Travelling with an architects' eye (and a baby)
We knew not what to expect, my wife and I, when we set off for six long weeks of trekking around England. We'd been there before, but then it was just the two of us, a bit of loose change and an architecture guide book. This time, it would be an autumn trip with three children in tow, all under 9, (which meant six extra backpacks, a baby seat, a stroller, and enough gummy bears to drive toothpaste shares through the roof.) And as with the English weather, we had no way of predicting if things would be fair or foul, stormy or calm.
Yet we were fairly certain of
one thing at least: Samuel would make life difficult for us. Sam is 2.
Nothing wrong with 2, of course;
some of our nicest friends had once been 2. But Sam, being 2 and proud of it,
was out to undo what he could of our adventure. He had just learned to run
(sideways), was long overdue for some sort of life-threatening sickness
(probably Ebola), and was developing an alarming fondness for anything edible
(and sugar-coated) or toylike (and plastic-coated).
Well-meaning but heartless
friends had smiled weakly and suggested meekly that perhaps we should consider
leaving Sam at home. Rumour had it that we were taking nannies in sufficient
numbers to post a round-the-clock watch on him and his habits of mass destruction.
Yet in the end, we went it alone, ready to take whatever he could throw at us.
What he did throw at us (apart
from masticated gummy bears and half-empty bottles of HP sauce) was the chance
to take stock and ask some slow-motion questions of ourselves. Did we really
need to travel at that old hectic pace, cameras blazing? Did two cities in one
day mean as much as one city in two weeks? Were frantic flybys as rewarding as
measured contemplation?
Sam was a bear without his
afternoon nap, and it soon became painfully apparent that we'd either have to
sit inside every afternoon, losing the best part of a day’s exploration, or
he'd have to sleep while we explored. The choice was between Simmering
Frustration (and British soap operas) or Travels With The Amazing Sleeping
Baby. We opted for the latter.
We went on tour, baby Sam and I,
during the afternoons. While Katy took Harry and Molly on adventures in search
of dragons and elves, I pushed him in a peaceful sleep-walk through the
landscapes of my own Grand Tour.
I'd been to Bath before and
marched through its crescents and squares like any duty-bound student of
architecture, but this time it was different. My pace was slow and the rhythm
of my walking was measured, thoughtful. Sam slept in tranquil oblivion beneath
his horsey-blanket, Curious George next to his blushed cheek. At such a pace,
the nuance of the honey-coloured stone wasn't lost on me, and hardly a doorway
in John Wood's Royal Crescent escaped detailed analysis.
I studied the serene Georgian
proportion in complete silence under the October sky, walked the leaf-strewn
side streets, chatted in hushed tones with doormen, followed the movements of
the clouds as they hurried towards winter.
It soon became a habit, these
afternoon strolls; quiet, thoughtful, introspective. Strolls that would once
have been frustrated aggravation became walks of discovery. I began to see just
how much I'd been missing. The tour books had lied: a city a day? Walking tours
that cover the centre of Oxford in just two hours? Sam and I spent as much time
just crunching through the russet leaves of a deserted Botanical Garden, the shadows of Magdalen
College growing long beside us. Nothing could give one the sense of quiet
contemplation that can be achieved at the controls of a stroller filled with a
sleeping two year old.
With time to observe, my pencil
and sketchbook came back into play. On the banks of the Cherwell, punters
passed silently as under the blankets, Sam sailed on plush waves to the land of
nod, sung to sleep by the ancient stones around him that "whispered"
as Matthew Arnold put it, "the last enchantments of the Middle Ages."
Weeks of such afternoons passed,
the stroller wheels showing their age, axles squeaking. We passed through
villages and small towns, ruined abbeys and walled gardens and arrived finally
in the hectic bulls-eye of action: London.
We studied the vanguard of
modern London’s construction boom, circled the Great Court of the British Museum for an hour, studying details,
soaking in the freedom of a slowed pace. We walked the paths of Regent's Park
on a lazy Sunday afternoon, avoiding impromptu football games by a safe margin,
lightly crossing the cobbles, greatly enjoying tranquility in the centre of the
metropolis.
It would never have been like
this without Sam and his annoying need
for an afternoon nap. I would never have slowed to this pace without the pace
of a slumbering child to slow me. I wouldn't have noticed the frozen angels in
the cathedral close in Salisbury without him, or had time to solve the maze at
Hampton Court (twice). Instead, I would have rushed headlong, striking names
from the list I had mentally prepared back in architecture school. Shooting
photos, marching through history, missing the minute details, the quiet lanes,
the glories of an architecture that took time to absorb.
“Even sleepers are workers and
collaborators in what goes on in the universe”, said Heraclitus in 500 BC. Heraclitus knew his
babies, I'd say.
Katy and I had given our family
a six-week trek through the heart of an autumnal England. Sam, his little
blonde head oblivious to it all, had given the subtle shading of the ancient
stones back to me.
***
Originally published in the Globe & Mail and in PERSPECTIVES mag.
David
Gillett
