London to the bone

Pristine set gardens laid out before staid brick buildings that stand silent and proud slip pass the bus window. There is an unmistakable English elegance about it. A highly polished seriousness. Even in the nation’s physical expression you can sense the reserve, like a finely taut string pulling back – the English don’t need to crudely announce their grandeur, they simply are.

I draw a sharp intake of breathe, delighted at these beauties of London dropping out of the air so unexpectedly. Taking an untasted bus route constantly reveals yet another face of London (and the wonders of the 88 is only challenged by the public parks of the 9). It amazed me that I had been in the city for a good six weeks yet still could experience that renewed rush of love for this fabulous city. Still, I felt far from being able to claim the title of Londoner. Sure, I had the home address, the SIM card, the national insurance number, I knew the names of all the tube lines and could direct a tourist to Regent St without once referring to my A to Z (London map), but all that was periphery…

How long does it take before one can really claim oneself part of the city. Years? Decades? A lifetime?

Or perhaps it was more about your frame of mind. Cutting yourself free from all the snapshot memories of home and with the mindset of a reformer completely embracing your new life. Make friends with the locals, proudly declare “for life” when the job interviewer asks how long you’ll be sticking around for, wondering which suburb you’d like to raise your kids in. Investing your future in the city and resolutely burying your emotional attachment to the past.

Our bus came to a halt to pick up more passengers. I spied into the window of a great spiraling tower that housed a classroom of boys, half of whom were animatedly engaged with the teacher, a few others looking distracted and bored. It nudged at my own nostalgia tainted memories of school and I considered the possibility that it was too late. Perhaps it didn’t matter if I was to spend the rest of my life in London, it is the formative years that count. While the green shoots of your being are tender and hungry, that is when the city feeds into you and you establish a self from the rough and ready guide the urban spaces throw at you.

One of the distracted boys suddenly turned his head as if feeling the intensity of my stare. Our eyes locked and I wondered if he was thinking Boy, I wish I was you right now as I thought the same of him.

Alighting the bus I tumbled into the ever present throngs of people on Oxford St. I had decided to forgo catching the bus the rest of the way up because crawling traffic meant it was probably quicker to walk and because I was happy to ride the currents of people. I may only be in London for a short time, but while I am here I want to open myself up to it and expose myself to as much of it as I can. I want to throw myself head first into the carnival of buildings and people and parties and smells of the streets and colours of the markets. As elbows and shopping bags bumped into me, I imagined London pressing itself so deeply into my skin that my blood runs black with its being. And when I come home people will cock their head as if to say, something looks different about you, and I’ll smile because then I know that I’ve gone and taken a little piece of London away with me.

Salvation

It’s not hard to push it out of my head, sliding like dough through a grate. Goodbye, goodbye, don’t need you at the moment: a Polaroid coloured memory of a fresh flowered boy – pale blue eyed film student wrenching at the nostalgic tic in me (Em: Steve No. 3!!!), Hyde Park drenched in summer sun, my mother manically twiddling her thumbs (‘Can I call? Would she mind if I called again?’), friends at home, friends abroad (but not my abroad) – fluidly leading lives disconnected from mine, hot steamy rockstars and beautiful kids embroidered with indie stitches making love in dirty parties outside of my reach, London people people real people leaving marks, leading lives with jobs and friends and weekends and hobbies – push out! out!

Leave me to .click. again.

ps. Today at my interview for a position at HMV, when asked what album I would like to buy next said “Clor, definitely,” and gushed about their performance at The Windmill in Brixton. And guess who should, just a second ago, sit down at the computer facing me in this internet cafe… yes, the lead singer. London is full of celebrities doing all sort of ordinary things. The other day off High Street Kensington A. saw Joseph Fiennes ride past in a bicycle (he is in town doing a play). And my flatmate swears she saw Kate Moss in Topshop a couple of months ago.