The eye
of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not
seen, man’s hand is not able to taste, his tongue
to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream
was.
Where do I begin? How do you build up something in your mind for your entire adult life, until it becomes as close as you’ll ever get to a religious pilgrimage, and then one day, there you are? How do you describe that? I’m torn between my desire to brain dump literally everything I saw and felt and did, and my knowledge that nothing I write will capture it. Who do I think I am, Shakespeare? Even trying to craft this post a flood of Shakespeare memories came pouring back into my brain as I likened my trip to how the London Olympics both opened and closed with Caliban’s “I cried to dream again” speech. But as you can see, I chose Bottom’s Dream. Because the experience was one of wonder, and when it came time to leave I was ok. I wasn’t sad. But I was changed.
I don’t know how many posts I’m going to get out of the trip. There’s going to be at least half a dozen. I don’t want to miss anything, but I don’t want to drag it out forever either. As I post, I hope people with questions will jump into the comments or social media and ask, because though I may find it difficult to sit down and write about, I’m certainly more than ok talking about it. So if I don’t get to something that you really wanted to know, ask away and I’ll answer.
How This Is Going To Work
To recap the details of the trip and put some context on the stories – we took a red-eye into London, leaving Sunday night and arriving Monday morning. We then got a car service to Stratford-upon-Avon, where we stayed in an Airbnb Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Thursday it was back into London for a week (including a show at The Globe) before heading back home. Along the way there’s several dozen pictures I’ve got to share, including a number of pictures of things I’ll bet you’ve never seen before!
With that in mind I’ll leave you with the view outside the front door of our Airbnb in Stratford:
If you can’t read it, that’s the back of The Shakespeare Centre, home to The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, and the spiritual center of my universe for the last several decades. All we have to do is cross the street.
But first? Sleep.
To be continued …