A Houseboat Called "Water Buffalo"

To witness someone's everyday. Drives and walks. The way they keep their house, dishes, desk, love, lights, towels, clocks. The way they make and eat dinner and share it with you at their table. It is a realy honor. A blessing. An adventure. A breath of fresh air...

I awake hazy, still jet-lagged to a kitchen where the woman doing dishes wears a t-shirt that reminds me she was also “Born in Buffalo.” I eat breakfast with my Aunt Doreen. Drink tea and catch up. Talk anew and reminisce.

I visited Doreen here in London many years ago and although young, I remember riding along the Thames and realizing that I was meeting my Aunt for the first time. In the place that she had chosen to live and be and work and love. Walking on her streets. Having her show me about. Free, excited, light.
She is a teacher. Aunt Doreen is. She has lived in London for twenty years working with deaf children and their families. Now, mind you, this is nearly just as long a time as she spent growing up in Buffalo. In fact, Doreen’s hard Western New York “a’s” have evolved into often upward inflecting sounds that include words like rubbish and loo as if she had always been British herself.

She, and her beautiful Tai Chi printing bloke named Albert (who I am, by the way, honored to call Uncle) own a flat in an area of London in the northeast called Tottenham Hale. They’ve built a grand life with friends and dinners and travels and seashells in the bathroom.

And she, my Aunt Doreen, without knowing it or trying to prove any kind of point, reminds me again today: About where we are from. About how to go home. To visit family. To stay connected. To make that journey and continue to love this place and that one. The people. The snow. And that these things stay with you. Not to weigh you down or run away from, but rather to springboard to wander the world and welcome you back.

Aunt Doreen is playful. Singing when biking under bridges to hear the echo, making up stories about things when I ask questions she doesn’t know the answer to. Open to hearing about all. Taking photos. Even ready to be a clown too.

She walks with Buffalo throughout the streets on London, her also home, everyday and today welcoming me home... smiling, and sharing the sites of this part of the world with me once again.