A London 4th of July
I remember a July 4th in London, the day we hold our secret subversive holiday in our hearts, even though there’s no mention of it on the telly or in the tabloids. Wonder why they aren’t celebrating, we joke in our arrogant Yankee manner.
We’d seen a Tempest at the Globe as groundlings, standing in the middle space between the respectable patrons and the magical action, which explodes into our midst: Ariel on a rope arcing over our heads, Caliban snarling his complaint directly to the startled crowd.
Then, joyous with Prospero’s spells and with aching legs, we half-limped half-danced across the Thames toward St. Paul’s and the Tube back to our flats. And (I swear) when we were halfway across the river some unseen Prospero set off an arsenal of fireworks from the Tower Bridge south of us.
Our secret was out.
My Favorite Park
Hyde Park is probably most famous, mentioned in every eighteenth-century play as “The Ring” where all the fashionable people went to be seen and to exchange secrets. Kensington Gardens attracts the Diana-philes wanting to tour her palace (actually a queen named Victoria grew up there, too). Green Park provides a delightful walk to Buckingham Palace: why do those guards have to keep changing? Aren’t they ever satisfied? And there are flowerful parks all over London of every size and design.
My favorite, though, is Regent’s Park. I hop on the Circle Line train to the Baker Street Station. If you pass Madame Tussauds, you’re walking away from the park. Head towards Sherlock Holmes’s house and you’ll see it straight on. Around the first of June all the Queen’s rose gardens are in full bloom.
’m led, intoxicated by the scent, past the swans and the amphitheater where the musicians are setting up and the ice cream stand to the labyrinths of flowers, the blooming walkways with tributaries leading farther and farther from the traffic. I go past two fountains with their peeing statuary. And . . . but I can’t tell you this part . . . I make two or three or four more turns and find, once again, my own secret garden. Sorry, you’ll have to find your own.
