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Memories of London
Reminiscing During Tea Time By Laurie L. Dove
It is hard to spot unless you know it is there. Look past the die-cast dump trucks and plastic horses arranged in miniature across the living room floor, forget the paper-engorged office desk and ignore the refrigerator teeming with magnets and commands: Violin at 6. Buy milk! Carson to dentist Tuesday.
This one thing, a solitary cup and saucer of a very ordinary European variety perched amidst kitchen top-of-cabinet clutter, is proof that once before I drove carpool, worried about what the neighbors thought or dyed my hair brown rather than, say, fuchsia there was just me. And an enduring journey abroad, plucking an ephemeral alphabet from a London night sky.
Evenings at the Royal National Theatre led to nights by the River Thames, turning letters home into poetry and memories I still keep. Dawn brought slips of light into a sparse London flat while I warmed my January bones keeping company with cream- and sugar-laced tea.
I learned delicious joy in the mundane: the sweetness of strawberry jam on a hard roll, the power of thought-wandering walking, that a master's hand carving a marble thigh's delicate swell is sublime. There is a succor to being alone and lonely in a place of strangers. For 
the first time, I knew there were only certain times in life to jump at the chance for adventure.
I returned home to trade theater handbills for a cozy house on a brick-paved street and even greater dreams. I glimpse them now as my daughter runs to me after her first day at school, my son offers a fierce 3-year-old hug, or I feel my baby nuzzle into the crook of my arm.
Still, it's important to keep reminders of me even those that seemed inconsequential at the time in view. A rather odd framed print of a doomed 18th century science experiment hangs over our living room mantle because I once spent an entire day in a London museum wondering how any brushstroke could be so fine. My white and green teacup, patient traveling companion of mine, has a place of honor. I don't use it every day, but when given half a chance and a quiet house, I still steep a pot of tea and sip away.
