@theterrace

Here are some takeaways from our fascinating trip to the far east.

First and foremost, jump rope is an amazing sport. Finn’s single rope team freestyle (“fourstyle”) group earned a 3rd place medal in the international open tournament. Finn it to win it!

A walking tour of Tokyo with local guide Haiyan gave us a great first-day overview of a surreal city. With over 38 million people, Tokyo makes DC feel positively provincial. Our Shinjuku train station, which processes 3.8 million visitors a day, has not one exit, nor two exits, nor four exits, but 42 exits. Meanwhile, our tiny, clean apartment had not one sitting area but zero. We could see why the Japanese are dedicated to making space for space in the form of peaceful parks and forests, even in the middle of the city.

Japan is mega weird when it comes to fashion. It was refreshing. Kevin, who knows the Japanese culture from his time there in the Navy, said people are kind of wound tight from all the work and family pressures and so create, again, space for active fantasy lives through cosplay. Yes, “cosplay,” as in costume play. There were costumes for little Bo Peep, goth girls, business men, and a lot of cutesy babydoll outfits. There are also a lot of pretty boys and “girlie clubs” for the so-called (and clearly not) gentlemen.

What’s up with all the cute in Japan? Cute cats, cute dogs, cute kids, cute anime, cute toilets. There’s a lot of cute. “Kawaii” is cool.

In one memorable moment, Finn took on a sumo wrestler. The other guy was 280 pounds, so he may or may not have lost. But how cool is it of Finn to step into the ring?

The art and architecture are eye catching and intriguing. There’s a paradoxical mix of modern and traditional, edgy and constrained, proper and provocative.

We loved the Team Lab Museum, which integrated science, color, nature, interactive technology and knowledge into playful learning—and they offered some delicious vegan miso soup with crunchy lotus roots.

The food. It was lovely. Like receiving a gift-wrapped package at each meal.

Finn’s Highlights

Watching the finals, the athletes’ gala, going to 7-Eleven, the arcade…basically everything on the last day.

Being in Kawasaki—the tournament.

Definitely reading.

Clara’s Highlights

The Team Lab Museum.

Seeing the puppies in Tokyo (next to Pet a Pig).

Dad being ridiculous at the ice cream place (and coffee ice cream). Last night in the elevator, Dad making me laugh.

Finn wrestling a sumo wrestler. “They have so much confidence to go up there. I mean they’re basically naked.”

Our tour with Haiyan. Seeing the popular places. And, “My steak. It was like the third best steak I’ve ever had. I ate three quarters of it.”

“By the way, I love Copenhagen. Even though I’ve never been. When we go to Norway in two years for the next Worlds, we should definitely go to Copenhagen.”

“When Dad clipped his toenails. That was like a proud daughter moment.”

Going to the brewery last night. We were watching the Devil Wears Prada and learning about when Dad and Mom first met.

Kevin’s Highlights

Definitely sumo.

The museum. I loved the technology and the way it brought in learning. The flowers were super peaceful. The water was cool.

The hustle and bustle of Shinjuku, where we stayed in Tokyo.

The Mt. Fuji stuff. I liked the forest there.

Heather’s Highlights

The bamboo coffee shop in the forest in the middle of Tokyo.

The hat shop.

Watching Clara watch the sumo wrestlers.

Going down the slide at the Team Lab Museum.

Kevin and the “watch out for bears” sign at Mt. Fuji.

Strawberry beer and family history with Clara.

Shark researcher? Too much lab time. Early childhood education? Maybe. Political science? “I want to take every class on this list.” That’s the one! Tatum and Aiden both started their college career at the end of June, along with another one-third of the first-year class at the University of South Florida.

She and roommate Carson, a Florida native, found each other through some app early this spring, and before I left the day after orientation, their room was already decorated with a pink rug, comforters, jewelry stands, heart-shaped pillows and fairy lights.

About five days after I left, I was receiving videos showing Tatum’s entire friend group, which is extensive and active, in their room. Clubs and beach days are part of the summer experience. She has gotten a lingering bad cold but still gets out and about. One place that cheers her up is an animal shelter. She used to do the same—go hang out with puppies—when she lived in Utah. It’s a good strategy, but I’m glad to say she doesn’t seem overly homesick, probably helped a lot by the fact Aiden is with her.

In-person classes, less so. Tatum’s health form failed to have a small box ticked off saying whether she declined or updated a vaccine, and we think this is why she was assigned online and asynchronous classes. However, this doesn’t explain why she was assigned the following two courses: (a) issues in music and (b) medical terminology. She has been a good sport about it and is getting As so far, but may even be looking forward to a full load of in-person classes this fall.

She’ll have a two-week break back home in August before heading back on August 19 to help new students move in. There’s nothing like being an old hand to feel at home.

She has the added benefit of having Aiden’s extended family in the Tampa area, and they have a beautiful home, dock, pool and storage room they generously share. It makes me feel more at ease with the whole hurricanes and lightening strikes thing to know there are friendly adults nearby.

We have our USF merch around the house to make us feel closer and nothing sparkles more like Tatum than the beautiful champagne bottle she bedazzled for graduation. But we miss her. Luna the cat still wanders into the room looking for her and wanders out, sadly settling for my bed with practically an audible sigh.

One thing it will be exciting to learn in college: How to pack a suitcase!

So at 3:30 am in Kawasaki, Japan, Italy and California are on my mind. Jet lag will do that to a person, spin the mind like a globe. I was just thinking that since Christmas in the UK, not including Kevin’s constant travels to Ukraine and Poland, and Tatum’s foray into Florida, we’ve also been to Florence, Roma and Pisa and Oakland, Sausalito and Carmel. And Madagascar, but that’s a different thing. Lucky us. Some photos follow from Tatum’s spring break school trip and our West Coast wanderings.

First, Tatum and Aiden go to Italy. They visited Rome, Siena, Pisa, Florence…all magical. Although it must be said that Tatum called on day one begging to come home because the school chaperones marched the underslept students for hours from the get go and they were exhausted and cranky. But in the end, I think it’s fair to say she’s glad she got to go. She marked the moment with a permanent reminder. On her forearm.

Meanwhile, Finn, Clara and I ventured west, with out much-needed Thornhill fix to have some of Mom’s strawberry shortcake, Doug’s salmon, spring daffodils and walks into the hills. We spent hours looking at old family photos that Uncle Ron brought over and had dinner at the former train station where Buppy returned after WWII.

We also got some fun quality time in Sacramento to celebrate Bridgey’s birthday and discover the joys of the go-kart, thanks to Rob.

Robin and David kindly let us soak in the beautiful Carmel coast as well. I was flooded with memories of Mendicino when we explored the tide pools. Finn followed David on a five-mile run along the shore and was highly rewarded when David called him a beast. Every time David turned around, no matter how many steps his long legs had leapt up, Finn was right behind him with a smile. Clara is ready to move to California anytime, in heaven with the views, the sunshine and the lifestyle.

For me, visiting family and friends is the best part. We got to be at my mom’s house, be with my youngest niece on her birthday, and see heart friends Robin and David and the Pauls. Zora is astonishing: she goes to the gym every day after school. And before school. And she has a job in Marin. While organizing prom. Gloriann is tackling hip surgery with her usual laugh it off approach. And John and April are watching the higher ed world flounder in the face of political and technology assaults with their usual shrug it off good humor and taking refuge in nature. It’s good to have role models.

It has been such a festive and cerebral season! So many graduates to celebrate, and celebrate we did.

Marley, as usual, led the way. Unfortunately, we had to watch the UMD events live streamed because it was pouring rain and too cold for Mom and Doug to sit outside—but we still felt part of events and listened to Kermit the Frog tell graduates that instead of leaping over others “in their way,” they could consider giving others a hand up. So that was pointed and apropos to the times. The Biggars came for the architecture program graduation two days later, and Dad and Mary Ellen hosted a fantastic party to toast Marley, who’s working this summer at a frame shop and at David Hathway’s firm, Kramer Architects.

It was a great feat for Tatum to graduate on time after so many schools, and to do with grace, a smile and an academic honor roll award. Amazing. The same was one percent true times two for Sophia, given the hardships she faced during high school. These girls—all of this class—navigated the onset/onslaught of social media for teens (a disaster) and COVID closures (a wrecking ball) before they even got to high school. So these graduations were a joy indeed.

We continued the festivities with a garden party for one hundred people at our house to give love and joy to our bedazzling Tatum and Sophia. Lots of Hathways were there, including the Hathway Brothers band. We navigated the tornado warnings with tents and rain boots.

There was some fun open mic singing from Aiden, Tommy’s sister Julie and Tommy. Beautiful rustic floral arrangements, photos of the girls, and balloons added splashes of color everywhere, thanks to Tommy’s mom Amy. Best of all, Kathy, Mom and Doug, Kevin and Wizzie and family came from out of town to cheer the girls on. Sophia has earned a full ride to Denison, and Tatum is a University of South Florida bull. She’ll probably bedazzle the bull statue on campus before the end of summer.

Cody wanted a pool party at Auntie Blitz’s place, a throwback to the early years. It was awesome seeing the kids play Marco Polo and hearing them laugh at each other in the pool…could be 8, could be 18. Dad and Mary Ellen grilled, Drea brought lots of food, and Cody said he wants to do as little as possible this summer, before starting at McGill. But then again, he just placed in the intensive-level French class by teaching himself French using YouTube videos, so he’s not doing nothing—he can’t help himself. And after weighing journalism and urban planning programs, he too chose architecture. The world will be more aesthetically cool and greener and smarter.

I’m sorry these young adults are inheriting a mad world, but I feel pretty great about their capacity to make things better. Tatum changed majors even before summer classes started, moving from marine biology to early childhood education to political science. This last one is the best fit I could imagine for her. Aiden is poised to be a successful business man, Caroline is getting her Danish citizenship, Marley is considering time with Habitat for Humanity, Cody’s pieces have been played on NPR…these young people are so impressive. Here’s to the Class of 2025!

It’s my last evening in Antananarivo and I’m feeling like a tortoise that found a skateboard; how lucky to have been here for a second time this year. I listen to live and lively piano music in the pavilion of La Varangue, sip my Cristal (sparkling water) and realize I can’t feel the temperature, which means it’s the perfect temperature—but the dragon fruit and papaya at breakfast and the pink-orange bougainvillea cascading down walls say tropical.

The work was good: my World Bank, UNICEF and Ministry of Education colleagues pulled together through two full-day workshops, field visits and working meetings. We have a good draft of strategic plan in place. The goal is to increase children’s access to preschool. I would add “high-quality” before preschool but—one step at a time. We also need to coax a budget; right now we (preschool stakeholders) get 0.01 percent of the education budget. I’m suggesting a goal of 5 percent.

Aside from work, I got to do two fun things. I booked a Sunday morning tour at national park to see lemurs—I couldn’t come to this beautiful country twice and miss the national symbol both times—and I went to an art gallery.

Being outside at the lemur park, feeling soft dirt under my feet and watching astonished-looking lemurs leap and lounge around was delightful. One breed has hairy cheek tufts that make even the tiniest baby look like a drunk old man. Another breed feels like a cross between a cat, a zebra and a monkey. That would be the breed of King Julien fame from the movie Madagascar.

Today I found funk and fabrics, hipsters and arresting photography at Foundation H. An art gallery filled with contemporary African art, this indoor-outdoor space showcased the same traditions as the masks that used to dot the walls of our house growing up but with a very modern vibe.

Most of the visitors were trendy young people. The artists, according to wall plaques in French, were from Madagascar, Ghana, Egypt, Uganda, South Africa, Togo, all over the continent. Themes covered independence from colonialism and how our materialism is an environmental bummer, but there was more playfulness than preaching. One traditional looking piece was comprised of only mobile phone parts; another that looked like a bird was of plastic toothbrush parts and computer keys.

Despite the good work and cultural fun, the faces of the kids will stay with me the most.

And I may or may not have “barfed in the bushes,” as my mother put it, right in the middle of a key informant interview with a mother and her family. It wasn’t in the bushes so much as behind a line of laundry, next to a trash heap and a bug-eyed chicken. I felt terrible because the mom thought it was the environment of the dirt courtyard that made me sick, and she had been too ashamed to take us into her house (room). In fact, I was in awe of how she fed five children as a widow. I wished I could give her a bottle of Cristal, some dragon fruit and maybe a pot of zebu stew and a ticket to preschool.

Just one last anecdote and I’ll end this missive. Thunderstorms and technical issues delayed the flight leaving DC—four hours on the tarmac—and caused a missed connection in Paris. The exceedingly disinterested Air France rep—he exuded perfect Parisian ennui—booked me into a Days Inn by the airport for two nights until the next flight to Antananarivo, which sounded dreadful. I finally found a route via Johannesburg, but with no space left in business class, I had to sleep sitting up. That seemed better than having my colleagues cancel the next-day conference, at which I was an opening speaker.

I was stressed about not sleeping on the 11-hour flight but had no time to dwell on it because I had race through the massive JBG airport, including getting through (skipping) immigration and security lines in 6 minutes, followed by Air France staff and the ire of fellow fliers. The last person to reach the tram to Tana at 9:49 am for a 10:00 am departure, I turned to thank the flight attendant, who had her hand out for a tip—but I had zero cash. So now I was followed by her ire as well. But I made the last flight to Tana of the day.

Not surprisingly, my luggage didn’t make it with me. I was scheduled to speak the next morning, right after a Director of the Ministry of Education, at a big conference at a five-star hotel which was to be live-streamed across the country, and I had with me only the very crumpled clothes I had worn for over two days. They smelled like airport and may have had a curry stain down the front.

Landing at 3:00, was I thinking about my slides? No. I asked to go straight to a clothes shop. Needless to say, I didn’t find an Hermès suit. I made do with a sleeveless linen blue sundress found in a local shop and a white sweater from the bottom of my backpack, which was not the look I was going for. I also may not have had the smell I was going for. Who packs deodorant in their carry-on, besides Finn? Lesson learned.

After five days, I was reunited with my luggage and thrilled to have work clothes again, including my black suit. Then I arrived at the second workshop and realized I had missed the mark again: My UNICEF colleague was wearing an amazing traditional outfit with bright colors and a headband. Why hadn’t I packed something like that? We laughed and took a photo together. There’s nothing like being a foreigner to feel right at home.

There’s nothing like feeling a wave of nausea to focus the mind on meeting the moment. Specifically, where can I vomit most discreetly at this moment, I wondered, because there’s no time to spare. And, secondly, she’s a mom, this person in front of me— she’ll understand. She has had at least five children, so vomiting is part of the picture.

I excused myself from the interview, walked behind a line of laundry, right next to a trash heap and a bug-eyed chicken, and threw up. My colleagues kindly checked on me, I drank a minuscule sip of water and returned to the dirt courtyard to ask my semi-structured survey questions. Why hadn’t I asked her when she last drank water? She was breastfeeding through most of the interview—I know she needed some clean water.

It wasn’t the baby I was focused on, however, but the four-year-old older sister sitting beside Mama like bark hugs a tree. Left behind from preschool, barefoot and sporting a decidedly dirty dress, she seemed an unlikely candidate to ever attend school. It breaks my heart to say that, but there’s only so much a mom can do. Her older brothers, 7 and 11, were the priority if Mama, a widow finding little more work than occasional laundry, could save the $4 required to pay their school fees next year.

Her 18-year-old daughter was also breastfeeding throughout the interview. Her “marriage” didn’t work out.

Meanwhile, back home, my own 18-year-old daughter is feeling the awful pressure of AP exams, finals and late assignments, prom and its unspoken standards, service hour expectations, graduation and a party, packing up childhood, moving to an entirely new state and lifestyle, and anxiety about succeeding in life as a grown-up.

Threaded through the aching for my daughter’s heavy feelings are distracting thoughts about whether my other daughter was able to catch up on delayed obligations for school, and whether I had registered and paid for my son to attend upcoming events in North Carolina, South Dakota and Japan, and the ropes course in Sandy Springs. Probably not. “World’s okayest mom,” as my favorite t-shirt says.

And…Josie, where are you? We have a pressing date tomorrow. It’s Mother’s Day. Our children are making us brunch, the way they have for the last six years. We will get dressed up in our finest. We will have origami napkin designs, bacon and fluffy pancakes, or perhaps very flat ones. But you’re not there. I’m not there either, but Madagascar is a lot closer.

It can’t be real. What are sweet Georgie and Sophia feeling? Are they numb, horrified, utterly alone, angry, hiding cauldrons of grief, just fine, all of the above? Josie, what can I say to them for you? What anguish you must have carried knowing the end was sooner than it should be.

Mothers must work in teams…otherwise, how can we bear it? The weight of caring so much, carrying so much—it must be shared. Whether we have a lot of riches or very little, we can’t care for our little ones (no matter how tall) alone. The burdens we face and feel criss-cross every boundary: national, racial, educational, financial. Whether wealthy or poor, healthy or sick, American or African, we all hold the pain and joy of every one of our children, and all at once.

The mothers who went before us are a lifeline. How I would get through a week without my mom’s advice and kindness, I do not know. I can’t list all that she has taught me, including how to be generous and gracious and how to make a good bœuf bourguignonne.

And I have other mothers too: my stepmother Mary Ellen who taught me not to explain, not to let them intimidate me, and how to live the lake life. My godmother Auntie Carol, who taught me to get rid of all the extra so I could focus on one problem at a time, and also how to go to bed early. My second mom Gloriann, who taught me how to use food to bring people together and how to laugh at life, and also how to find the best silver at a thrift shop. And my aunties, who taught me that sometimes the thing to regret is not being rash but waiting too long, and also how to wear a designer dress.

And all of these women have cleaned up more vomit, literal and otherwise, than they deserved to. We do whatever we have to, to love and provide for our piglets and clean up after them as needed. As Tatum asked me recently, distraught, “Who will hold back my hair when I throw up at college?” We wipe away vomit and tears, and we smile from afar when they dance—in stilettos or barefoot.

That barefooted 4-year-old in the courtyard won’t have the opportunities that my children have or even what her neighbors have, but she has a good mom who will take care of her till the day she can’t. And in that, she’s rich.

Tatum has been waiting to turn 18–freedom!—since she was still playing with dolls. I remember the last day she played with dolls: it was a Friday afternoon in early September 2018. She was in sixth grade. That was the day we learned that middle schoolers in Maryland are way too busy to play, unless it’s on an organized sports team.

Moving from Jakarta to DC wasn’t easy and was made worse by the pandemic 18 months later, but there’s a spark in Tatum that always wants to become fireworks, free and mesmerizing—the very definition of sparkling. This idea was encapsulated by being a bonafide grown up.

So it was a bit of a surprise when, about 3 days before her birthday, Tatum seemed down. When I asked how she was doing, she laid down on the kitchen floor and before I knew it, she was crying. “How am I going to buy my own shampoo and do all those grown up things?” she asked sadly.

I laughed until I rolled and then we were both lying on the kitchen floor. While the march towards graduation has been anything but steady, even this semester, she is definitely ready to be a grown up. She’s so competent, aware, decisive and efficient.

Most importantly, however, is this: “Tatum is the kindest person I know.” This was said about her onstage by a fellow student during remarks after her debut last week on the stage (not counting Annie in third grade), where she played a nun in The Sound of Music. She is so kind. Kind and competent is an amazing combination.

She’s still that little girl playing with dolls, dancing to Shake It Off in the JIS talent show, hugging orangutans, and flipping off a boat into the Indian Ocean.

In fact, she still takes crazy leaps; to celebrate Senior Skip Day last week, she went cliff diving with friends. She’s still that sparkling girl in Indonesia. We feasted on Indonesian food for her 18th—with a splash of champagne and a Quality Street chocolate—with her beloved Aiden, Sophia, family, friends and a surprise appearance from Kyiven.

Next up: AP exams, prom, graduation and The University of South Florida. The Taurus becomes a Bull!

18 photos of Tay.

How lucky am I? One minute I’m sitting on my balcony overlooking the antique car collection in the Alsace room of boutique hotel La Varangue, watching a tiny, bright orange bird dart close and away again; and the next I’m being serenaded by a classroom of Malagasy four-year-olds who are alternately shy, exuberant and dazed.

The World Bank hired me to design a national strategic plan to implement a high-quality preschool system across Madagascar, and I work with a counterpart at UNICEF. After a week of back-to-back meetings last month with high-level stakeholders like Ministry officials and donor agencies in the capital city of Anatanarivo (Tana), I was ready to go into the field—which entailed about 6 hours on the road and was still not too far from the interior, nowhere close to the coast.

And by field, I mean mud. It being rainy season, February offered a few pounding rain storms while I was there. I don’t remember the storms in Jakarta lasting as long as these did. The first night in Tana, as predicted according to multiple cyclone warning alerts, the rain thundered down unrelentingly for hours. Madagascar is on the forefront of global climate crisis damages, hit by both droughts and flooding.

Despite having gorgeous and abundant natural resources, such as minerals, coastal beauty and funky wildlife like fat-tailed lemurs, it’s one of the top ten (top two?) poorest countries in the world. It was hard to be there when Trump shut down USAID programs suddenly. I had one government official ask me at the end of our meeting whether the water supply at his church would be cut off…and I had to answer with some shame that it was likely and I was very sorry.

Even in the government offices—for example, in the regional director’s office, the equivalent of the head of the state department of education, there was no office laptop or printer. But that didn’t matter, because there was also no electricity. I finished taking notes at 6:00 pm on paper by the flashlight on my phone. Bizarre. The bathroom (squatty potty) for that office was also among the worst I saw, even relative to the schools.

The preschoolers often squatted outside, and even at the nicer private school, supported by the church, the latrine had a hole in the roof, was far from the classrooms and required crossing a tiny bridge, not easy for a preschooler. I didn’t see a bar of soap anywhere. Sanitation and clean drinking water remain big problems for these small human beings. The rate of stunting—irreversible physical and cognitive impairments caused by chronic malnutrition for children under age 5–stands at over 40 percent.

Despite the challenges, I can’t tell you how much I loved it there. Madagascar offers a charming blend of African, Indonesian and French cultures. This island nation, the fourth largest in the world, was actually explored and settled by intrepid Indonesian oarsmen before Africans. And while colonialism can’t be recommended, I can’t say I didn’t love the French fare at my hotel’s open air restaurant. The French ambassador and his wife and another couple dined next to me one evening.

In the mornings, I’d start over with dragon fruit or papaya and passion fruit juice, and a café au lait, that made me feel right at home as well—I could practically hear our beloved Indonesian housekeeper Ibu Nengsih singing “selamat pagi” as she walked by, barefoot.

The field visits for work included extremely long days with meeting with teachers, principals, officials and parents, and of course visiting classrooms for children ages 3 through 5. Preschool teachers sometimes work for free or, in the best cases, earn perhaps $43-$73…a month. I think I paid that much for dinner one night. The parents I most wanted to meet were those we didn’t meet, because they can’t afford the 50-cent monthly fee required to send a child to preschool. Mostly, in the area we visited, the parents were charcoal farmers.

There’s something magical about Africa and whether that’s in spite of the poverty or because of it, I don’t know. People were warm, patient and welcoming. I needed all of that because my head was dizzy from meetings being held in three languages—French, English and mostly Malagasy—and I just couldn’t pull up French from my brain. Everything wanted to come out in Indonesian, which was not helpful.

The mud, smiles, dusk-time drumming, smoke in the air, pounding rain, bare feet, babies wrapped on backs, sugar cane coca-colas, and scorching hot red dirt made me feel right at home. Next time I hope to see one of those fat-tailed lemurs for myself.

Author’s note: I drafted this on January first on the train from Brighton back to London and I’m posting it more than a month later…from Madagascar, which will definitely be a highlight of 2025!

Tatum

Coming home from Stuart Hall; Costa Rica; Deep Creek for the Fourth of July week; Leah’s birthday party; meeting Aiden; getting into college; getting my driver’s license.

Clara

That steak I ate last night. Emins and likes. Costa Rica with Dad. South Africa.

Finn

Getting the Sunny D; going to Nationals; Costa Rica; getting the backflip; staying at John’s house for a week to be a camp coach.

Heather

Seeing our Jakarta cousins in Kraków; seeing London with Brooks; pints with Hugh and a visit to book and map store in Covent Garden, London; Tatum coming home for her senior year; Clara’s phone call from South Africa saying she wanted to go to McLean School; having all the kids in one school; walking in the beach at dawn with Noelle and Josie; going to my second-ever Pomona reunion with my mother and my daughter; Tatum’s college trip down the coast of California in February and receiving seven acceptance letters before the end of the year; having my book club friends over on our new porch with merlot and a moonrise.

Hugh

Going to Africa for the first time in 45 years; hanging out with the Tomlinsons in London; being published in the desert book anthology; getting my first short story published; meeting Saffron the cat; training secondary school teachers in Jordan.

Kevin

Clara’s successful transition into McLean; having all three kids together in a good school; getting the porch built; Finn going to Nationals; being together in Costa Rica; the immersive 1605 gunpowder plot experience in London.

Happy new year, world! I was listening to The Moth Radio Hour yesterday and the first story, amazingly, happened to be told by His Majesty the King’s Royal Raven Master, who lives at the Tower of London where we visited just about two weeks ago. He told a story about his first day on the job years ago and losing one of the six ravens. Legend has it that the ravens protect the Crown and kingdom and if they leave, the kingdom will fall. The Raven Master said in his story yesterday that for the first time in history, there are now eight ravens “because things in the kingdom are a little bit dodgy these days.”

I laughed out loud, and I thought about Brighton. The Tomlinsons found Hugh in the theater district in London a few days after Christmas, had a pint in a pub and caught the train south to create some Brighton beach memoirs at New Year’s.

Piling off the train, we walked from the train station to the flat and saw vape stores, run down touristy shops with burnt out lights, and teenagers banging on bus doors and yelling at the driver to be ignored as the driver pulled away. Indeed, things seemed a little bit dodgy and even drab—not helped by the relentlessly gray sky.

We dropped off our bags Ina shockingly cerulean apartment decorated a large David Bowie print and walked out on the pier. There, the colors were a gorgeous aquamarine blue deepening to teal under a moody dark sky. It was then easy to see why the location has long been a draw for Brits and foreigners alike. We ate more fish and chips (Finn) and mussels (Kev) at a slightly kitschy restaurant that reminded me of Ocean City.

Walks along the coast were so cold and blustery that we couldn’t talk much, and I wondered if the weather makes it difficult to maintain a shiny glow on the peeling-paint hotels and apartments. Hugh said Brexit has brought harder times to the whole country and I could see it.

The drab is irrelevant, however, at 6:00 am when it’s still black outside. When Finn knocked on the door telling Kevin he was ready to go down to the water, Kevin told him to go back to bed. At 7:00 am, in the misty dawn, Finn went…swimming. Yes, in the English Channel. The water was rough and the beach is all pebbly rocks and the water was as freezing as you would imagine. Finn embraced and loved it. The only thing I embraced was my hot cup of coffee.

Despite the beach beauty, I was less than inspired by Brighton’s run down vibe; but then Hugh and his friend Richard Hutt led us into the pretty parts of town, and everything lit up. Richard is a friend of Hugh’s and the family’s from our days in Ghana in the 1970s, and I basically haven’t seen him since, so it was quite something to have a cocktail with an old friend and editor of GQ (Gentleman’s Quarterly magazine).

His work had sent Hugh and I on a quest to a bookshop in London to find a map of James Bond’s London that Richard published, a favorite evening of the trip. Moreover, Hugh gave Finn a book Richard wrote on etiquette for men that Finn poured over on the train and airplane home. Sixteen is a good age to be influenced by the best.

In addition to the Instagram-ready restaurant on New Year’s Eve, where the cocktails, sparks, sequins, feathers and over-the-top flowers lit up the space, Kevin, Finn and I found some fabulous art. Some were in galleries at The Lanes and some were on walls outdoors. That morning of exploring brought some spice and pop-color to my impressions of Brighton.

One of my favorite moments from the trip was at the exact turning of the year. We stayed in a “stylish” but kind of weird, slanted apartment a block from the pier. Across from us was a gay bar that provided lots of good cheer to its customers and a drag show that Kevin watched on for a few minutes. The area was externally festive at midnight…but our whole house was asleep except for Tatum and myself. So the two of us, from her bedroom window, watched the fireworks popping into the sky over the English Channel and hugged each other—and I already felt like lots of hopes and predictions had come true. The future is bright.