Knowing (England)

I've been on a lot of people movers today.  Subways, trains, airplanes, tubes and now I'm in the apartment of a person I've known since kindergarten, grown up and married, who lives with her husband in one of the many row houses in London, England, on one of the few little hills that are here.

Flying in, I got to see the green pastures that are so idiosyncratic to this country.  And taking the train in to London, the many row houses, all alike within each grouping, all similar between, and yet unique.  The universally accepted idea of shared walls, narrow stairwells, small rooms, mirror layouts to your neighbor.  They are functional, quaint.  

I'm struck by how English everything is.  I have seen pictures of England, heard English people speak, seen it in movies, seen it stereotyped, known it from history, and even have memories, some very personal of being here.  But none of those things is actually being here.  They are all reference points, shadows, illusions of this place.  It is not a lived experience on a day to day basis for me.

Being here, it is incredible (and incredible that it should be so) that everything is so English.  This is a real place that exists in the utmost of sincerity.  The bricks, the sidewalks, the sights and sounds and the feel of it are a real thing.  Even having been here, I do not know its reality unless I am actually here.

But then, how can one judge if that is ever really true?  How many other things do I know by experience, by reference, by acquired knowledge that might amaze me in the flesh?  Do I know the people I know?  Do I know music?  Do I know dancing, and light, and touch?  Love?