Bruton

What does it mean to belong somewhere?

This is the second essay in a series of 4 on attention. Here are the other three:

• Where We Live - About seeing a place

• The Watch - About time

• Everything - Coming soon

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“Love is the extremely difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.”
- Iris Murdoch

Downstairs, my wife asked the owner of the Number One Bruton hotel about the shortbread that was left for us. Could we get the recipe? “No. It is local. But you can take some home.”

She packaged the biscuits we bought. We talked about two books on the counter, the memoirs of her mum, a journalist born in India who became well known in Britain. We talked about what had been and what has been lost, the 70-year-old mason who restored her stonework, the ironmonger who had formerly occupied the building at the back of the hotel. She said people who live here want to live here, and it is work. I told her that I used to make furniture and stained glass.

She thought that made sense.

Behind a low entry a few hundred yards down, a woman sat at a desk. Her store was lovely, not bric‑a‑brac, more local things thoughtfully placed. “What is your story?” She and her husband had moved there and opened the store. She animatedly described how two cottages were put together to make the space.

I asked who lived upstairs. “We do. We bought the place to fix it up. We didn’t understand what that really meant.” I have built things with my hands and have driven the chisel too deep, forcing a repair. My hands have scars, healed.

Why would you choose to battle with horsehair if you understood? I imagined rebuilding an old staircase that charms the corner of the parlor, but is unusable. It wouldn’t be hard to make it go somewhere.

A small parish church punctuates the end of the street. A few scattered headstones and a sculpture that is intriguingly hideous. The church - now a gallery - is one of thousands pressed like thumbprints about the landscape of England. My chest registers every small church I enter. I feel shaped by something silent.

Inside is a bustle. A new opening, and they hired a dancer to perform. They dragged me upstairs to show me something, past a clearly irritated dancer stretching herself. “You see the windows there? When the light hits just right, the stained glass casts a glow across the painting's blue. It is the same blue!” I do see it, alignment that is better than Stonehenge, because it is happening here with us. I love this group and their stubborn, impractical enthusiasm.

A speaker is coming to a local restaurant next week. She is a writer who documents the life of the land. I want to live in a place where speakers come because that means it is a place where listeners show up. Would they let me speak one day? I know what I would say.

Perhaps I could find a barn and a cottage. Is there still good English oak available? If I lend a hand, will my neighbors help me? I am a very good mechanic and a decent woodworker. When I left school, I wanted to go to Europe and restore cathedrals. Perhaps it was what connected me to my mother, who taught me about flying buttresses when my friends were practicing soccer. Something about touching time.

We headed back up the street into a posh interiors store. These ladies inside help the historical trust reappoint listed homes. The furniture was beautiful. One was wearing an old belt from Brooks Brothers or Ralph Lauren. She said, “I like it because you can replace the leather when it wears out and keep the silver clasp.” I told her I bought one for each of my groomsmen for the same reason. I wonder what I could offer this street.

I want to lie back in one of the couches. I have a thin paperback, The Sovereignty of Good, by Iris Murdoch, that I could read. It seems real. I could stay here.