london

Sitting inside the glass window of Pret across the street from the Russell Square stop of the underground, I catch hundreds of glances from people passing by.  Some are clearly tourists, more tourist than me--here to see the Olympics and oh, guess we might as well see London too, since we're here.  But to some, I'm the tourist.  Joke's on me because London will swallow you whole. 

Within five minutes of arriving, I was approached by an old restless man with white frizzy hair, a frayed book in hand, reaching out his other and asking for change.  I couldn't make eye contact with him for pity.  He was harmless, though.  London, at large, was not, with its people and its prices and its bright red telephone booths that promised familiarity though giving only monotony.  In all my time in England, I had yet to see someone actually use one.  Welcome to the 21st century.  London, where everyone has a cell phone.  Maybe I was just being cynical and couldn't accept that something once utilitarian could become something entirely new (now a significant marker of England).

American music played background in cafe Pret, a table to my left spoke Spanish--both tastes of home.  I was so thankful for these, as they came most unexpectedly.  Certain triggers already struck me toward thinking of the people I love, like the vending box outside the underground stop; the banner blaring SMOOTHIES*MILKSHAKES*JUICES reminded me of waiting for Adam after he missed the Tube a couple months ago during Wheaton's stay in London.  Suddenly, I had an urge to follow the street back to the Mentone where we had stayed--a place I braced myself never to see again.  What would that do other than bring back memories I could never live again?  Sweet ones, like sitting in a quaint cafe with Phoebe and writing the afternoon away.  Or bitter ones turned gentle as time diminished the edges to a soft touch: Adam and I sitting on a ledge talking serious.

Then, I had experienced London for the first time from the inside of a hotel window with a fragile white curtain blowing in toward us, pushed by the breeze and revealing the scary stares of street dwellers.  I was safe inside with friends and books and professors.  Now I was back in the same London on the same streets in the same summer.  I wondered for a while, watching the new people filter onto sidewalks to avoid traffic lights, why this London felt as foreign as an American accent after a summer in Europe.  Then it donned on me deeply, like sugar settled into the bottom of a glass Coke bottle.  The real difference between then and now was me.  I didn't know how much a person could change in only a month and a half, but it didn't matter.  Because even an infinitesimal amount could light the tension between what was and what is, who you were and who you are.  The tension was palpable namely since it was invisible.  It was uncomfortable since it wasn't communal.  I wanted to fight it, to return to the girl I had known, whose skin was my own.

Right then, as I had these thoughts, I saw a man enter a phone booth.  It wasn't a bright red one.  Rather, a dark blue--English telephone booth nevertheless, and it made me smile to myself.  A little piece of home returned to my soul.  Something somewhat new, but no, never entirely.