Londres - City of Dreams and Japanese Ice Cream

For five months now, I have marched this city with eyes glued to the graying cracks and the sticky tar spots. Flaying snails upturned and begging in the wet summer and now tawny leaves plastered to puddles of rain in the autumn. Soon I will watch melting white ice there.
Unless.
I follow the shoe connected to the knee-bone connected to the swaggering hip-bone connected to the torso bone connected to the larynginal bone thingums connected to the cheek bones connected to the eye orbits connected to the eyes connected to the smile.
Not until I do that.

For five months now, I have heard of the belief in this city's greatness, the rapture in this city's abundance, the glistening sheen that London emits. I have heard much and waited for the city to shush me to listen. I can feel its blood and its pulse, but its heart evades me, if a heart is a centre greater than the mind. I have watched and waited for the beckoning. And when I listened hard, it smiled on me and whispered to my toes and the tips of my ears and then.... raced away in ... shyness.

Can a city renown as this is be shy? How else am I to describe the mysterious, avoidant ways I sense about it without indignity to my self-respect? How else can justify thinking this city to be one huge tv set with 180 thousand channels? How else can I reconcile my choice to avoid the mindless tv set and pursue life with my comparison of London life to the tv I shirk?

So, the city and I dance around each other, careful not to touch. Anxious for a smile from each other. Both already in the London ways. Watchful but not looking each other in the eye. Smiling, but not seeing one smile at the other. We bow at each other, wary but pleased. Defensive, but kind. Inimical, but insouciant. London, meet Sue. Sue, London.

I touch shoulders - accidentally - and rub the musty masonry all over my arm and wait for the sparkle. The city is all white, blinking teeth, sleeked hair and strut and I hope it is the dust off the old bricks that makes it so. This pilgrim has come to you, London, for your shiny powers. For she will need it to gleam atween obstacles. She will need its charms on her way to the rivers of cream and honey. Bless her, Londres. She is your servant. Teach her all your guile. So that she may see through the luminescence and be awed by those of your disciples who are true.

For We can offer to teach all those who come to us, but not all are inclined to become disciples. Lead her to those who will light her path and light her up. Teach her of the subtle differences between the veneer and the pine knots that reveal minutiae of lives lived. For because veneers are the crux of a zeitgeist, they cannot be also be at the helm. Let her walk amid the crux, pepper herself with the mustiness and then walk the thin line to the helm. Let her know the fall, for what errors she lives through, she will have mastered and turned.

Lend her courage to walk. For she wishes to walk.

Tres dramatique.
I came to London with so much expectation. I knew this city was amazing. Astounding. I didn't know why. I just knew it was magic. Now I walk its streets and I am awed at its beauty. I breathe in its air and I am grateful for its coolness. I learn to read the dirt in the cracks in the pavements and to bite my tongue in frustration. I learn to gulp my surprise at the lot it attracts and to to steel myself against despair. There is much to examine to find the glowing soul in this city.

London gleams because it is a city that serves its inhabitants. That these inhabitants are now going to pay higher tax rates to maintain the same level of service as for the last 50 years is, of course,moot. London gleams because it is a handsome dowager dressed in her day jewels. She has shined them since she was 16 when her father first gave her that necklace. Her charm is her legacy. And her legendary prowess, too, is her parfum. Can you see these in the look in her eye when she turns to you?

London shimmers because reality is created her, disgarded into the world and lost in translation. Originality matters when you are one of 5,809 thousand originals. Marketing matters when you are one of 5,809 thousand voices. High professional standards matter when you are one of 5,809 thousand standards. And there is much to examine to find the glowing soul in this city.

Needless to say, I have yet to make London mine. It might be because parts of this city jars against my needs. I need to be seen, but no one looks at you here. I need to be heard, but everyone is watching the great big tv set. I need to be free, but there are so many rules.

But, alas.
Now to learn the steps of this dance and start having fun before my imminent deportation.
And an easy goodbye to the blue monster.
You were something else to work with, baby.
Lots of spitty cooties to you.
Bwah.