I Love My Country

First published on June 29, 2017

I went away last weekend, to the English countryside. I found myself caught again and again by the beauty of it, of the Gloucestershire valley, with the Wye winding along the bottom, of the hills and woodland, of the ruined castle, occasionally caught by the setting sun. 

I came back to London. On Monday, standing, looking out over the Thames at high tide, with one bridge to my left and another to my right, with trees standing across the rippling river, I felt a great surge of love for this country. For my country. 

That isn't a fashionable thing to say. Accusations of racism and xenophobia are thrown around regularly these days, often at people who clearly aren't. And all the way to the station this morning I was trying to think about something else I could write about. But I couldn't. 

I love this country. My country. Not because I own it, or because I have any more right to it than anyone else. Not because I am better than anyone else because of where I or they were born. But because this is where I am from, and this is a part of who I am. That love is physical, and it is emotional. I can feel it. 

I feel it when I see the wonderful countryside in the sun, but also in the rain. I love how the English countryside looks even more spectacular under an overcast sky. I feel it when I fly back into the country, and know just by looking down and seeing that particular green that I am home. I feel it when I think of all the things that this little island has achieved. The country of Shakespeare, of the Beatles, of a language which, like so many parts of our culture, has evolved and gone far beyond this little island and its shores. I feel it as I see the passion with which we talk, argue - yes, and fight with vitriol over - this little but miraculous thing called democracy, which is so much a part of who we are. 

I love this country, my country.