thechosenone

I’m not going to lie – my first encounter with a London flat was shocking. I had been warned about the housing standards but how could any warning help me prepare for that punch in the face? And me, I sleep with earplugs now. Even worse – I have gotten used to it. That is what my first few months in London have done to me. There just seems to be some quiet understanding: Yes, this is simply how we live here. It’s shabby, it’s crowded, it’s loud, it’s expensive, but it’s worth it. The city makes it worth it.

I read somewhere that of course any experience is shaped by people and places, but mostly and more importantly it’s shaped by the scents, the atmospheres, all that is abstract and intangible. Actually, it was me who wrote that, as a reminder to myself just before I moved here. Those abstract and intangible things might pop up suddenly and unexpectedly, when you’re drowned in sweat on the tube or when you’re lost in some blurry pub night or when you’re entering that first London flat. And they do feel just like a punch in the face, in some sweet and painful way. Sort of like when you’re imaginging a specific future moment, when you will be entering a certain room or bumping into a certain person or fulfilling a certain dream. You’re just playing around with the scenarios in your head. How you will look, what you will wear, how they will react. And your heart flutters at the thought of it, even if it’s abstract, because it’s abstract, that future moment when everything will be perfect somehow, just that one time.

Moving from one place to another means that you encapsulate all the scents and the atmospheres, because it feels good to preserve that old place in a tiny box. I mean, how could things possibly still go on over there, when you are here, living this life? How could anything possibly be vibrating anywhere else than exactly where this life is vibrating, right now, maybe even too much?

London is a city of bridges and yes, a lot of thinking is happening on those bridges, about certain eyes, about being just a tiny piece of a whole universe. Only one thing is better than giggling your way through pubs and that is getting blinded by the morning sun when it’s reflected in fancy skyscrapers. And look, down there, on the river bank, I can trace back our footsteps from that night and the things you said that made me realise that I need to stay free, always, exceptionally free, because what do you know about anything really. Something is buzzing in my pocket but I’m not going to look, I already know what it is, it is exactly what I want it to be. Maybe I’m crying, from the freezing winds or the endless insecurities, just hold on a minute while I spit out my chewing gum on the pavement and get on with life and all of that.

Life, and all of that. I’m standing on that bridge with both feet firmly anchored, and perfectly still. I’m still but the earth is moving, it’s carrying me forward at a crazy speed. It carried me to London and it will carry me onwards, to whatever comes next. Yes, that is the understanding: a home is nothing more than what you make of it. What an abstract and intangible reminder that is.