When I fell in love with England

We are like children rear'd in shade

Beneath some old-world abbey wall,

Forgotten in a forest-glade,

And secret from the eyes of all.

Deep, deep the greenwood round them waves,

Their abbey, and its close of graves!

Matthew Arnold, Stanzas from the Grand Chartreuse

I used to think when I was a child, that I would have such an easier time writing stories when I got older and things actually happened to me. Now I am older and things have happened to me, and I’m finding it harder than ever to write stories. When stories come from your imagination, they have limits, because they’re all composed of only creatures that are completely in your control. But when something fantastic and incredible happens to you then it can be much more difficult to capture it, give it a name, define its boundaries, describe the scales on the dragon that you just saw fly past. Experiencing anything truly real in life is like this: you are at your wit’s end because there is nothing about it you could have known or understood without the direct experience. What I am trying to describe is the experience of falling in love. Particularly, how I fell in love, with England.