There is a perfect moment every evening in London, as the sun begins to set and the city lights up. Things are just a little bit clearer for those few minutes, sharp and glowing like a gem. It is, I suppose, what most people would call twilight. That little sliver of time is my favourite part of most any day. Even though it's right around when people start their commute home (for now; as the days continue to lengthen this won't stay the case.), it's a calm time for me no matter how the day before it's gone. Without fail, night after night, I'm flooded with the overwhelming presence of London, of the knowledge that I live here, in this greatest of all cities (though, I admit, I've yet to visit Cairo or St Petersburg), and the simple fact of the love I have for it.
Light, is something that has fascinated me for a long time. The quality of it, its tones and colours, the way it plays across surfaces. One of my favourite artistic techniques is chiaroscuro. This has a lot to do with my obsession with this time of day, I think. Because London is a dark city, really - all overcast clouds and fog and thin, winding streets shadowed by buildings and time. (Apparently, before the advent of the gaslamp era, London streets were so dark at night that once, a policeman involved in a street ruckus didn't recognize his rescuer as his own brother until he got him directly under a streetlight.). Nowadays, it is almost brighter at night, as though it leeches up the sun's rays rather than basking in them during the day. The colour of the light is also different than what I've experienced before. Back home on the west coast, the light was mostly tinted green and grey. Edinburgh shone gold, even with its deep, deep shadows; I imagine outside of the summer months it fades to brown. Cornwall was also gold, with the green that I think might come from the sea.
The light in London is mostly blue. Most people would expect grey, or maybe white, due to the buildings and the near-constant cloud cover. But it shines blue, especially in the evenings. It's the shadows that are grey, and black (and the shadows in London are an interesting thing, as they seem to come equally from the absence of light and the presence of history. This might be a personal thing, as before I moved here, my London was one of Victorian literature - Wilde, Doyle, Barrie, Carroll, etc - Jack the Ripper, gaslamps and fog. I had a very old fashioned view in my head. And part of what makes modern, multicoloured, multicultural London so brilliant is that that old version still hovers here, around the edges).
I have always been most comfortable in transitions. I prefer in-between stages, where things are changing, and nothing's for certain yet: fall, spring, the planning stage of a trip, the journey on public transport before you get off at your stop. That might be another part of why I love London's twilight so much, as the city moves away from the light of day and illuminates itself.
And so it's strange that lately I find myself not wanting much change. I recently blogged about how my plan was to leave London in about four months' time, so I can save money to go travelling. And ever since then, I've been thinking 'is it really, though?' My roommate, who is infinitely more organized and prepared than I am, is already looking around to decide where she's going next, and searching out jobs. I am currently unemployed, and looking for work. Every day I get up, do some internet job hunting, and then head out to pound the pavement. Just yesterday I applied for seven different jobs: all of them at heritage sites, all of them in London, and all of them summer positions. Most telling of all, though, is when I was talking to my mother about my difficulty finding a job and she suggested that maybe it was time to move on to somewhere else, I said "but I don't want to."
I didn't expect or want to fall in love with London, but somehow I've managed to do it anyways.
London is dirty, and overcrowded. People here are rude. The Tube often has delays and cancellations. It is incredibly expensive. Fresh air is a myth, and I also have yet to find really good vegetables. The streets, cobbled or concrete, wreak havoc on my footwear and my feet. It can be snooty, and it is often overdressed.
But London also shines blue. Blue like policemen's lights, like sapphires, like my favourite nailpolish, like the Tardis. Blue like a bruise. It is impossible to be bored here. It is a city of intelligence, literature, the arts, but also human frailty, death, resilience. There is so much here that one would need several lifetimes to really know it. And I am enchanted.
I love the way the city pulses and flows around you; I love how easy it is be anonymous, or to break that anonymity if you feel like it. I love the simplest things: the top of the Tate Modern, looking out over St. Paul's; standing on any of the bridges over the Thames, but especially the Millenium and Waterloo; the ravens in the Tower; the courtyards of the V&A and Natural History museums; Marylebone High Street; picnics in Russell Square or or Regent's Park; watching movies or reading books and recognising landmarks and place names; vintage shops in Soho; riding on the upstairs of busses; the delight in realizing I've added more details to my mental map of the city; and this list could go on for so much longer.
So, for the first time in a long time, it's not the transition that I'm focussing on right now. Instead of looking ahead at where I'm going to go, dreaming about where I'll live next, what I want now is to stay here, to sink into this city as much as I possibly can. I spent a very long time being restless, of always wanting something more, something different. I used to walk for hours on end, pacing, planning things, attempting to shake that restlessness. Now I do the same for hours in order to soak up the city. I want to know London, to learn it by walking its streets and reading its stones. I am utterly fascinated with the here and now I have.
All that's not to say that I've given up my grand plans, of course - one doesn't break a habit as easily as that. Just that, for now, my plans are of a different nature. There are so many places I have yet to see here. Walks to go on, landmarks to visit. I've recently become re-obsessed with the theatre, and there are over 200 shows to choose from - over ten currently running that I'd love to see. Live theatre here is wonderful, and if you stay away from musicals, relatively tourist free. Currently I have fourteen different ideas for writing that all need to be worked on. And I've always been something of an autodidact, but I'm working especially hard at it now. Aside from the piles of fiction I always have waiting to be read, this is my current to-read list (recorded here for no other reason than that now I'll have to read them):
Judith Flanders - The Invention of Murder
Sarah Bakewll - How to Live
Peter Ackroyd - London
Ian McGilchrist - The Master and His Emissary
Vyvyen Brendon - Prep School Children
TS Eliot - Collected Letters
Helen Castor - She Wolves
Will Hutton - Them and Us
Rebecca Solnit - Wanderlust
And, to be completely honest, I haven't actually got a clue what my plans are anymore. I don't know how long I'll stay here, I don't know where I'll go next. I don't know where I'll end up getting hired, and I don't know if I really will stay in London for the summer now. Eventually, I imagine even my fondness for this city will be eclipsed by my wanderlust. And if it doesn't before my visa runs out, well, it'll kick in hard when I start travelling. And until then I'm content to let the rest play out as it will, for now.
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