London love affair
I was sitting on my staircase eating supermarket Greek salad (€ 2,95, feta, lettuce, cherry tomatoes and mayo dressing). My travel bag was gaping wide open. Books, cables, t-shirts and disembodied tube tickets were scattered all over the place and I was waiting for the locksmith to come and let me in. As I was swallowing another eroded feta cube, half dressed in mucousey yellow substance, I realised I had fallen in love. I had fallen in love with London. And this is where I had left my house keys, neatly tucked into a drawer in a cute little flat in the West End.
Big cities cause big gaps between people. You may be very special but I'm not coming to see you after the last tube has gone, I read between the lines of random best friends. Coming closer can be a bit of a stretch for many. Not many speak their minds and follow their hearts in the domain of distance. "We like who we seem to be", told me a distinguished Londoner who also doubled as an unemployed talented writer.
Yet, there is enough sweetness in the air in London, enough to dulce, exhilarate and intoxicate the outlander and to feed those who are hungry for honeydew.
"This is I where grew up", said the silver-haired taxi driver as he dropped me off on Hanson Street. "There", he pointed. "I used to play football with my mates over there." I looked at the old man. Through the vodka haze I could see a tear welling up in his eye. And right where he had been playing football, men had built a cozy sandwich shop: the sandwich shop at the corner of Hanson and Foley Street.
At lunch time the street workers gather together inside this 6-square-metre niche to eat, chat or read the paper. One of them had written a letter to the Parliament the other day and was reading it aloud amidst a storm of applause from the roughest and sweetest people I'd seen in a while. Smiles are contagious in the domain of delight: the little sandwich shop at the corner of Hanson and Foley Street.
On the staircase of my locked apartment in Amsterdam, I was lost in thought and recollection. This love affair possessed all the symptoms of all the complex love affairs I had sustained through the years with varying pride and conviction: upheaval, elation, absorption, withdrawal. Only this one had to be better as it was, in fact, an infatuation with an idea, it seemed and felt so much more...Bang!Bang!Bang! The locksmith was announcing his arrival at the outside door. He climbed up the stairs, walking on tiptoes, trying to step on spots free of travel paraphernalia. Then, after one gentle click, my flat's door was ajar. I heaved a sigh of relief. It was time to walk into my home and find out where the heart was.
Big cities cause big gaps between people. You may be very special but I'm not coming to see you after the last tube has gone, I read between the lines of random best friends. Coming closer can be a bit of a stretch for many. Not many speak their minds and follow their hearts in the domain of distance. "We like who we seem to be", told me a distinguished Londoner who also doubled as an unemployed talented writer.
Yet, there is enough sweetness in the air in London, enough to dulce, exhilarate and intoxicate the outlander and to feed those who are hungry for honeydew.
"This is I where grew up", said the silver-haired taxi driver as he dropped me off on Hanson Street. "There", he pointed. "I used to play football with my mates over there." I looked at the old man. Through the vodka haze I could see a tear welling up in his eye. And right where he had been playing football, men had built a cozy sandwich shop: the sandwich shop at the corner of Hanson and Foley Street.
At lunch time the street workers gather together inside this 6-square-metre niche to eat, chat or read the paper. One of them had written a letter to the Parliament the other day and was reading it aloud amidst a storm of applause from the roughest and sweetest people I'd seen in a while. Smiles are contagious in the domain of delight: the little sandwich shop at the corner of Hanson and Foley Street.
On the staircase of my locked apartment in Amsterdam, I was lost in thought and recollection. This love affair possessed all the symptoms of all the complex love affairs I had sustained through the years with varying pride and conviction: upheaval, elation, absorption, withdrawal. Only this one had to be better as it was, in fact, an infatuation with an idea, it seemed and felt so much more...Bang!Bang!Bang! The locksmith was announcing his arrival at the outside door. He climbed up the stairs, walking on tiptoes, trying to step on spots free of travel paraphernalia. Then, after one gentle click, my flat's door was ajar. I heaved a sigh of relief. It was time to walk into my home and find out where the heart was.
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