London, overcast

Travelling these days have lost their magic touch — I no longer write about the faces of cities for they feel like a blur passing me in a crowd. Something about the lonely quality of flying exhausts me by the time I see the sprawling landscape in the tiny portal of the window seat. London however, heavy and damp and immobilised by strikes, touched something in me again. London, with its veins outstretched like a web of fungi, awakened an instinct to write again, perhaps because it reminded me of the amount of writing I had to do the last time I came here on a school trip ((had to have reports to show for the educational value of flying us out so far)). And so I will write again now not for a submission to my teachers’ gaze, but because I am suddenly 16 again, a fresh face in London and still new to the up-keeping of a personal blog.

I’m 16 again, at Buckingham Palace (not interested and therefore) standing along the mall with my classmates having a stupid conversation. We were watching the parade and loud procession pass for some celebration of the queen — but we’re 16 year olds so we cared more for the ducks and swans in the lake behind us. We had clutched all our bags in front of us as we beckoned to the geese and seagulls in fearful curiosity that they would attack us. We were warned of what a big dangerous place London was. Some things don’t change with age, and I am standing in the same spot still enthralled by the strange waddling birds. I just saw a seagull slip on ice. The rest of them, airborne, dart in the air like hovering paper planes, eager dogs trained by the crackling of bread crumbs. And the ducks and the queen’s swans who were what people came to feed, remained scavengers after the nimble gulls. Oh the privilege of flight; the swans can only crane their necks and wait below. 

And the squirrels here! How small and habituated they are to the human hand! Back then friendly squirrels seemed to be the norm and all of us teenage girls crowded and cooed at the small creature that approached us for food. Now, having seen the fluffier and more nervous New England squirrels, these English squirrels seem like a totally different breed. And the underground rats here! Taking the tube was something the school would have never allowed a group of ignorant teenage girls do, so this was my first time seeing the underbellies of London and the rats here. They  are so tiny they look like dust balls or lint drifting from someone’s sweater. The American subway rats are brutish and muscular like a miniature dog. I find it strange to be feeling endearment for the city because of the temperamental differences of its pests, but here we are. Perhaps a better reason to enjoy London more is that the underground is papered with advertisement posters for musicals — what better forms of capitalism could I ask for? 

Strolling down the mall, I started to understand Mrs Dalloway now, and why Woolf chose to write about the countless intersections of people’s life. Mrs Dalloway overhears the intimate lives of passing others, just as I eavesdrop on the people strolling alongside me. A family brings their excited child along like a helium balloon, the child irreverent and buoyant, the mother exasperated and always moving onwards. The kid suddenly started shouting “ass, ass, shake that ass” — some song lyrics I assume — and the mother shushes him in mortification. A man hollers through the park, trailing behind another briskly walking man, his evening shadow. He was accusing the person of stealing his property “help me, help me, this man took my property” — offers his broken phone, the property in question, and his bleeding hand. What indifferent people we have become, I accuse myself as I walked faster and ignored the pleas. I was warned of what a big and dangerous place London was, and now looking back at myself at 16, I hope she finds out that there are very little differences in the big cities around the world.

Remnant ice or snow patched the London streets, winking at the Christmas lights that overlook us. The lights were a nice change from the dreary overcast sky. They look like stars to a girl who grew up only in cities and never saw through the fog of light. I am 16 again, bedazzled by the world of musicals and sense of history in small nooks and crannies of the city. Coming back to the city has turned back the time for me to see that everything has it’s own time and season and many things don’t change.