A British Dream Fulfilled

Allow me to take you on an adventure that begins in my childhood, and rolls on all the way to present day. In doing so, I’ll try my best not to be too long-winded or saccharine, but this is a post three decades in the making, so…settle in. We are going to be speaking of my love for England, and why my trip there (which when you read this will be imminently occurring) is so important to me.

As a child I was always drawn to fantasy. First this made itself known in a love for fairy tales, and then in the works of modern authors writing epic sword and sorcery. My penchant for magical dreamscapes eventually needed a soundtrack, and I found my genre when I discovered Celtic music at around 12 or 13 years old. I don’t have a strong memory of exactly how this occurred, but I suspect the intricate knotwork on the cover of some cd at my local library caught my eye, and I was instantly all-in.

What I do remember is that my love for Celtic music eventually brought me to Loreena McKennitt. And I do know with certainty that I found her at 14 (1994) when the mystical, magical portrait on the cover to The Visit grabbed my attention, again among the cd racks at the library. I recall taking the album home, putting it in my cd player, and it was like the meme of the guy whose celestial brain is exploding. I found myself suddenly skyrocketed into a realm of more than I ever thought existed before. I came home. I found myself.

One day I was meadering a mall (ah the heyday of mall culture in the 90s) on a family vacation when a poster in a gallery shop stopped me in my tracks. Now, mind you, this was long before the internet made everything on this planet accessible to all. The poster showed a beautiful woman with long red hair and a dreamy expression on her face. She sat in a simple wooden boat, and she held a chain she was about to loosen to float herself down the river. It was uncannily similar to the song on Loreena’s album inspired by Tennyson’s poem. I walked into the store and looked closer. The label confirmed: it was the Lady of Shalott. So, if you are keeping track so far, fairy tales led me to fantasy, fantasy led me to Celtic music, Celtic music led me to Loreena, and Loreena led me to Pre-Raphaelite art.

Now we’ll take a side quest and back up to the Celtic music. Although I was fond of the dreamy instrumentals, many of my favorite songs included lyrics. Some of them were in the beautiful and arresting (Scottish, Irish, Welsh) languages of the lands themselves, but some were in English, and told stories of folklore and mythology. I wanted to know so much more. I started to read about the stories of the Mabinogion, about the Tuatha De Danann, I couldn’t get enough of these tales.

I learned more about Great Britain and Ireland. The landscapes themselves entered my dreams and my heart. I remember one year I asked my grandma for a Scottish Christmas ornament, and received one emblazoned with bagpipes and the words “Nollaig Chridheil.” I saw the made for tv movie of Return of the Native (and fell utterly for Catherine Zeta Jones, but that’s another story.) For months I dreamed and drew pictures of a cloaked woman wandering the foggy British moors.

No aspect of these countries that I discovered could satiate my thirst. The landscapes, the music, the art, the stories. I wanted it all, and it all completely informed my character and composition. I bought that Waterhouse poster of course, and I stared at it for hours on my bedroom wall, along side another poster of Kylemore Abbey with a faded blue boat resting on the lake shore. I threw myself into first one passion of the countries and then another. In college, I found out about British folk rock from the 1970s and beyond. I memorized ballads sung by Steeleye Span. In one college music class I did a paper analyzing “Allison Gross.” I learned more about the sidhe, about the faerie folk of those islands. And again, it was coming home. It was awakening myself to a higher reality, to a lifelong lifeblood passion.

In the late 00s, 2008 to be precise, my love for Pre-Raphaelite art made me decide to start a blog about them. I titled it “The Beautiful Necessity” after a book I had read and enjoyed. And I dove in again to my passion for the art and artists. Meanwhile the first Faeriecon was held in Baltimore in 2007. I attended, and found another outlet for my love of the fey.

Social media made the world increasingly smaller and smaller: Friends I met at Faeriecon, new friends all across the country, in England, over the world…we bonded over faerie lore, Pre-Raphaelite art, folklore and fairy tales, wonder and magic. I even befriended people who were my heroes. It truly is a small world.

But I had yet to physically explore most of it, not even those incredible island countries that had so fascinated me for decades. I wanted to…my dreams of visiting started in my teens and never let go. My Facebook timeline will still randomly and sporadically send me memories from past years when I asked questions about going, mentioned goals to visit that year (over ten years ago).

Finally in 2020, the universe aligned. I was going to actually do it. I bought my plane tickets for dates in early May, booked an Airbnb for the nights I needed it, and arranged with kindred spirit friends to meet and stay with them along the way. I had everything all planned out by the start of March and all I had to do was wait until it was time to leave. But I’m sure everyone knows what happened next. In mid-month the world shut down. My trip evaporated away as we all started experiencing such a terrible and frightening time.

A few times since then I thought about reviving my trip plans, but it never quite seemed like the right moment: house issues, a new Covid variant, etc. Then about a month and a half ago, I started thinking about actually doing it next spring.

I got to the point where I was looking at airfare, and one evening I thought “oh what the heck. It’s totally not going to lead to anything, but let me just see if Virgin Atlantic still has any credit left on file for me for the plane tickets I bought in 2020 and never used.” I called expecting nothing. The representative on the line explained to me in a lovely British accent that I did indeed have a full credit for those tickets still on file. Just one caveat: The airfare had to be for dates in 2023. This year. As in the year with just three months left.

The universe had grown tired of me being afraid, of me finding excuses and hemming and hawing about whether I would go or not and when. And it put its foot down and said “you’re going now.” So I am. I’m…going now. It’s actually happening, this trip that I wanted to take my whole adult life and even in my adolescent years. And not only is this trip happening, but I get to split my original planned trip into two much less overwhelming parts. In November I’ll be exploring the north of England. Then in the spring, I will go back and roam around the southwest.

Ever since I bought my tickets for November, there have been all kinds of synchronicities and messages from the universe big and small. Packages arrived on just the day I needed them. Plans fell into place just so. One super big fated synchronicity occurred that I’m keeping close to my heart and private. And then the other day, I was listening to Steeleye Span on my morning walk. I love the band still and they are the one band on my bucket list to see perform live. But they really only tour in the U.K. On a whim, I decided to do an internet search. And they had a tour coming up…starting in November. With concert locations near where I was staying. It all comes full circle.

My favorite tv show is Detectorists, and I love it not so much for the British humor or for the characters, although both are golden. I love it for the subtle thread of romance in the show for the land of England herself. Creator and star Mackenzie Crook weaves in moments of awe and wonder and yes, magic from the landscape. This soil of the British Isles brought me the stories of the ancient Celts. The tales of the round table and Robin Hood. The folklore (and truth) of faerie lore. The visual stories of the Pre-Raphaelites. And soon my feet will step there.

I hold no preconceived notions about my trip. I’m not a modern King Arthur whose return is heralded by trumpets and a new age. I might lose my luggage. The rain might pour down the whole time. I don’t bloody care.

I’m finally going to England. And that’s enough for me.