Hey folks—things change. The lowest of the lows cannot last forever. When you’re at the bottom, there’s only one direction in which you can move . . . and it’s not down. Never in million years did I think I would be sitting on this balcony in Paris, enjoying a glass of wine provided by a charming Airbnb host, along with a French baguette, while taking in a spectacular view of the Sacré-Cœur, a church situated on top of a hill in Montmartre.

Why did I not think this was a possibility for me? Because, not too long ago, I was suffering from a severe physical injury that was causing me to have major psychological issues. I was also suffering from severe anxiety that was causing me to have major physical issues. It was a vicious circle; I was a mess. Furthermore, and separate from all this, I was suffering from periodic, ten-day, completely debilitating migraines, as I had been for my entire adult life. And, as if all this weren’t enough, my marriage was falling apart. So Paris didn’t really seem in the cards. Nor did writing anything ever again, least of all a blog post about a trip to Paris.

I want you to know that there are very often unseen solutions. I want you to know that when things seem hopeless, you can still reach up and grab hope. But I also want you to know that forward progress requires hard work, and even that is not enough, for forward progress also requires persistence. While enduring my worst days, weeks, and months, many people gave me advice that was counterproductive. Most, though sadly not all, of these people had good intentions; but they were wrong. It took me a long time to understand that I am the best judge of whether a particular treatment or strategy is working for me. It also took me a long time to understand that sometimes—but only sometimes—a piece of advice you’re getting is spot on, though you might not yet be prepared to admit it.

I just made it home from Paris. I’ll write more about my experiences in France soon. But now that I’m home, I’ve received some emails from friends and had some conversations with family that reminded me just how far I have come in the past few years. Truly, truly, I thought that life as I knew it was over for me. But it was not. After much trial and error—years of trial and error—I found some treatments and solutions that worked for me. And I made a complete recovery.

A Cool Paris Concert Venue and Other Migraine Triggers

So as to give you some specifics and eschew too much generality, below in this post are some of the solutions I found in regard to one of the many problems I experienced in recent years: my migraines. I know for a fact that I would have gotten a ten-day migraine in Europe, had I not stumbled across a miraculous solution last year. There were simply too many moments while traveling when I was on a jolting plane, train, or bus, having not gotten a lot of sleep the night before, as the sun was angling through the windows: these are huge migraine triggers for me.

There was also a notable evening in Paris when I was in a crowd of people in a confined space, as noise was thumping and lights were flashing: more huge triggers. I snapped this photo at an Aldous Harding concert, at a venue called La Maroquinerie, during the opening act . . . before the crowd got even denser, and the sounds and lighting got even more intense. (It was a great and interesting performance. Harding is a New Zealand singer/songwriter with a grandly unique stage presence. This was my first encounter with her music, and I intend to listen to more soon!)

So many triggers; but they had no effect.

How to Prevent Migraines, or at Least What Worked for Me

I take a magnesium supplement, and this has, astonishingly, worked for me, whereas fancier drugs did not. I have not had a ten-day migraine attack since beginning my daily regimen. The magnesium must be in a form that is easily absorbable by the body; many pills sold in drugstores have no effect, because they pass straight through the body without being absorbed.

If you decide to try this treatment, be careful to ramp up your dosage slowly, over a week or two. Otherwise you will likely experience diarrhea. Stop increasing the dosage when you get to the ideal dosage for you, which is when your stools are neither too hard nor too loose. (Sorry if that was TMI.) Also note that magnesium is a natural relaxant, so it’s best to take it at night, just before bed.

This is the migraine-preventing product that works for me. I am not affiliated with this company.

The above is all I have to share about the specific techniques I use to prevent migraines. For anecdotal information about my migraine-related experiences, see these previous blog posts:

• Read the full story of the solving of my migraine problem.
• Read about the aftermath of this miraculous solution.

How to Solve Whatever Health Issue You May Be Experiencing

Everyone’s body is different, but the above is what worked for me in preventing migraines. Your body is likely different than mine. You may be experiencing migraines that don’t respond to magnesium supplementation, or you may be experiencing a different physical or psychological problem. The thing you must do when experiencing a persistent health issue is to try lots of different techniques and treatments, while being careful not to do anything too risky, at least not without first exhausting all other possibilities.

It is very important to be persistent and communicative with your doctor. Explain your problem and ask your doctor to give you an idea. If it seems reasonable, try it. If it doesn’t work, be persistent in asking your doctor for another idea. Your doctor will not magically know that the first treatment idea isn’t working unless you communicate that fact.

If your first doctor doesn’t seem to be helping you, no matter how nice the doctor is, and no matter how inconvenient it is for you, you must try going to different doctors. It is likely that another doctor will have ideas that your original doctor didn’t have.

You can also look for ideas by talking to people, searching the Internet, and reading books and magazines, as long as you are careful to distinguish between who is providing factual information . . . and who is just trying to sell you something. Take every idea, no matter its source, with a grain of salt. Don’t believe everything you hear and read; but also be open to new ideas.

Never in a Million Years? It May Be Sooner Than You Think

Folks, I made it through all that trauma and somehow got to Paris. You can make it through hard times, too. Don’t give up. While not every problem is solvable, I promise, more solutions exist than you might now realize. Who knew that a painting of sunflowers could ever be so perfectly painted, until Van Gogh painted it?

Are you actively, persistently, searching for possible solutions to your health problem?

While in London, I noticed that the British had no qualms about swearing up a storm. I’m not sure whether the same is true of Parisians or not. They could have been swearing up a full-on hurricane, and I would not have noticed. Instead, it was me who was (inwardly! I tried very hard to be polite) swearing up some kind of ouragan.

So, oui, everyone, please pardon my French! It’s very poor; but I made do with the few words I know, and I learned a lot. In this blog post, I’d like to share some of the comical language woes I experienced as an American in Paris.

Would You Like a Worm of Wine?

Upon first arriving in Paris, I entered a bar to wait for my Airbnb room to be ready. An exuberant bartender (a friend of my Airbnb host) wished to communicate. Due to our mutual lack of skills in each other’s tongues, we used Google to translate.

One of the first things he typed was (in French) “Would you like a glass of wine?” The app translated this as “Would you like a worm of wine?” I thought this was very funny. I did not for a second think that he was offering to serve me a worm soaked in wine. The word for glass, I was proud to remember, is verre, while the word for worm is ver: an understandable language mishap.

But this was not nearly as funny as what happened next.

Would You Like Broccoli Beer?

Giving up on the app, he asked if I wanted beer. The word for beer is bière, so I understood him perfectly. The trouble was that he then started asking—with greater and greater insistence—whether I wanted broccoli beer.

Broccoli beer? I was skeptical. Don’t get me wrong—I love broccoli. But in beer? Is this how they brew beer in France? Dump some broccoli and hops in a barrel, throw in some worms, wait a few weeks, and voilà: beer! He was so confident that I would like it that I finally agreed to try it.

The beer was served. It was not green, but a normal amber color. It was very good beer.

We kept talking about the broccoli beer, until I finally realized what he was saying: Brooklyn! And I laughed and laughed. I Googled “broccoli” and showed him a photo of what I thought he meant. He thought this was all very funny, too.

And just as funny? The thought that I would travel all the way to Paris, just to drink beer from New York! (He was trying to make me feel comfortable, which I appreciated . . . but ha!)

Would You Like Snails?

Yes, I would like snails, merci beaucoup. I sat outside at a cafe and ordered the snails cassolette, just to try something new and interesting. (I was so eager to eat that I took some bites before snapping this photo.) It was delicious: it tasted like mushrooms or squid. No problems here.

The problem arose when a panhandler walked up to me and said something. I stared at him like an idiot—or like an American who doesn’t speak French. I got the impression that he wanted money, not because I understood a single word he said, but because of his attire.

And then suddenly the waiter appeared and chased him into the street, yelling! They had an altercation! I tried to understand what they were saying; and I thought I understood the waiter to say (in French) “second.” It was just an impression of a feeling, not the conscious hearing of an actual word. Was that the second time the panhandler had panhandled at that cafe? I will never know.

So I finished my snails and went to the theatre.

Would You Like to Cry . . . or Sleep?

I went to a production of En attendant Bojangles (Waiting for Bojangles). The play is based on the best-selling novel by Olivier Bourdeaut, which I wrote about in these previous blog posts. Here is a complete list of the words I understood while watching the play:

• mère (mother)
• père (father)
• avec (with)
• chaque (each)
• Espagne (Spain)
• Mademoiselle Superfétatoire (Miss Superfluous, the family’s pet crane)

Needless to say, these did not get me very far. But the visual aspects of the production were superb. And the audience was loving it. The women around me were crying at the end, and the ovation was loud and long. I, however, had trouble staying awake.

Another evening, I went to a production of the classic play Fin de partie (Endgame) by Samuel Beckett. I understood a longer list of words this time, because Beckett uses a lot of short, simple sentences in the play, so as to help establish an apocalyptic mood. But once again, I understood almost nothing and struggled to stay awake.

After the performance ended and most of the people had exited, I snapped this photo, because I thought it was such a cool venue. It was a little brick tunnel, as you can see. As I was taking the photo, the usher spoke to me harshly. He said quite a large number of words to me. At first, I thought he did not want me taking the photo. But as I was nodding and exiting the theatre, I noticed a lot of people waiting to get in, apparently for another performance that was about to happen. So then I thought that probably the usher just wanted me to leave. Once again, I will never know. Hopefully he was not saying to me, “Under no circumstances should you post that photo on the Internet!”

Maybe I will keep studying French and try the Paris theatres again someday. Fuck me, it was not a fully enjoyable experience this time around (pardon my language).

Would You Like to Buy a Vowel?

To sum up—language is strange. Have you noticed that there doesn’t seem to be a consensus among Americans about how to pronounce “Franklin Roosevelt”? Is it ROSE-eh-velt or RUSE-eh-velt? How about “Teddy Roosevelt”? (This article has more of a definitive answer than what I can provide.) I recently heard “Franklin Roosevelt” pronounced in the French way on a bus intercom; a bus stop in Paris is named after him.

I have no words—in any language—to describe my surprise upon hearing the bus stop announced, and suddenly realizing what had been said!

What should one eat while traveling in London? I’m glad you asked! I have been overwhelmed, actually, by requests from family, friends, blog readers, acquaintances, and strangers who heard that I am traveling in London.

“Okay, so you are in Europe,” they say to me. “Okay, so there’s art and culture and fascinating people and bloody weird language permutations and beautiful buildings and elaborate ceremony and centuries of history and a bridge that is falling down, my fair lady. All very good. But what did you eat?!!”

All right, all right, all right! By popular demand, here is a blog post about food in London.

And I would like to note that we are definitely on the same page here. Truly, I believe that feeding oneself properly is of utmost importance in life. And that goes for not just physical food . . . but also spiritual food. Oh, I fed myself well in London!

Food for Mind, Senses, and Spirit: Theatre

I partook well of the theatres in London: This is some seriously good sustenance. I saw three productions that blew me away. They were quite similar in theme—which I didn’t realize would be the case when purchasing my tickets. They were about women and the societal forces that keep them (us!) in submission.

Here is a photo of the chandelier at Duke of York’s Theatre, where I saw Rosmersholm by Henrik Isben. If it had not been for the characters’ clothing, this play, written in 1886, could have taken place in modern times. The themes—politics, gender, and religion—are just as relevant today as they were 100+ years ago.

I had the feeling that I had heard the name of the heroine before: Rebecca West. She must feature large in literary criticism, and rightfully so. This play is a masterpiece that I somehow missed studying in college. It’s about the constraints of society. It’s about people who disagree with the majority opinion and must choose to either conform (and stifle themselves) or, bravely, live uniquely and work to change society (and risk becoming an outcast and losing everything).

Ditto pretty much all of the above in regard to The Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov. How did I miss encountering this masterpiece earlier in my life? The Three Sisters was written in 1900 and, like Rosmersholm, spotlights the plight of an intelligent woman—that is, three intelligent women, who are being stifled by the town and circumstances in which they live. Also like Rosmersholm, the production was spectacular. The choreography, costumes, lighting, dancing, and acting were phenomenal. I laughed, I cried; it was great. (Thanks to R. for recommending this theatre and production to me!)

Embarrassingly, I could not stop crying through Emilia by Morgan Lloyd Malcolm, a play written last year. This does not usually happen to me. Near the beginning of the play, tears began streaming down my face and dripping off my chin. I controlled myself. It happened again in the middle of the play. Again, I controlled myself. At the end of the play, however, it was a losing battle. I was sobbing outright, though I managed to say silent. Luckily, I was sitting far back in the orchestra section (so far back that opera glasses were available for rent), so I felt inconspicuous. Also, there were empty seats around me. When the production ended, I slipped out of the theatre with a wet face and crazy eyes. Instead of descending into the Tube, I walked for a couple of miles, weeping in the dark of the London streets. OMG, I’m tearing up again—let me move on and write about something else!

But I suppose I should explain the cause of all this emotiveness. The heroine of Emilia, Emilia Bassano, is a historical figure who lived in Shakespeare’s time and may have been the “Dark Lady” he writes about in his sonnets. I do not know how much of the play was based on known facts, how much was speculation, and how much exaggeration. In any case, the play dramatizes the plight of a woman who wanted to be a writer, despite prejudice against her due to her gender, and who wrote feminist poetry (that survives today!). The play uses many of Emilia’s own words, written 400 years ago. And it is very funny. It features an all-female cast, who play both the female and male characters—which is hysterical considering that in Shakespeare’s time only men acted (men dressed as both men and women on the stage).

Food for Thought

Amidst all of this theatre going, I visited many cafes and bars, seeking out quaint places to work on my laptop. I found some adorable venues and ate some delicious food: I remember a lot of eggs, avocado, fancy cheese, spinach, nuts, and smoked salmon, along with numerous pots of tea with milk. However, I was starting to get frustrated because I kept choosing places to work where the music was a bit too loud, or the chairs and tables a bit too crowded together for comfort. And then, one day when I was feeling homesick for my quiet office in my house in Maryland, I experienced the glory of stumbling across . . . a Starbucks! I ordered a cup of tea! The barista poured milk into my tea without asking permission, but that was okay with me! The music was low! And it wasn’t very crowded! God bless the USA!!!!

More Food for Thought: Books

My original strategy on book buying was that I must not buy any books. Why heft a book across an ocean, when I can have it delivered to my home?

Naturally, that didn’t work out so well. I see a bookshop, I enter it. I enter it, I see a book. I see a book, I want to buy it. Well, I compromised by buying only small, skinny books.

So now I must heft a huge pile of small, skinny books across an ocean. Sigh.

The silver lining is, skinny books are quicker to read and thus will help me reach my goal of 50 books per year. LOL.

Also: Have you read Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins? (That book about a grown woman on a train?) Well, I took a train from London to the Midlands and, very truly, the backs of houses are lined up against the train tracks! (I did not see any people suspiciously kissing, though.)

Food for Ears: Music

I traveled to the Midlands to see Kate Rusby, who was performing in Derby to celebrate the release of her new album, Philosophers, Poets and Kings. As she explained during the performance, the title track is not about philosophy, poetry, or royalty. It’s about wine: now that’s a song I can get behind! (With due moderation, that is: and there ends my similarity to the grown woman on the train.)

Kate Rusby’s performance was impeccable, really wonderful. I love the simple beauty of her folk music. She sings on universal themes like love, death, birds, and the night sky. She often takes centuries-old ballads and sets them to her own music. I adore her—thanks for a great time, Kate!

Next, I saw Thea Gilmore in concert at Union Chapel. What a beautiful venue this is! Thea Gilmore is a singer and songwriter whose lyrics are remarkable for their wit, insight, and irreverence. It felt strange (in a way that is apropos to her music and persona and vibe) to see her perform in a church. However, this is a church with a bar. Alcohol is not permitted in the chapel itself; but for some reason, irreverent, subversive music is completely acceptable. . . .

Thanks, Thea, for an amazing performance. I adore your (literal and metaphorical) voice!

Food for Companionship

As long as we’re back to playing our old game of Find the Hidden Item in the Photo (did you find not one but two fluorescent signs amidst the ornate architecture and Biblically themed stained glass in that last one?), let’s move on to the story of this photo.

While sitting in a Parisian cafe in London—not to be confused with a Parisian cafe in Paris—I asked the man sitting at the next table to take a photo of me, which he kindly did:

As the well-dressed men behind me had a serious conversation about Jesus, my companion and I had a witty conversation about, among other things, the genius of Bertrand Russell, of whom both of us, it transpired, are fans.

However, as this blog post is about food, our conversation is irrelevant. And so—per your request—here’s what we ate in London over the next few days: Yorkshire pudding with meat, potatoes, and vegetables; beer; a cocktail garnished with an origami bird (me) and a virgin drink (him); tea; Caesar salad with chicken (me) and steak and potatoes (him). Also, we wished to order gelato at one restaurant, but the waiter didn’t visit the outdoor table where he’d seated us for half an hour, so we gave up on that idea.

At one point while walking around London, half lost (and half not), we stumbled across this church. It’s called All Souls Langham Place. Do you see something notable, hidden in the narrow gap between the church and a nearby building? (I was going to try to read a deeper meaning into this; however, thinking better of it, I shall move on to the final sentence in this paragraph.) It was nice to have a companion to hang around with during my stay in London, and we parted friends (and nothing more: nobody freak out).

Food for Eyes: Art

On my last full day in London, I visited Tate Modern, a spacious museum of modern art that looks, from the inside, like an empty factory. I saw many thought-provoking and lovely pieces, but the most nourishing food there, which sat best in my belly, was the Mark Rothko room. Mark Rothko is famous for his large, abstract expressionist paintings. These works of art often have just a few, large bands of color. They are beautiful. Furthermore, studying them quietly can offer one a meditatively spiritual experience. Here’s one of the Rothko paintings I saw.

I entered the Mark Rothko room, which was lighted only dimly, and sat on one of the benches in the center. The nine paintings surrounded me. I sat and looked at the paintings, occasionally turning to peer in different directions to see them all.

After two or three minutes, something astonishing happened. My eyes adjusted to the darkness, and the colors of the paintings emerged in all their brilliance. It was like the rising of the sun: a meditative and spiritual arising that I had not anticipated.

After a few more minutes, something else astonishing happened: the blocks of color began to invert. Whereas I had been seeing numerals like 0, I, and II, suddenly the inverse space appeared to be prison bars. But they were not imprisoning bars; no, they were safely nestling me in the meditative space. They were keeping me in a place of understanding and compassion, while sheltering me from the outside world of ignorance and cruelty. For me, the paintings had suddenly transformed into an expression of the life of the introvert: you erect shields to save yourself from the chaos of the outside world. Your shields keep you safe from panic, while warning others not to intrude. I was honored to be shielded by Rothko’s paintings for those few minutes of my life.

A brochure I received at the Tate Modern advertised a Vincent van Gogh exhibition at the Tate Britain, a museum in a different part of the city. I wanted to go, but I had a ticket for a matinee performance of The Merry Wives of Windsor at Shakespeare’s Globe. After the show (which was funny and silly—but not one of Shakespeare’s masterpieces), I completely forgot about the exhibition. So I stood here for ten or twenty minutes, listening to a street performer in front of the Tate Modern and, when I turned around, admiring the view of the Millennium Bridge over the Thames:

Then I moseyed on over somewhere else, whereupon I noticed that I had access to WiFi. That’s when it hit me that I should look up how to get to the Tate Britain and get there ASAP! So that’s what I did. I had to walk to the subway, take two trains, and walk to the museum. I got lost, and encountered a fellow traveler (from Sweden or Finland, I believe) who was also searching for the museum and the exhibit. We found the museum and entered 20 minutes before it closed. She had a museum pass already. As I was purchasing my ticket for £22 (about $29), the woman behind the counter warned me that there wasn’t enough time and asked whether I really wanted to buy it. I really did. Next, the man who took my ticket at the door looked at me in horror and said,

“A ticket, at this hour?!!”

I mainly wanted everybody to stop talking, so I could see the exhibit! So I quickly entered. And it was spectacular: another spiritual experience. Here are some of the Van Gogh paintings I saw. Ignoring the paintings not by Van Gogh, I focused on the masterpieces: and so they were. Looking at the paintings, I had this repeated thought: “He gets it. He gets it!” He understands this life. He understands the beauty and strangeness and spirituality and liveliness of the world. Every brushstroke, every color, is perfectly placed in those paintings. Looking at them, I feel as if I’m peering into the soul of the world, the essence of reality, something much more real than even reality itself. It’s hard to explain what I mean, but here’s another attempt:

There was a room full of paintings of sunflowers. I think these sunflowers were painted by contemporaries of Van Gogh—though I can’t be sure, as I did not dawdle to read the descriptions. I glanced at each of the paintings to see if it was by Van Gogh, until finally I came across the Van Gogh. My thoughts went like this: “Hmm, a painting of sunflowers, another painting of sunflowers, okay more sunflowers, geez lots of sunflowers in this room, here’s another vase of sunflowers, these sunflowers are kinda boring, more sunflowers over here . . . WOW—THOSE ARE SUNFLOWERS!!!!”

Yes, I had seen reproductions of that particular work of art before. No, it’s nothing like seeing the painting in person.

I made it through the ten or so rooms of the exhibit in ten minutes, which was exactly what I needed to do, as the guards started hustling people out ten minutes before the museum closed. The experience was worth every penny. (That is to say—it was worth all the pence!)

Food for a Brick in the Belly: Traditional British Fare

Then there was the day that I decided to go full-on traditional with my food. I had British tea with milk—always in England tea is served with milk—and carrot cake at a British bakery, as you can see here. Later, I had fish and chips, peas, and beer at a tavern. I don’t particularly like cake, fried food, or peas, and the beer was subpar; but I ate and drank with gusto anyway. (I thoroughly enjoyed the tea with milk.) The next day, my belly felt not so good. Despite that inconvenient fact, God save the Queen!!!!

TL;DR

I know, this blog post is very long. So here’s the bottom line on what to eat in London. If you ever decide to travel to this truly great city, I recommend that you nourish yourself with theatre, books, music, art, companionship, tea with milk, alcohol, and, for good measure, actual food.

I’m off to Paris now. (If you’re wondering why, see my blog post about the unconscious mind.) Until next time—bon appétit!

The inquisitive one traveled to London. It was going to be an exciting adventure!

While in a crowded street market, the inquisitive one saw some postcards. “I could send these to my nephew and niece!” thought the inquisitive one, as a bunch of people jostled into the back, shoulders, and butt. When the inquisitive one went to pay for the postcards, there was a terrible realization: the credit cards, cash, phone, and passport were all missing!

Instinctively, and in a panic, the inquisitive one ran to that timelessly universal haven for inquisitive types, the public library. Frantically, the inquisitive one Googled what to do when lose passport England USA help! and scanned through some websites. Next, the inquisitive one logged into the email account and composed a message.

Here it must be noted that, due to shock and anxiety, the inquisitive one had been stricken with a psychological disorder! The inquisitive one could no longer distinguish fact from fiction, information from misinformation! Furthermore, the inquisitive one could no longer recall a single rule of spelling, grammar, or word usage! Consequently, the email read as follows:

Not knowing whom to put on the To: line, the inquisitive one sent it to every contact in the address book. Then the inquisitive one waited for a reply.

But no one replied! The inquisitive one kept checking the email for hours, but then, night fell. The library closed. The inquisitive one was forced to scrounge through trash bags for food and sleep in an alley.

The next day, the inquisitive one fell in with a band of drug dealers. But the inquisitive one, having no talent for sales, was not able to make any money. As the days passed, the inquisitive one started to despair of ever again eating something that didn’t come from a garbage bag. But then a fellow drug dealer invited the inquisitive one to, along with him, ditch the drug dealers and join a band of political agitators: which the inquisitive one gladly did.

This was a better situation because the political agitators took tea and crumpet breaks 15 or 20 times daily, which filled the belly nicely. These political agitators were pro-Brexit, or anti-Brexit, or anyway they had a very specific stance regarding Brexit. However, due to their use of incomprehensible words such as queue, quid, lift, and mummy dear, the inquisitive one was not able to determine what precisely that stance was.

Anyway, a few days after that, Fortune smiled even more happily on the inquisitive one: someone replied to the email! The inquisitive one collected $10,000 using the bank information sent by a (wonderfully kindhearted!) acquaintance, whom the inquisitive one vaguely remembered having met a couple of decades previously. Oddly, though, at the U.S. Embassy, the inquisitive one learned that, contrary to what the Internet very clearly stated, such a large sum of money was not required.

While the U.S. Embassy was working on issuing a new passport, the inquisitive one (with wonderfully kindhearted generosity!) gave the remainder of the cash, as well as the bank information, to the good drug-dealer-turned-political-agitator friend.

This friend, the inquisitive one had been astonished to learn, was Hamlet, Prince of Denmark! Well, or maybe he was Charles, Prince of Wales. In all honesty, the accents in this city were so thick that the inquisitive one could hardly understand a word anyone said. Or was he a Nigerian prince? In any case, he was a prince, but he had fallen on hard times and lost his throne. He promised to return all the money, and significantly more, to the (wonderfully kindhearted!) decades-old acquaintance of the inquisitive one, and to give the (wonderfully kindhearted!) inquisitive one a sizable pile of precious stones and jewels, once his throne was properly restored. And it surely would be restored within the next few days, due to the temporary loan of the money in the account!

The inquisitive one, strangely and sadly, lost contact with the prince at that point. But the very next day, the U.S. Embassy issued the inquisitive one a new passport! While the inquisitive one was not able to recover the lost credit cards, cash, or phone, the issuance of the new passport was a truly wondrous occurrence: and the inquisitive one’s anxiety faded away. Knowledge of spelling, grammar, and word usage returned. Also recovered was psychological sanity, including the ability to understand what was real; what was possible but unlikely; and what was rabid delusion.

MORAL: Health is better than wealth; and it’s easier, as they say in the wisest countries, to pass a needle through a camel’s eye, Amen.

Mind the gap! This I will do. Yes, sir; yes, ma’am!

It would be a shame to drop a personal item between the platform and the train—or, God forbid, a body part. I am finding that the gaps here in London are more irregular than in Washington, D.C., and truly do require some minding. Sometimes the train is flush with the platform. Sometimes there is a sizeable step up or down. Sometimes there is a sizeable gap. And sometimes one must be particularly mindful because there is a step and a gap.

Security Slogans

As with the subway, so with the language. Sometimes the language is perfectly intelligible to people on both sides of the Atlantic; sometimes there is a gap. For example, take the security slogan adopted by the British government and police and rail industry in 2016 and now ubiquitous in rail stations:

Upon first seeing and hearing this slogan, I knew what it was trying to convey, as the slogan is very similar to the one we have used in the U.S. since approximately 2007, and which originated in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks:

In both cases, the message is simple and easy to follow. All you have to do is nothing—unless you happen to notice something unusual (like a bag left unattended), in which case you need to tell someone in uniform, because it might contain something dangerous (like a bomb).

The British Slogan in an American Mind

But the word “sorted” in the British slogan had me alternating back and forth between confusion and (carefully stifled) rolling-on-the-ground belly-laughter. To my American mind, the word sorted is mainly applicable to underwear drawers. So there I was, innocently trying to navigate a large, crowded station and figure out which platform my train would shortly arrive at, while imagining ripped security officers behaving as follows:

The British Slogan in a British Mind

I explained my confusion to a fellow attendee of the London Silent Book Club and asked what she thought of the slogan. Contrary to my interpretation, she thought it made the officers sound tough—even gangsterlike. To her British mind, the word sorted is mainly applicable to roughing people up. She put on her toughest, thickest accent and said to me,

“We’ll sort him out.”

Wow—a terrifying experience to hear her say that! I sure wouldn’t want to be (or see anyone I loved) “sorted out” by any British security officer, thank you very much!

(I would like to note here that I do not watch British television shows—or American television shows for that matter—so my ignorance of this word usage may be a mere personal problem, not any kind of commentary on international relations.)

Mind the Gap

But that’s not the actual intention of the slogan, either. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, sorted is British slang for “arranged or dealt with satisfactorily.” In other words, the slogan means exactly what I originally thought it meant. If you see something suspicious, say something about it to security officials, and they will take care of the problem in the most appropriate way.

Perhaps the most appropriate way is to put the underwear and socks in neat little piles (ha!—doubtful). Perhaps the most appropriate way is to rough someone up and teach ’em a lesson they won’t forget anytime soon (ha!—perhaps).

More likely, though, the most appropriate way is to determine whether there’s a credible threat and, if so, evacuate the area. And then, all of the British and any American travelers can exit the train station, sit around together amidst their luggage, wait for news on when the trains might resume service, and bitch to one another about how shitty life is.

Because the gap is never really very large. Sometimes there’s no gap at all. Sometimes you need to take a little step, up or down, in formality. Sometimes you need to make a mini mental leap. Sometimes you even need to step and leap at once. But you never need to be a world-class long jumper or pole vaulter.

All you need to do is mind the gap!