LONDON, England — I experienced the comfort of home before I stepped into my house, or even laid foot on airport tarmac. It was on the plane, catered by stewardesses who offered wine with my meal in a tone of calm civility clearly distinguishable from the intimately friendly manners I had encountered before boarding at Logan. As we swooped over streets that represent personal landmarks and brim with familiar memories, the pilot apologized profusely for the offending view of Arsenal stadium. Naturally, given Arsenal football team’s recent defeat by Chelsea rival, I presumed these were the words of a gloating Chelsea fan. Despite supporting an altogether different team—Tottenham—I nonetheless empathized with the pilot due to Tottenham and Arsenal’s natural animosity, and so willingly joined in scorning our mutual enemy.
Set in contrast to my time in Boston, where I have just about figured out that Red Sox means baseball, my appreciation for the generally unacknowledged pleasure of shared context was quite tremendous.
There is such security in familiar cultural references - those passing comments that so naturally pepper conversations, but that I only began to notice in the foreign context of Harvard, where casual allusions are strange and alien. In London, stripped of my “English” accent, I escape the differences cultivated by national culture, and revolve in a landscape that—compared to eternally confusing America—seems to reflect my every perception.
Yet as I re-connect with old friends who compare my school life to “American Pie” (the English equivalent, I suppose, of Americans who compare my home life to Hogwarts), I once again experience that insurmountable inability to ever accurately conjure an impression of life on the other side of the pond. Just as no amount of description will ever summon the myriad of associations attached to North West London, my friends at home are forever unable to truly understand such foreign concepts as proctors or sororities.
Strangely enough, these communication difficulties only reinforce my decision to have studied in another country. The impossibility of neatly fitting my life into one box, with one fully comprehensive circle of friends shows that, in a sense, I have access to two worlds. My life in the United States allows me to question the assumptions that Londoners, by nature, take for granted, and the breadth of perspectives at Harvard becomes apparent upon my return home.
For now, though, in the name of a relaxing summer, I allow the confines of my world to stretch from Brick Lane to Hampstead. It’s broad enough.
Olivia M. Goldhill ’11, a Crimson editorial writer, is a government concentrator in Kirkland House.
