I made the mistake of saying Wales seemed like some silly adolescent child that wanted its allowance but didn't want to be told what it should wear or when it should come home while standing in the middle of its grand multi-million pound structure that is its own little Assembly surrounded by those who belonged to the cult of devolution.
I mean most separatist and/or nationalist movements I know of seem to have a lot more to fight for, or at least against. In the case of the UK it seems that their are differences, of course, but no one wants away if it means away from the piggy bank that is England even if they call it a pig when its back is turned.
And although they treated us like little baby diplomats with grand buffet lunches and panel discussions featuring party leaders and MPs, we acted more like a little baby brats, throwing fits the few times we were provided with only "bits" and "nibbles" of pub food of the deep fried variety.
But it was all quite the royal affair--and I suppose once the silver spoon is shoved in your mouth it's hard to eat off of anything else. It's happened to the best, or rather worst of celebrities, although I hesitate to equate...still, the crown jewel of it all was for each of us of Fulbright fame, a personal suite overlooking the gray glories of Cardiff from its most recent high-rise. And there I was in some enchanted world where I took a bath every night and danced around screaming the words to "Fortunate Son" as for redemption or reconciliation. A storm set in and I felt as though I were in some snowglobe away from it all, above it all.
And this week in Wales marked the middle of it all, a year that seems fit to be encased in glass.
Even now I can almost only account for it in photographs. As if the moving picture of memory is too much, too big, too bright.
The story of this year could be told in dresses: it began in a peacock-feather printed one on a boat cruise of the Thames, it became a ruffled baby-doll sun dress for a garden party, then changed into evening attire, a black satin cocktail number that held tight around leek and potato pie or mousse au chocolat or seared swordfish or...it has all been everything and I have swallowed it all whole without questioning. I put feathers in my hair and wear fur lapels and feel finally at home in them looking at people with candelabras reflected in their eyes, with a half dozen forks placed in neat rows before them, and me too. Now I know with no hesitation, now I know I always knew.
I've packed in weeks in single days, I've sailed away and wailed away and I am so far away from where I was just months ago and I am someone who has become uniquely able, I think, finally to reflect out on all through thick crystal without being phased at all--although there are moments like when you think there is still another stair step when there is none, when you stumble and it seems rather that the ground has shifted beneath your feet, there are such moments when I go to press my cheek to the glass and fall nearly through it to remember that this was never my world, no I was just plucked and placed here at the end of this long table in silk and pearls where they put the silver in silverwear--no this was never my world but it has become it.
I've got a black-tie only ball to go to soon. Back at Michigan 18 year olds are milling around kegs at frat parties while here at Cambridge they are adjusting tuxedo tails and evening gloves after champagne and canapes. Shake a snowglobe sometime and maybe you'll land within it too.
