Sunday, December 11, 2005
Black Ice
I miss winter - shivering as the wind would claw insistently through the spaces between the buttons of my overcoat with icy fingers. Hands and ears burning as I would lower my neck and clutch at my coat, legs hitting the ground in that peculiar loping stride that londonites perfect, so different to the aimless idle amble that the natives here employ.
Walking at speed - nearly running - through the ever evolving maze of Kings Cross Underground under renovation, apologies, taking the stairs out towards ground level two, three at a time, bursting into the fine mist and nearly sprinting towards the waiting warmth of my flat.
I miss choosing a direction on a whim, completely at random, and just walking, for hours on end - often alone, sometimes with Alice, always in absolute silence. Always with troubles on my heart.. but somehow, it helped. It helped to see this city so alive, so quirky, so refreshing, so sad, so hurt, so happy, so... so much to see. So hard to hold on to my trivial sadnesses. So easy to become... lost in it.
I miss extravagent dinners at the Fat Duck, or Gordon Ramseys, dressed to the nines in the company of a dear friend with that delicious laugh, to whom I could always confide without fear of idiotic, self-centred misinterpretations, and without fear of misproprietry, even despite the (copius amounts of often free) alcohol... Playing Lords and Ladies for just one night...
I miss the myriad colours of autumn, golds and browns, yellows and faded greens forming a ragtag chrous line between the jail-uniform grey of the roads and buildings, and the faded pastel blue of a tired, consumptive london sky.
I miss walking down the Thames, and sitting, on occasion, by it to eat, to think, or just to breathe. Standing in the middle of the bridges, holding on to the pillars or lamps and just... breathing. Listening. Closing my eyes...
I miss walking through the parks :
- in summer, when I would thread my way through the swans sitting in the grass, or join them sometimes, arms akimbo, staring up to the sky, feeling the coolness of the ground seep into my overheated, overworked soul
- in autumn, when sunset would last for hours, streaming low across the horizon into my eyes, turning everything - lakes, people, trees, dogs - into moving masterpieces, oil pastels in sillhouette.
- in winter, amidst the skeletal trees, sometimes in the snow, watching my breath congeal before me; stopping before the still unfrozen lakes and watching the geese trawl miserably across its barren surface for food.
*****
Watching the female lead, and then the male - repeatedly lying supine, with her arms akimbo on the grey slate of a frozen beijing river last night, under a lifeless grey sky, eyes open and staring upwards towards the heavens without any real hope...
.. It came back to me.
Everything.
I am dying here in this tropical utopian paradise, one day at a time.
And I will not notice it, till I am very nearly dead.
When, perhaps - it will be too late.
Walking at speed - nearly running - through the ever evolving maze of Kings Cross Underground under renovation, apologies, taking the stairs out towards ground level two, three at a time, bursting into the fine mist and nearly sprinting towards the waiting warmth of my flat.
I miss choosing a direction on a whim, completely at random, and just walking, for hours on end - often alone, sometimes with Alice, always in absolute silence. Always with troubles on my heart.. but somehow, it helped. It helped to see this city so alive, so quirky, so refreshing, so sad, so hurt, so happy, so... so much to see. So hard to hold on to my trivial sadnesses. So easy to become... lost in it.
I miss extravagent dinners at the Fat Duck, or Gordon Ramseys, dressed to the nines in the company of a dear friend with that delicious laugh, to whom I could always confide without fear of idiotic, self-centred misinterpretations, and without fear of misproprietry, even despite the (copius amounts of often free) alcohol... Playing Lords and Ladies for just one night...
I miss the myriad colours of autumn, golds and browns, yellows and faded greens forming a ragtag chrous line between the jail-uniform grey of the roads and buildings, and the faded pastel blue of a tired, consumptive london sky.
I miss walking down the Thames, and sitting, on occasion, by it to eat, to think, or just to breathe. Standing in the middle of the bridges, holding on to the pillars or lamps and just... breathing. Listening. Closing my eyes...
I miss walking through the parks :
- in summer, when I would thread my way through the swans sitting in the grass, or join them sometimes, arms akimbo, staring up to the sky, feeling the coolness of the ground seep into my overheated, overworked soul
- in autumn, when sunset would last for hours, streaming low across the horizon into my eyes, turning everything - lakes, people, trees, dogs - into moving masterpieces, oil pastels in sillhouette.
- in winter, amidst the skeletal trees, sometimes in the snow, watching my breath congeal before me; stopping before the still unfrozen lakes and watching the geese trawl miserably across its barren surface for food.
*****
Watching the female lead, and then the male - repeatedly lying supine, with her arms akimbo on the grey slate of a frozen beijing river last night, under a lifeless grey sky, eyes open and staring upwards towards the heavens without any real hope...
.. It came back to me.
Everything.
I am dying here in this tropical utopian paradise, one day at a time.
And I will not notice it, till I am very nearly dead.
When, perhaps - it will be too late.
