them. They are like sea shells or pearlescent limestone. Magical.

The walk to the viaduct has flickers of birds that I’ve never seen, and try to identify them with my Merlin ID app. stay and risk missing the bus, but we will hike where the crowds are posted on the hillside, get a photo of the viaduct from above, and then walk back down to the viewing platform much, much closer to the parking lot.

We are in position to see the Jacobite, with Loch Shiel at our backs by 3 PM. The train is more than ten mintues late but finally comes and there is no steam from its engine. It looks to be a normal train. Which is fine, because I’ve already grieved the fact that we waited too long, and tickets for the Jacobite train were booked two months out. This guided bus tour with Anthony was the next best thing. At least now I know that as the Jacobite crossed over the Viaduct, there was no horn sounded, and no steam blown. I missed no magic.

The journey back to Edinburgh is less eventful. Anthony is honest with us, we should probably sleep. I could sleep, but Anthony tells us, we may have a rare view of Ben Nevis on the way back through Fort William. It is the tallest mountain in Scotland and its name means “head in the clouds.” Welp, permission to sleep is not granted.

A Scottish “Wagon Wheel” plays.

It’s not that Braveheart was accurate, it was that Braveheart gave the Scots their pride again. It came out around the same time as Trainspotting, which was an accurate portrayal of a very real aids and heroine epidemic in Scotland. When Braveheart came out, the tourism that flooded the country, helped to regenerate wealth in the area. Harry Potter has done the same.

We stop at a small town called Pitlochry. It is famed for its scotch-infused ice cream, which I would have tried, had I not snatched ice cream from the gift shop at the Viaduct before returning to the bus. Mom gets a slice of Pizza, offers me some. Pizza is another very difficult thing for me to eat. I tell her to eat as much as she wants and let me know when she’s done. She eats it all. When I point it out, she laughs, apologizes. Says she thought I didn’t want any.

I wonder what bus load of tourists has come too close to me, and caused my mother to abandon me. I will go without food, except I have a granola bar in my purse from the Sainsbury this morning. It takes me an hour to eat it all. I reward myself with almost the last of the Harrods chocolate.

We arrive back in Edinburgh after our 12 hour guided trip through the Highlands. Anthony tells us all the reasons to move to Scotland.

Residents get free prescriptions. Children get free education, and public transportation until they are 22. And we will be welcomed with open arms by the Scots, because we picked Scotland…and not England.

I will move to Scotland right away. It has been my favorite landscape. If compared to Banff, it is these mountains turned to soft rolling hills, weathered by storms that I prefer. It is the quiet magic of the Highlands that I needed. It is the people that have rose from the ashes of their own fires, and regenerated on the banks of the rivers from their own chewed up livers. I can see why my father has come here, too.

Our tour ends at 8 PM, twelve hours after it began. Mom and I don’t have time to have a pint and reminisce. We don’t have time to discuss how we walked over 100,000 steps; more than 30 miles on our trip so far. Mom and I have booked our way home via Dublin and our RyanAir flight leaves at 7 am. My night will be interrupted by a frenchman who clambers into the bunk above me at 1 AM, talks in his sleep. We will wake up at 4 AM, neither of us having slept and me with a throat so sore it hurts to swallow. We will catch a 5 AM bus to the Edinburgh airport. I will complain about how they do not disclose gates until boarding times. How can I Lay Eyes On The Gate?

I will notice a sore on my thumb that has not healed at a normal rate. I will forgive my body for prioritizing it last, for I have put it through so much in the last couple of weeks. We will land in Dublin and go through security and customs again. We will then be pre-screened for customs in the US. I will order a Guinness and a blueberry danish at our gate. Mom will buy a fridge magnet for Ireland as if we have stayed for more than a one hour layover. We will get the next to last two seats on our flight to the States. Our original flight to Cincinnati will fill up, but we will get seats on a flight to Lexington.

Waiting to board, I will call Jenny, who is hanging out in the Admirals club at the same airport, waiting for her plane to go to Rome. I’ll confess to her, I’m a shell of a human and can not fathom another international flight, and more international public transit. I’ll apologize. And if I were to be honest, I would tell her that I’ve been to Rome and it doesn’t hold a candle to Scotland.

Our Lexington-bound plane will return to the gate for maintenance and we will barely get the last two seats to Louisville. My friend C.D. Hunt will pick us up, and mom will chat her ear off all the way home. Tell her how we almost didn’t get home (a fact I have already forgotten the stress of, and completely glossed over). Chas will applaud my mother for doing things that her mother would never do.

I will miss Scotland, and will vow to return as soon as I can, even if only in death. I will take the low road if I have to. I will put it in my will, to cut out my heart and carry it to the top of Ben Nevis, head in the clouds, at peace at last, my brave, brave heart.