the travel blog lives again

July 12, 2011 - Café Nero, Cathedral Street, Borough of Southwark, London

It’s moments like this that there’s no question whether I hope to live in this city one day. After an early morning meeting with a new friend with whom I share an alma mater and a sense of fit here, I have time to sit, to write or read or think, before making my way to London’s western edges to visit friends of friends. I don’t know who wrote “It’s a Small World” or where the person wrote it, but it seems like that title should be the theme song for this city on the Thames. All clues indicate that if I'm ever here longer, an iota of effort will provide me with a very long list of potential friends here who already know people I know.

I’ve climbed the steps to Café Nero’s “additional seating upstairs.” Only one other person, book in hand and earbuds blocking out the pleasant piped-in classical music that’s adding to the moment’s perfection for me, is sharing this spot with me, though two others have just arrived.

Through the wall of windows to my left, I can see one of the brick-paved walkways that winds through the Borough of Southwark here on the southern bank of the Thames. This particular alley is called Pickfords Wharf. Now at 10 a.m. tourist-looking types are beginning to take over from the business-suited wayfarers who dotted the bricks half an hour ago.

Mixed in with my window view of Pickfords Wharf's newer bricks is a somewhat crumbly but beautiful wall, formerly an integral part of some building but now just jutting out from younger architecture, ostensibly suggesting that its stones are still necessary, like an elderly person condescendingly and sympathetically given a task on the sidelines that isn’t really needed and that anyone younger could do better and faster.

The wall dates back ages ago and is fronted by a spot of green space that may be one of the places around here where excavation has unveiled structures left behind by the Romans. I stopped to read the plaque at that spot last week but already can’t remember any details other than that the bricks and stones are old--old by European terms not American ones—and that I really like that wall.

The mishmash of time continues through the windows straight ahead of me. To the far right and almost touchable from Café Nero’s doorway, is the Golden Hinde, a ship or a replica of a ship that’s important for some reason. A pirate ship? A merchant ship? A circus ship? (The red and yellow striped decorations make this seem plausible, though I won’t be wagering any money on that option.)

I’m not sure what its story is as I did not stop to read its plaque when I wandered by last week (and clearly might not remember it if I had). And there’s no googling for details since Café Nero appears to be without free wi-fi. So the Golden Hinde simply increases the intrigue of this cozy, creative moment and serves as a pointer toward the Thames, which is just yards away with its waters flowing around the silhouette of the book-reading person who separates me from the window.

Occasionally, speedboats, police boats, canal boats, and others skim its surface, dashing with or against the current. The buildings fronting the far side of the Thames from me are also a mix of old, old and newer architecture, including the distinctive Gherkin with its elongated egg-shape decorated in glass behind an old unidentifiable-from-here classic columned building.

Red double-decker London buses add well-timed splashes of color as they cross London Bridge (which is not falling down) and disappear into the maze of tan and gray buildings. More-muted color is added to the scene by the green algae climbing a few feet up the river’s retaining wall across the way.

Not adding color is today’s weather. It’s gray this morning and cool, but perhaps the sun will yet make a way through the clouds. Gorgeous days have been leapfrogging gray days since my arrival here last week. Still, even the gray manages a loveliness here. And I’m glad this go-around to be seeing London by daylight. My previous visits were in February and October-December, when daylight manages only about 8 hours of glinting before darkness takes over.

It’s been strange to return here and find that this place is no longer quite foreign to me, but it’s also not quite yet as familiar as home, resulting in the subconscious yet weighty tension that comes when the polarizing categories—such as “home” and “away”--we unintentionally use to help us understand the world don’t work. A little of the inner tension was relieved several days ago with conscious realization of the cause of the inner quibble. All too often strict categories muddy our understanding of the world rather than aid it.

But, what then? Create a new category? Perhaps “foreign home” or “almost home” or “place where I have to relearn the cheapest way to ride the trains”? Or instead become comfortable with the in-between? Let London be what it is for me today even if that’s different from what it is tomorrow or even a minute ago? Let it be free to shift between categories, thus shirking them and freeing me from trying to create a definition? Does that help? Or is naming, defining, categorizing an unavoidable, inescapable part of being human?

As I head out now to catch my next train, I’m anticipating the effects of another category mismatch: summer clothes in Nashville and summer clothes in London equate two different clothing categories rather than one. And I think my packing relied a bit too heavily on the first. My reflective wanderings through Café Nero’s windows haven’t yet bought enough time for the sun to find a hole in the clouds. Add in the breezy wind that’s ruffling tourists’ hair, and the word “blustery” seems nearly apropos. I’m not sure I’m wearing enough layers to be comfortable in blustery.

Yet, despite any uncomfortableness, I’ll still be glad I’m here even if I’m cold when I step out the doors (and I really, really dislike being cold) and even if the tension from non-fitting categories persists. Given the choice between comfortable and uncomfortable, the best choice isn’t always the former. Choosing only comfort can cause us to miss out on a whole lot of good. Again, categories are rarely tidy, accurate inventions: getting to "good" sometimes requires being okay with some "bad."

So there you go. Give me a window, a bit of time, a mocha, and some old bricks mixed with new ones, and my inner philosopher is sure to come begging for an audience.

(Photos to be added later when I have a faster internet connection!)