Days of clouds and rain, low light. Light between eight and four with the rest more about the dark. Stripped of any daily responsibilities her life lost purpose and being a doer with nothing to do she went a bit nuts. They drove down from Chester to Stratford, Shakespeare’s home, then onto London. Shakespeare on buses, gift shop mugs, T-shirts: balding Shakespeare cut from a block with his pleated ruff and sideways grin. He is in a bath again recalling all this trying to pinpoint what time it would be and where they were exactly nine years ago to the day. He has just slipped under and thrown his arms back with a sigh. They are outside the town of Bath and he is taking one in a large, claw foot tub. One window to the north, northeast, that’s where the sun rises on his morning walks. The car breaks down in Bath, in this small village, and they are forced to go everywhere by foot. Passing children in groups on sidewalks with uniforms, feeling a dim guilt about their kids who should be in school now too. They have cheap laptops and books, an acoustic guitar, puzzles. They live out of a closet that is the back of their used German car. Each town, each property manager, it’s the same lines: Americans living in Germany and traveling the UK for three months. It never adds up.

Now he is soaping himself and thinking about dinner, the waning light. You can almost imagine some blue as the clouds thin to the west. Then an actual opening. That is the past or future, it can be nothing else.

He throws his arms back and slides under and when he comes up the clouds have filled back in.

Categories: Creative Nonfiction, Travelogues

Tags: Creative Nonfiction, Memoir