Better Late Than Never?

I owe my sincerest apologies for such a long, 6-month-or-so absence. Life, it seems, has decided to abruptly sweep me off my feet...or, rather, an Englishman named Andrew has! So many people have been asking about everything that's been going on since our engagement last October and I thought this might be the easiest way to give an update, so here's a nutshell version for all of our friends around the world:


Andrew and I met when I first arrived at the University of York in October of 2010. In fact, he was the first  person I met (God has an interesting way of making great stories happen in our lives before we can even possibly begin to realize it) when my supervisor brought me to see him rehearse in the concert hall. He was in a dress rehearsal for a concert of music by Strozzi and Monteverdi...anyone who knows me would agree I should've known then and there that I'd fall hopelessly in love with the man. But it was a long time before our sweet friendship turned wholesomely, and beautifully into the romance of our lifetimes. We became colleagues and friends first, and over the course of a thrilling academic year I came to wholly respect and admire his musicianship, leadership, and utter selflessness in his caring for literally everyone. I had never met someone that I couldn't keep up with before, let alone who could really keep up with me...what a fun challenge, I thought : ) But it hasn't been a challenge, it has been a thrill, and our lives have found the most wonderful pace now that they are woven together and heading in one common direction toward marriage and our future. August was our beginning, and by October we were engaged. Life has been the most beautiful whirlwind imaginable since then. When Andrew asked me to marrry him he took me at midnight to Hexham Abbey, the church where he grew up singing as a chorister and playing organ. He'd convinced me that we couldn't get in any earlier to tune a harpsichord he needed to play the next day, but once we were alone inside he convinced me he couldn't concentrate and would I follow him up these long, winding, spiral steps so he could show me something. Up we climbed, high above the rafters of this incredible abbey, basically inside of the organ all the way to the top. From up there you could see everything. It was exquisite, especially in the dim light of autumn midnight. A used to climb around up there when he was a little boy. I had told him that if he was going to propose to me I wanted him to ask me somewhere that meant a lot to him, since so much of England was all still foreign to me then. He sat me down on a box, and when I looked up he was down on one knee in front of me. From there I can't tell you much, because I honestly went slightly into shock and I have NO IDEA what he said! I was able to snap out of my shock enough to hear a few key things near the end, enough to be sure of what was happening. The proposal was perfect, the first ever up inside the organ at the Abbey. The next night the Abbey congratulated us by offering us a complimentary evening with a private spot in the choir stalls to hear Stile Antico sing a candlelight concert. You should've seen this diamond sparkle while we sat there listening to Palestrina and basking in the loveliness of it all...I never truly understood how diamonds could be a girl's best friend until that evening :p

Driving down the road to Devon, our (crosses fingers) future home

Wild horses in Devon

The last 6 months have been a gorgeous whirlwind. We've traveled around the country together, seen all sorts of incredible things. One special trip took us to visit Andrew's maternal grandparents down in Devonshire. I always wondered what it would feel like when you find the place you want to live the rest of your life. First, I found Andrew. All I knew then was that wherever he goes I want to go too, and then came Devon. There are palm trees in Devon. I kid you not, there are palm trees in England! There are quaint amusement parks with steam engine trains and peacocks, there are moors and dales to climb on where you can just walk up and pet wild, wandering horses, France is just across these exquisite harbors on the English channel that light up at night with fairy lights along the water and the tied up boats. It is paradise to me. The docks smell like homemade sugared doughnuts even in wintertime when those summer stalls are tucked away for the season. We've been dreaming about settling there to one day start a family ever since, but all in time, and first there is a PhD and a second masters to finish in York, and we are so blessed and happy to be living in our gorgeous little studio flat here, just a few minutes walk from campus, and a short hop into the city centre we both still love.

A weekend or two after our engagement took us on
our first visit to Granny Rita and Grandad in Devon where this photo was taken

Now, I feel truly guilty for neglecting to respond to a treasured teacher's request to know more about Christmas in  York. I let the busy music/performing season and a choir tour of England get the best of me, and my chance to blog slipped by, so, Mr. Denis, this is for you. Better late than never? 

Last year I posted here ( Christmas 2010 post ) about a Christmas/Advent experience I had in York. The season is indescribably beautiful. All of York begins to celebrate the holidays far earlier than they/we do in America. When I first arrived here I noticed it straightaway, and almost immediately knew I had come to the right place, because I LOVE Christmas. Americans get upset when holiday music plays on the radio before Thanksgiving...in York Christmas decor is out and the preparations for the season begin even before Halloween. I, personally, think it's wonderful! The real intense stuff like Christmas fayres, etc...doesn't come 'til much later, and I suppose that is what's really worth writing home about : ) This year York put on a gorgeous Christmas fayre in December, which came just days after the St. Nicholas Fayre and Market, and according to the press "It's official - York is now the most Christmassy place in Britain." We took a few pictures of the city centre in York to show you what it looked like in 2011: 

I may be too scared to drive here for now, but
I love filling up the car despite the expensive cost in £ (eek!)

Outside of York Christmas was in full swing as well. Andrew and I have the advantage of having a car (although I'm still too chicken to drive on the "wrong" side), so we get to go exploring all sorts of places together outside of the city, in various English counties, which I've decided are divided up geographically around the country kind of like states are in the US. Each one has its unique characterictistics and flavors, some are far more attractive than others, some much more industrialized, others purely pastoral. This year we ventured about an hour and a half outside of the city to a tiny village called Grassington. Now, Grassington re-defines middle of nowhere. Going there was one of the loveliest drives I've ever been on, literally in the seemingly middle of nowhere. There was the occasional farmhouse but for the most part there is nothing at all until, at long last, you arrive. What brought us there, you ask? The Grassington Dickensian Festival, celebrating its 30th Anniversary year! Check it out here: Grassington Festival  Essentially the villagers all come out and dress up on three Saturdays during the month of December. There are all kinds of wonderful events, but mostly everyone walks about singing and drinking mulled wine, and all in Victorian costume a la Charles Dickens (hence the festival name of course). When Andrew and I arrived things were winding down, but the first thing we saw were three school-aged boys in full costume singing songs from "Oliver" and shaking a tin can to earn some money. I could have pinched myself. In fact, I might have. There were barrels of fired coal placed all around the village to offer the relief of some fire warmth from the freezing cold temperatures. The pictures on their website are far better than mine came out in the dark but I'll post a few anyway. 

Andrew getting a very hot cuppa hot chocolate from a Dickensian

One of the lit barrels in the village to warm our hands

Throw in a lot of adventures over a few wonderful months, a trip to America to meet the family (!), a Messiah tour around England with our new harpsichord (!!!) and that, my friends, is the last few months in a nutshell! Oh, and I got my Masters degree in January too : ) I promise I'll do better and write more frequently again soon. So much to share - finishing up this second masters in creative writing, planning a wedding in Northumberland! And we're off to France next week for a Valentines/Birthday trip! Believe me, the posts will definitely come. Is it fair to be so happy? : ) 

Finally, a few other pictures from the beginning of 2012, and our first snowfalls in Hexham (where Andrew grew up) and in York just this week!

Our car, and the view from the Passmore household in Hexham...if you look close
you can see the Abbey where Andrew proposed to me in the distance

Sheep fields : )

St. Andrew's Church, Corbridge, where we'll be married December 29th this year!

A snowy Clifford's Tower (medieval castle ruins) in York city centre

The walled city of York in the snow

Wintery Walmgate

A beautiful house on our road, made even more lovely beneath the snowfall

One masters degree - check!

A Lollipop and Some Confetti

Just when I feared my blog was at risk of falling out of use the last seven days happened. I don't even know where to begin to describe the week, except to say that since my Nana passed away just over a month ago things have come to pass that were entirely unexpected, and it seemed to play itself out in a whirlwind this week. It all started with a lollipop and some confetti:

Those of you who've known me for some time probably know that my Nana and I were very close my whole life. She wasn't just the warm, loving matriarch of our family; she was also my confidant, playmate, and fellow mischief monger. We are utterly connected, and as we grew older together she was ever embracing more and more of her childlike self, so that we could meet somewhere in the middle and playfully embrace life together every perfect time we had the chance. This meant things like sneaking out of the house with my Poppop at 11:00 at night to get late-night cheesecake at 24-hour diners, sitting on the couch nibbling entire boxes of cellas together, a lifetime of trying to sneak an early peek at unopened Christmas presents, and whimsical days of eating popcorn and gawking at cute boys at Circuses. My spirit, I think, is somehow infused with much of her own. I've never taken it lightly that my middle name is hers, that in a family of hazel, green, and brown eyes both of ours are blue. 

You might also know, or you might not, that my Nana loved to try to sneak trinkets and silly things out of restaurants and diners...forks, salt shakers, sugar packets, etc...completely harmless but it always earned her a good scolding from all of us. Additionally, and more immediately important for the sake of this post, she also tended to ask for sweets every time we went anywhere. This could be candy, or ice cream, or cheesecake, but probably more than the others she always wanted to be rewarded with a lollipop, like a child who's behaved well at their doctor or dentist appointment. Now, I'm not an especially superstitious person, but literally since the moment she passed away last month I have been finding lollipops everywhere. And I don't really eat candy, but these lollipops keep showing up everywhere I go. More significantly they're usually dum-dums, and I don't even know if they sell those in England. Yet, every couple of weeks or so I find one lying on the ground, once on the floor in front of my bedroom door at my flat. The day my Nana passed away my Aunt found one lying on the ground next to the car door at our usual diner.

As if all of this wasn't enough then came the confetti. The day I got home to England after flying back to America for the funeral, I dropped my suitcase onto the floor and collapsed onto my bed after a long, physically and emotionally draining journey, and as I turned over onto my side I saw a tiny glimmer next to my eye on the pillow where I was resting my head. I sort of sat up to look at it, and lying there on the pillow was a single piece of golden confetti, in the shape of a graduation cap. The sequence of events here is significant for the skeptics amongst us...I simply walked in the door, set my bags down on the floor about five feet away, and laid down in bed. And there was a piece of confetti on the middle of my pillow that I am certain was not there when I left...as it turns out, it is identical to the confetti my family used at my baby cousin's high school graduation party in Long Island, New York, a couple of weeks before Nana left us. If it is all merely coincidence and nothing more then it's a lovely one that makes me smile, but for me these lollipops and that tiny piece of confetti have been the kisses on the cheek I miss most about her. They've meant feeling like she's with me when I need her most, as if to assert that she's not far away, that it's all going to be ok. The family is going to be ok. And that's where all of this starts. 

Blissful afternoon in Edinburgh, eating ice cream at the park with friends

I think the best way to do this is to explain the timeline of a few events: I woke up on Monday morning in York, went to sleep on Monday and Tuesday night in Edinburgh, Scotland. I was back to sleep in York on Wednesday and Thursday, and on Friday I was sleeping on a bus that was taking me all the way to London through the night, and then on to Paris. By Saturday afternoon I'd spent some time in Paris, and by Saturday night I was in Vernon, sleeping just a couple of miles from Giverny, where Claude Monet once painted his waterlilies. On Sunday morning I woke up to French bread and coffee, went to Monet's jardins et maison for a brief but breathtaking visit, walked through the Impressionists' Museum gardens, and then got into the car and headed to spend the next couple of days in a beautiful seaside town in the north of France called Honfleur. Apparently it is a very popular tourist spot with the Brits. Monday night I got onto a train and made my way to the outskirts of Paris to sleep in a beautiful flat in the business district. I woke up on Tuesday morning in Paris, made my way via the Metro to the bus station, drove through the afternoon to Calais, boarded a ferry, made it back to London by early evening, waited anxiously for a few hours in Victoria Station, and by 5 am on Wednesday morning I was back sleeping in my bed in York. Wow? Wow.

Now, I do have the most insatiable appetite for travel ever, but even for me this week was, quite simply, nuts. But the thing is, I feel like it's expected of me, kind of like the torch has been passed on or something (admittedly silly) like that. My Nana's story is built on the greatest love story I've ever heard. It's the greatest love story most people have ever heard. Just ask and I'll tell you sometime. I just keep thanking God because I don't know what else to make of all this, for every perfect day that I get to savour. Who knows if my own will be a love story, but these days I can feel my roots spreading out, soaking up rain and planting themselves right where I am in the soil of a story that is beginning to brew beneath the surface of my life, and whether it turns out to be a love story or not it will be my story, and so far it is turning out to be indescribably beautiful...

This is all stirring up so much poetry in me :)

Finding Aengus

 




















Looking deep into orange shadows

 cast in the glow of dying embers and cooling ash,

anyone, lulled, would be drifting to sleep,

but I must tell you, first,

before I, sinking, seek you

in the delicate hush of my dreams,

that today, when I was with you,

for the first time found a hazel wood,

felt breathlessly alive in its fragrant breeze.

I've ached all my life for this place we passed by,

pitifully wandering while ages of apple blossoms 

withered in my sea-salted hair and died.

But today, as if it no longer wanted to hide,

there it was on the road, quelling my thirst

like a kiss long desired.

And perhaps it would matter little 

but as I felt my spirit flying off into the wind,

clinging only to the shiver of your eyes fixed on me,

I recognized the heavy branches of my secret forest,

saw its aged sign peeking out behind fruit-laden trees,

and just then came floating in my ravished mind

welcome thoughts of one day waking to the only

thing now left in this world worth seeking:

I would not ask you to be for me the sky,

no matter if we are old or young,

only to simply, when the time is right,

kiss my lips and take my hands,

and as the hazel wood beside me, 

forevermore be. 

Waiting

 

It might be wasteful to write

of ticking clocks,

or even to notice midnight falling

on fields of forgotten slippers

waiting to be found.

Still, tonight,

when the lights go out,
and the bells start to toll,
a girl will find her arms reaching for heaven,
thanking God for blankets of rain.
Wrapping up 'til her skin is drunk,
she'll sit someplace
perfect - alone -
drowning in torrents of teardrops,
hiding in the downpour
so they can't see her cry.
Somewhere there is an empty slipper
made of glass, expecting to shatter

when the clock strikes twelve.

She knows he'll come save her...

Maybe tomorrow.


A lot of the time the poetry I write tends to be a reaction to emotional experiences. This time it's admittedly a bit sad, maybe a bit lonelier than usual, but the story isn't quite as autobiographical as many of the others tend to be. It was a reaction, however - this time to a moment I experienced a little over a week ago. My Nana, one of the greatest loves of my life, passed away and I was flying home to America for a few to days, to be with my family and say goodbye. I hadn't really been able to cry since I got the phone call, aside from a few moments when I was alone packing in my room and felt a few solitary sobs escape. One such instance struck me on the plane, just as we were taking off. Knowing the meltdown couldn't happen there, surrounded by strangers, I turned my eyes to the window and found it completely covered in raindrops. Suddenly the tears dripping down my cheeks felt tiny, and didn't seem nearly as obvious. I don't know why, but I felt comforted by the drops of rain obscuring the glass. And then I wrote this.

Once Upon A Time

Somewhere out there in the world
do you think that there might be
two little girls in pigtails,
like we used to be?
I wonder if they're wearing cowgirl boots-
white ones and bubblegum pink-
running and playing in frilly socks
writing stories in mud puddle ink.
I hope they're making up music
to sing the dandelions to sleep,
while they're weaving each other rings from thread
it turns out they will always keep.
Do you think they've found a secret place yet
along a brook or stream,
where they'll spend hours in the froth
like faeries do in dreams?
I imagine there's one with fire red hair,
the other with sapphire eyes, bright blue,
hand holding hand while hard years pass
as, once upon a time, when I was with you.

~ For Alyza ~

Marshall and Gladys

"Let's drive," He said to Her

without telling where,

in a car that He borrowed -

how nice of Her fiance to share...

Into the city,

no matter the rain,

a lifetime of sunlight

about to begin.

Her strawberry hair blowing

soft in the air,

blue eyes sparkling in city light.

No wonder He fell to one knee, right there.

~For my Nana and Poppop. You remind me to believe in love every day.~

An English Summer

Scarborough Castle

It's been a while since I posted, but during my absence something important has happened in my British life...it appears that I have nearly run out of all of my American essentials - excedrin, toothpaste, deodorant, q-tips - the supply I stuffed my suitcases with before I moved to England, which has comforted and connected me to home these last 8 months has, at long last, run out. I think/admit what this means is that I officially live here now. A friend from college came to visit last week and brought me my favorite laundry detergent, so at least I have that luxurious smell of home to cling to, but aside from that, the time has come to give in. I knew this day would come, and admittedly dreaded it, but now that it's happened I have decided...assimilating is fun : )

Thinking back just a few months to Christmas I realize how much more settled I've become in my life here, in such a short time. I got very sick at the end of my European vacation during my Easter Holiday, and the last two months has been a struggle to get well between a number of misdiagnoses from doctors here in York. All of this finally culminated in a big scare and 5 days being kept in the emergency room at the Hospital with a blood infection. Much to my pleasant surprise they took incredible care of me. The National Health Service actually came through with flying colors. They really did save my life...and (you silly mistrusting Americans!) it was completely free. Thank you, God! My hospital stay wasn't the only thing that helped me realize just how much I really live here now. In between being sick and taking time to heal and get well again I have had amazing friends taking care of me, and helping me get out into fresh air again. I've started taking day trips around England whenever I have a chance. We've hopped in cars and stolen a few hours to get away and get to know this place better. In the last two weeks I've taken little excursions to Selby where I had a sleepover with friends at a Medieval cottage, and I've done two separate day trips to beautiful little coastal towns in North Yorkshire, along the North Sea - Whitby and Scarborough (of Scarborough Fair renown). Each trip has been completely wonderful. Whitby was surprisingly quaint and picturesque. It was completely worth every excessively windy moment, just to feel the sea breeze on my skin and laugh at being nearly blown away in the wind, all against a magnificent backdrop of abbey ruins. Scarborough is stunning. We found a hidden spot on a cliff, and tucked ourselves away there to look out over the sea below and the castle just off in the distance to our right. There was a somewhat devastating lack of parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme actually, but finding Anne Bronte's grave, and playing on a sandy beach complete with £2 donkey rides and 60 pence homemade donuts helped me get over the initial upset. The company of beautiful friends has been the best part, of course, but it's also been nice thinking to myself, "there's no hurry in any of this. I have plenty of time to see anything I want. I live here now" Very basically, summer in England is awesome. Life here is so good. It really is the stuff fairy tales are made of.

Speaking of summer luxuries, I woke up this morning and went for my friend Lea's birthday breakfast at our favorite indulgent tea house in York. Sitting there felt completely natural. It's still special going to this perfect cafe, but this time I felt like I was right at home, sitting there contentedly with two Brits, one Canadian, and a Beijing beauty. On the walk home I passed five people I know heading into city centre - one married couple from my department, a friend on a bike, a classmate walking with his girlfriend, and another friend on his way to a wedding. This may seem a small thing, but it struck me. I'm bumping into people I know all over the city now. York is really beginning to feel like home.

~ Some sites from York: This is what my May and June have looked like ~

Whitby and the North Sea

My favorite site in Whitby - the accordion man with a dancing marionette

Whitby Abbey ruins

Playing outside Whitby Abbey

Second Recital. Two down, one to go!

With my good friend, Sara Marie, walking the walls of my city

The view from a carousel, at the foot of York's castle remains, after we climbed up and visited Clifford's Tower

My favorite feathered friend on campus. I call her Portman.

Walking up the stairs to Scarborough Castle

Scarborough Castle

Friendship and the North Sea

Anne Bronte's grave in Scarborough

The paved road to Scarborough Castle

A sweet man painting an old Yorkshire house along the wall walk