Feels Like Home

Sense memories past and present

I was sweeping the kitchen floor last night and I had a sudden flash of sense memory—all those nights closing up at Spotty Dog bookstore/bar in Hudson. There was always something so satisfying about a clean floor at Spotty—I swept way more often there than I ever did in my own home.

The memory gave me a little pang: “God I miss it.” At the same time I felt like I didn’t miss it at all, that there was no need to—that somehow the me who tended bar and sold books in that small town in upstate New York was still at it and would be forever. Like a ghost, only I’m still alive.

Maybe that’s another part of moving to a new place, that you keep waiting for life to resume—the old life you knew. In this instance it’s those summers upstate: sweating, Spotty, an iced coffee at Stewart’s or Supernatural; yoga down at the point, some gigs, maybe a dip in a local swimming hole or trip to the beach; trying to have a lobster roll at least once; struggling to sleep with a window unit air conditioner sputtering and then blasting to life next to my head…the giant pickup trucks gliding by at the other end of our yard at 7:30 AM, or the sound of Denise our old neighbor hunkered down talking on the cellphone on her front porch before her family daycare came to life each morning, how her voice carried through the neighborhood like the caw of a crow. Swatting away mosquitoes, checking for ticks. Stars through the moonroof of my Subaru…

It was often a battle against nature in our old backyard! I loved it though… Saturday morning in Norfolk

The me who lived there is still sweeping and sweating, only so is the me over here in England. This me wakes up early and makes coffee in the kitchen, using wicked double cream as half and half doesn’t exist here (or if it does I don’t know what it’s called!) and anyway double cream in coffee is delicious. I stumble out of the kitchen door with my notebook and make my way down the stone garden path to a chair near the little summer house—for some reason this spot called to me as my morning place, it kind of faces the sun rising over the houses but has the shade of a pretty tree that looks Japanese. I write in my new notebook, also Japanese, a departure from my Leuchtturm dependence. I miss my 30 percent discount at Spotty Dog that made Leuchtturms almost affordable! After a while I go back in the house, make breakfast, maybe bring Eric a cup of tea.

Yesterday Eric’s daughter and two of her kids were here and we all got up early and went to a boatyard at the Norfolk Broads to go out on a dayboat for four hours. I finally got to use the picnic set I’d found in a charity shop a year or was it two years ago? We moved here a year ago last week but had been spending a lot of time in Norfolk since before the pandemic, so a lot of those times blur together. I was pretty disorganized with my picnic packing, just threw in some bread, cheese and a butter-like spread called Lurpak. Dark chocolate covered almonds. A bottle of Champagne they gave Eric when he played some songs with the cast of a play about Wilko Johnson that we’d traveled down to London for last week. London’s West End had been thronging, I was kind of relieved to get in and get out. When it comes to summer I think I’m countryfolk now. Puttering along on the water with just the kids and some geese, ducks and swans for company is pretty perfect.

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The summer weeks are starting to blur together. Maybe the Wilko play was the week before? Last weekend we also rehearsed for Eric’s set at the Latitude Festival that happened this past Saturday. It was Eric, his art college friend Graham Beck on keyboards, Morris Windsor on drums and I played guitar and sang harmony. We rehearsed in a village hall just down the road, smaller than the one I used back in November but still pretty cavernous as I gather is the norm. This one had two ping pong tables which I found very exciting, and that led to Graham revealing he’d been Great Yarmouth table tennis champion as a teenager. Morris had also been a keen table tennis player in his youth. I consider myself pretty good but was suddenly less eager to play, being in the presence of champions and only having recently recovered from nagging tennis elbow.

We got through the set a few times. At one point a village local wandered in, I’d say he was an old timer but he was actually probably younger than all of us. He asked if we minded if he sat and listened and he told us he really enjoyed it and wondered what type of music we were playing, and that we seemed quite accomplished. There are moments here in the English countryside where I feel calmed and soothed and think most people are really sweet and just doing the best they can—why do the bad ones take up so much space?

It was pretty daunting to get up onstage in front of a great crowd at Latitude and realize “oh shit, we’ve never all played together before.” I also realized as we were playing that I’d seen Eric do most of the songs solo a number of times and it was like suddenly being in the TV with a show you love, and not wanting to knock over the sets or step on the lead actor’s lines. In the end I think we did okay, it was all over so soon and I would’ve loved to stay for Fat Boy Slim’s set but being at a festival of this scale in the forest in the rain requires a level of commitment to fun and spangly festival wear I don’t possess, it was fine to stand around for a little while chatting and then head back home. As Eric drove us back into our not dazzling but lovable small town— the one that last year made absolutely no sense to me—I said “You know what, I really love living here” —it just felt so cozy with people’s lights coming on in the Saturday evening, imagining them all trying to enjoy their summer weekend after a rainy day.

Rocking at the Trailer Park stage Latitude, photo by Sue Butler

Yesterday, along with boating on the Broads which was delightful, we fired up the grill the previous owner of this house had left behind, just as Eric and I left our old Weber back in New York. Luci, Eric’s daughter, did a great job of bringing the briquet package to life and grilling the sausages while I made salad. I realized right around the time I was sweeping the floor, after the sausages were eaten and the sun was setting over the garden— this is it, my first full-on English summer: played Latitude, went boating, had a barbq. Read a lot of books, finished writing my second one. There’s still August and a few more of Eric’s gigs to play and then some of my own. I wondered when I started writing this if I really had enough to report. It’s not a lot of excitement but it feels like home.

Solo dates coming up, tickets/info available here

Sat 30 Aug 30 Norfolk UK Suffield FiestaTue 23 Sept Rochester NY Bop ShopWed 24 Sept Catskill NY Left Bank CiderThu 25 Sept Hoboken NJ 503 Social ClubSat 27 Sept Minerva NY Barn ConcertSun 28 Sept North Adams MA TouristsFri 3 Oct Hightstown NJ Randy Now’s Man CaveSat 4 Oct 4 Fleetwood PA Karen’s HouseFri 17 Oct 17 Berwyn IL Friendly Community CtrSun 19 Oct Nashville TN Dee’s 4 PMTue 21 Oct Cleveland OH TreelawnThu 23 Oct Hamden CT Best VideoFri 24 Oct 24 Kingston NY Chromatic StudiosSat 25 Oct 25 Boston MA Acoustic DenSun 26 Oct 26 Peacedale RI Roots Hoot 4 PM