England isn't a real place to me. England exists solely in my mind, the England of Winnie the Pooh's Hundred Acre (Aker) Wood, Narnia's lamp post, Dickens' crooked streets, Victorian shops and Ebenezer Scrooge (Old and New Testament both for what is Scrooge without Bah, Humbug?), the forest of Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, King Arthur's Round Table, the Famous Five including their dog, Timmy, traipsing everywhere without adult supervision, Robin Hood in Sherwood forest poaching the King's deer, Lord Peter Wimsey jaunting from country house to town house, Nagio Marsh's Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn jaunting from town house to country house, Christie's characters everywhere, Elizabeth Daly's Henry Gamadge and his books, Patricia Wentworth's Miss Maude Silver and her perfectly preserved rooms, Harry Potter and Hogwarts.
It seems I was wrong. England is a real place to me.
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It is real, Z. Because we wish it. Harry is part of all of us (loyal and skeptical and sometimes mistreated); Miss Elizabeth Bennett is part of all of us (both proud and prejudiced); Pooh is part of all of us (sometimes forgotten but always treasured); Aslan is part of all of us (brave, courageous, divine).
I've been to England and sometimes wonder if I haven't ruined it a bit by knowing it as it is.
That's my fear, that actually going to England will break the spell.
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