I make my own souvenirs. Most of them aren't even real things. When I'm in a new place, I both love and hate my camera; I know it will help me remember later, but I end up feeling obligated to try to capture everything. It's a distraction, but perhaps a good one. It forces me to stop and look both ways. Not necessarily because I have to cross a street, but because I'm suddenly very aware how much there is to miss. Even other people are a distraction, which sounds harsh but anyone who has tried to interrupt me at the piano or halfway through a book or while I'm writing is likely painfully aware of this. I wanted to give Edinburgh my full attention while I could.
So I spent Sunday morning wandering around by myself. As it turns out, I'd been staying only a few blocks away from the Elephant House, a cafe where J.K. Rowling -- other writers too, but Rowling was the only one they were advertising -- used to sit and write. I was given Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for my tenth birthday. I grew up with Rowling's books (and Roald Dahl's, Edward Eager's, and honestly anything I could keep hold of long enough to get through before someone realized I was supposed to be doing something else). I'm too biased to attempt to make any grand statements about the quality of Rowling's writing. But, think as you will of it, she turned many children into readers. And a few of these she has turned into writers.
Rowling wasn't solely responsible for me picking up the habit. Pretty much everyone I've ever read holds at least some credit for that, and boredom holds a good deal more. But I don't think I feel like hashing out my adolescence just yet. Back to Rowling. I read her books growing up. I re-read her books growing up. I can't deny that she has had some type of effect on me -- I burst into tears when Sirius and Dumbledore died, and if those were spoilers to you, go read an actual book instead of a twenty-year-old's self-indulgence. Christ.
But I was a bit awed at being where she had been. The cafe itself is warm and buzzes faintly. I can't describe it any other way. Like it was full, even though most of the tables were empty. A type of pressure. I ordered tea and sat down, then quickly moved to a window table. Edinburgh Castle, a ruin atop a cliff, loomed in the background, and below the window was a graveyard. Edinburgh is a city built on multiple levels.
I'll say this about the Elephant House: their napkins make good writing paper. I couldn't sit there and not write, even though usually I don't like to write where people can see me (inevitably, someone asks what I'm doing, which actually means, "I want to read it." Obviously I'm writing, you twit). And an hour later I had a napkin fulla words -- and I figured I'd be in there for half an hour, tops. I still have the napkin. The first panel is even something relevant:
I wonder if this graveyard is the one where Cedric died, if Edinburgh Castle is Rowling's Hogwarts. It's fourteen pounds to get in, and she was on welfare at the time, so perhaps it too was unreachable.
I'm here by accident.
I stayed hoping, perhaps, that some of her magic would pass on to me. There is an illumined frame of several photos of her here. She's not smiling in any of them. I wonder when she had to switch from writing in cafes to writing somewhere hidden. (Did she switch?)
I would have had to the moment people began to take photographs, attaching respect to what in all likelihood would be no more than a grocery list.
Okay, so it's not Great Expectations. The rest of it isn't either, and I won't bother putting it here.
When I'd finished writing, I went into the bathroom. There were two stalls, one with a toilet decked out collage-style with stills from the movies. Thanks, but I don't really want to piss with Dumbledore watching my arse. Especially since in Rowling's world, portraits are fully sentient. The other stall was coated in graffiti, most of it more or less grateful (one reader was apparently irritated that Harry and Ginny made a couple). Someone had started a list called "Dumbledore's Army." Others left simple messages. "Thank you" cropped up a lot. I hope the person who eventually has to paint over all that isn't a fan. As it was, I felt a little odd doing the extremely unpoetic things I needed to do in there.
The napkin's still sitting on my desk, though. I guess there's room for a little more superstition in my life.
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