Tuesday's gone with the wind.
The temperatures were slipping gently into the negatives on the night I returned to Holland with glazed, sleepy eyes and a perception of the world around me so shifted that I barely recognized myself in the passing frosted windows of the south terminal. After hurried and frantic goodbyes at the Clapham Junction station and a dreamlike ride to the airport, my trip back here was a blur. Movements and disappearing faces in transit, images and dull background noise fading, all leading to the moment I stepped out of the train in Den Haag, walked the dark streets back to my flat, and let myself in to a place that seemed so eerily unfamiliar, empty, and so devoid of everything that is London.
I arrived on the evening of the twenty second, full of speculation and curiosity, dreams and unfaded memories, but absolutely no idea of what to expect from the twelve days ahead. My first night in the city was beautiful. Thai curry and a film, idle chat with Tristan's dad, and finally drifting to sleep at a relatively obscene hour made everything seem familiar and safe, yet new and incredibly unpredictable. The days that followed were a mix of dizzying highs and awkward, desperate feelings of helplessness that spun together to create a state of mind I had never before found myself in. We took the train down to Hampshire on Christmas eve and spent the next few days with Tristan's family. It was my first large family Christmas ever and the magnitude of being thrown into such a situation, in all its complexity, was overwhelming. I felt myself being pulled into the dynamic with or without my consent. The tension and the light moments, the jokes and family quirks, a million new experiences seemed to wash over me and I felt as though I was part of a film being shot with my own eyes, as if it were my first time there yet no Christmas had gone by before without me.
Between bouts of sleeping, eating, and drinking copious amounts of champagne and sparkling wine, I would walk. Sometimes alone, but more often with Tristan and Bella (his aunt's adorably moronic dog) at my side. I thought I could lose myself there in the English countryside, just walking for hours and taking in the scenery around me. The cold was sometimes so intense that I would lose all feeling in my fingertips, but was never swayed from padding through the miles of pasture, forest, and hillside around us. In the dark, the land seemed to move and breathe as if it had a life of its own that only allowed itself to be detected when blanketed in the safety of nightfall. But what stays with me the most about the nights we spent there is the image of the sky above us, expanding exponentially in all directions as far as the eye could see, black oceans of unmeasurable depth marked vividly with stars not visible in the Low Sky.
It all went by so quickly and in what seemed mere hours, rather than days, it was time to continue my journey. On the morning of the 27th, Tristan and his brother packed up and drove north to the Lake District to get some much-needed time out of the city. I said goodbye and spent the rest of the day alone with his mother, her wife, and a close friend of the family, Tim. Just before we left, we took one more walk through the woods, talking about everything and nothing at all, and along the way I closed my eyes and tried to remember a time when I'd felt such a part of everything around me, yet so very far away at the same time. After more goodbyes and promises to see eachother again, I climbed into Tim's car and we made the breathtaking drive across the countryside and back into the city. On the way, Tim and I talked without a second's pause. He told me about his job as an accent coach at a drama school in London, Tristan's mom's stint as an opera singer, and I told him about my life, my travels, my irrational and frantic love of London and everything that I see in its dark, glistening streets. We said goodbye on the doorstep of the house in Balham and I spent the rest of the evening having tea with Tristan's dad and repacking my things to leave in the morning.
House in Balham.
Camden Town.
Fantastik Tristan
Dominic: Ninja Kitty
Sound of the Underground.
Gift for Santa.
Twas the night before Christmas.
Bella.
The house in Hampshire.
Dog walker extraordinaire.
Champagne and smoked salmon with gift-opening.
Yo-ho-ho!
Generous quantities of bubbly.
Christmas dinner.
The result of shameful overindulgence.
Keri and Marcus.
Pubbin' it.
In the train to Southend on Sea, I watched the highrise buildings and endless expanse of city horizon be replaced slowly by white tipped trees and curls of smoke that twisted into the winter air from the houses of the villages below. And as the sea drew ever-closer, I felt less anxious about what lie ahead and more concentrated on the image of the sunset on the North Sea, a vision I have seen countless times, but this time would be witnessing in reverse-perspective. Pete greeted me at the station in Prittlewell, then carried my bag for me as we skidded and slipped through the compacted snow back to his house. We dropped off my things and continued to the seaside, which was even more beautiful than I had dared to imagine. The tide was out and the coast seemed to fold outward for miles into the mouth of the Thames. The sun, that sets so quickly in the days near Christmas, seemed to slow and intensify, basking in its own glory right before me. It dangled above the horizon for what seemed like forever and I pranced along the shoreline snapping pictures of the pier, the boats, the boy at my side finishing my ridiculously large helping of fish and chips. It could have been hours that went by there or just mere minutes. I was completely unaware of the passing time. Before heading home, we climbed to the top of a hill overlooking the coast and picked our way through a park that was orange with the light of the setting sun.
We stayed in that night and looked at photographs, talked about silly things, and watched old British movies that I had never heard of but loved immediately. The next morning, we mustered all our strength and braved the frigid cold outside to take a small tour of the town. We walked past a park famous for its status as the burial site of an old Saxon king, then to another park with a monastery in the centre. We sat on the swings at the playground on the outskirts and talked about future plans and possibilities, then walked to see St. Mary's church and the ancient graveyard surrounding it. We stayed outside until it became absolutely unbearable, then made our way home, staging random snowball fights and trying not to slip on the ice beneath out feet. That night, Pete cooked me a proper English supper, complete with roast potatoes, veg, and yorkshire puddings, the first I've ever had. They were delicious and the look on his face when he pulled them out of the oven and they'd risen and browned perfectly was priceless. After supper, we headed into town to have a drink or two at a tiny pub nearby, then came home and curled up around the tv to watch more movies until I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer.
On the morning of the 30th, I woke up at 7am to see that it was snowing outside and, like a child that's never seen snow before, sat at the window and watched in awe for nearly an hour. Realizing I would never get to sleep again after that, I sat up and read, listened to music, and looked out the window every few minutes to see if the snow had stopped yet. Hours later, Pete and his dad drove me to the station and I caught the train back into the city, following the vein of railway and towns into the bursting heart of London with my eyes the whole way. When I arrived at Tristan's house, I sat and talked with his dad. He shared random tidbits of family history and we talked about the trip to India he would be taking within a few days. Tristan arrived home a little after eight, looking like a forlorn backpacker that had been on the go for weeks. He showered while I prepared an enormous meal for the three of us and we ate it while watching a movie I can't even remember the name of. Long before it was over, we went upstairs and, once again, stayed up far too late talking about our adventures the the days preceding.
The Palace.
Gone with the tides.
Pleasure pier.
Codependency.
The monastery.
Flexing the iron cooking fist.
New Years Eve was completely surreal. Tristan had a gig to play at a Brazilian bar just of the high street in Camden Town so we went there to drop our things off, then swung by the shop nearby where his best mate Dan works. The three of us headed back to the bar and Dan and I stood watching and screaming our lung out while Tristan drummed up a storm with his samba band in the streets. Somehwere along the line, we made a pact to try to embarrass him as much as possible and ended up screaming ridiculous profanities at random times during their performace, such as "Prickboy!" and "Tristan is a big girl!". We amused ourselves greatly and over a shared bottle of scotch and in a thickening crowd, crept closer to the end of 2005. At midnight, Dan and I were dancing around in the rainy streets, watching the fireworks above us and kissing random strangers in passing, screaming Happy New Year so loud that we must have been heard halfway across the city. We opened the bottle of champagne that Tristan had brought with him for the occasion, but ended up letting him drink most of it because he had been sober the whole night to play. Champagne in the eyes, thrown Capirinhas, dozens of pictures and spilled tears over a presumed lost bag led us deeper into 2006 and by the time we left the club, my head was spinning with the delirium of hope for the year to come and the effervescence of champagne bubbles. By the time we reached home, we were completely exhausted, but thankfully unaffected by the strikes hitting the London Underground.
Samba!
Rock! And a little bit of roll.
Midnight!
Show me your wabs!
More wabbage.
Getting champagne in your eyes really hurts.
Wholesome sobriety.
The first morning of 2006 was greeted with only traces of a hangover and Tristan and I stalled plans to go to the Tate Modern until the day was nearly over and we decided just to stay in bed and get out only to cook for Dan, Marcus, and Keri who came over that night for Duck and Orange curry and The Princess Bride. The day after, we did manage to emerge from the house sometime in the late afternoon to take a stroll along the Thames at Waterloo, then up to Regents Park where we walked all the way to Camden Town to have one last dinner with Sally and Rose (Tristan's mom and her wife). It was a beautiful meal and the conversation was plentiful and relaxing. We finished a bottle of 10 year-old Rioja that Sally had been saving for a special occasion and listened to Astor Piazzolla. Afterward we caught the tube back home and spent the entire night awake, sitting in a bubble bath talking like we hadn't in ages, frolicking around the house like naughty children, drinking Red Bull until our hearts felt like they would burst out of our chests. At 4am, I found myself in the sitting room watching Tristan play Chopin and Peter Schmalfuss and writing random bits of poetry in the dizzying realization that the end of my time in London was approaching and that there was nothing I could do to stop it. We were sober all night, not wanting to miss a second of those last glorious hours in which I flew through the entire spectrum of human emotion and pushed even deeper into places I'd never found myself before. At dawn, we crawled downstairs and Tristan made us fresh crepes with strawberries, whipped cream, and Cointreau. Afterward, what started as an innocent toss of a strawberry turned into a full-fledged food fight and we collapsed with laugher on the floor of the kitchen, covered in jam, eggs, and whipped cream.
After a shower, a quick nap, and one more delicious meal together, we walked to the station smoking a brand of cigarettes which Tristan had brought home with him on his last trip to Vienna that has since been discontinued. He caught the train with me to Clapham Junction and I stood on the platform humming London Calling by The Clash, stealing glances at him and wondering how it was that so much time could have flown by so unbelievable and painfully fast. We said goodbye with palms pressed against windows as my train pulled out of the station and the taste of cloves, tobacco, and a goodbye kiss mixed sweetly in my mouth.
Sitting on the train to Gatwick, I couldn't bring myself to look out of the window, couldn't accept the fact that, once again, I was leaving the city in which life burns inside of me like a never-dimming roman candle. I listened to the songs that Tristan had assembled for me into a playlist for the plane and exhaled a sigh that comes only with the knowledge that you have found something real, something inconceivably beautiful, completely and utterly unparalleled by anything else in the world. For twelve glorious days, I held in my hands what some will only ever dream of, let it consume me and change me in ways I am only beginning to understand now. I let it play like fire on my fingertips, then released it again smiling into the cold gusting winds of the wretchedly breathtaking city of my heart.
I arrived on the evening of the twenty second, full of speculation and curiosity, dreams and unfaded memories, but absolutely no idea of what to expect from the twelve days ahead. My first night in the city was beautiful. Thai curry and a film, idle chat with Tristan's dad, and finally drifting to sleep at a relatively obscene hour made everything seem familiar and safe, yet new and incredibly unpredictable. The days that followed were a mix of dizzying highs and awkward, desperate feelings of helplessness that spun together to create a state of mind I had never before found myself in. We took the train down to Hampshire on Christmas eve and spent the next few days with Tristan's family. It was my first large family Christmas ever and the magnitude of being thrown into such a situation, in all its complexity, was overwhelming. I felt myself being pulled into the dynamic with or without my consent. The tension and the light moments, the jokes and family quirks, a million new experiences seemed to wash over me and I felt as though I was part of a film being shot with my own eyes, as if it were my first time there yet no Christmas had gone by before without me.
Between bouts of sleeping, eating, and drinking copious amounts of champagne and sparkling wine, I would walk. Sometimes alone, but more often with Tristan and Bella (his aunt's adorably moronic dog) at my side. I thought I could lose myself there in the English countryside, just walking for hours and taking in the scenery around me. The cold was sometimes so intense that I would lose all feeling in my fingertips, but was never swayed from padding through the miles of pasture, forest, and hillside around us. In the dark, the land seemed to move and breathe as if it had a life of its own that only allowed itself to be detected when blanketed in the safety of nightfall. But what stays with me the most about the nights we spent there is the image of the sky above us, expanding exponentially in all directions as far as the eye could see, black oceans of unmeasurable depth marked vividly with stars not visible in the Low Sky.
It all went by so quickly and in what seemed mere hours, rather than days, it was time to continue my journey. On the morning of the 27th, Tristan and his brother packed up and drove north to the Lake District to get some much-needed time out of the city. I said goodbye and spent the rest of the day alone with his mother, her wife, and a close friend of the family, Tim. Just before we left, we took one more walk through the woods, talking about everything and nothing at all, and along the way I closed my eyes and tried to remember a time when I'd felt such a part of everything around me, yet so very far away at the same time. After more goodbyes and promises to see eachother again, I climbed into Tim's car and we made the breathtaking drive across the countryside and back into the city. On the way, Tim and I talked without a second's pause. He told me about his job as an accent coach at a drama school in London, Tristan's mom's stint as an opera singer, and I told him about my life, my travels, my irrational and frantic love of London and everything that I see in its dark, glistening streets. We said goodbye on the doorstep of the house in Balham and I spent the rest of the evening having tea with Tristan's dad and repacking my things to leave in the morning.
House in Balham.
Camden Town.
Fantastik Tristan
Dominic: Ninja Kitty
Sound of the Underground.
Gift for Santa.
Twas the night before Christmas.
Bella.
The house in Hampshire.
Dog walker extraordinaire.
Champagne and smoked salmon with gift-opening.
Yo-ho-ho!
Generous quantities of bubbly.
Christmas dinner.
The result of shameful overindulgence.
Keri and Marcus.
Pubbin' it.
In the train to Southend on Sea, I watched the highrise buildings and endless expanse of city horizon be replaced slowly by white tipped trees and curls of smoke that twisted into the winter air from the houses of the villages below. And as the sea drew ever-closer, I felt less anxious about what lie ahead and more concentrated on the image of the sunset on the North Sea, a vision I have seen countless times, but this time would be witnessing in reverse-perspective. Pete greeted me at the station in Prittlewell, then carried my bag for me as we skidded and slipped through the compacted snow back to his house. We dropped off my things and continued to the seaside, which was even more beautiful than I had dared to imagine. The tide was out and the coast seemed to fold outward for miles into the mouth of the Thames. The sun, that sets so quickly in the days near Christmas, seemed to slow and intensify, basking in its own glory right before me. It dangled above the horizon for what seemed like forever and I pranced along the shoreline snapping pictures of the pier, the boats, the boy at my side finishing my ridiculously large helping of fish and chips. It could have been hours that went by there or just mere minutes. I was completely unaware of the passing time. Before heading home, we climbed to the top of a hill overlooking the coast and picked our way through a park that was orange with the light of the setting sun.
We stayed in that night and looked at photographs, talked about silly things, and watched old British movies that I had never heard of but loved immediately. The next morning, we mustered all our strength and braved the frigid cold outside to take a small tour of the town. We walked past a park famous for its status as the burial site of an old Saxon king, then to another park with a monastery in the centre. We sat on the swings at the playground on the outskirts and talked about future plans and possibilities, then walked to see St. Mary's church and the ancient graveyard surrounding it. We stayed outside until it became absolutely unbearable, then made our way home, staging random snowball fights and trying not to slip on the ice beneath out feet. That night, Pete cooked me a proper English supper, complete with roast potatoes, veg, and yorkshire puddings, the first I've ever had. They were delicious and the look on his face when he pulled them out of the oven and they'd risen and browned perfectly was priceless. After supper, we headed into town to have a drink or two at a tiny pub nearby, then came home and curled up around the tv to watch more movies until I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer.
On the morning of the 30th, I woke up at 7am to see that it was snowing outside and, like a child that's never seen snow before, sat at the window and watched in awe for nearly an hour. Realizing I would never get to sleep again after that, I sat up and read, listened to music, and looked out the window every few minutes to see if the snow had stopped yet. Hours later, Pete and his dad drove me to the station and I caught the train back into the city, following the vein of railway and towns into the bursting heart of London with my eyes the whole way. When I arrived at Tristan's house, I sat and talked with his dad. He shared random tidbits of family history and we talked about the trip to India he would be taking within a few days. Tristan arrived home a little after eight, looking like a forlorn backpacker that had been on the go for weeks. He showered while I prepared an enormous meal for the three of us and we ate it while watching a movie I can't even remember the name of. Long before it was over, we went upstairs and, once again, stayed up far too late talking about our adventures the the days preceding.
The Palace.
Gone with the tides.
Pleasure pier.
Codependency.
The monastery.
Flexing the iron cooking fist.
New Years Eve was completely surreal. Tristan had a gig to play at a Brazilian bar just of the high street in Camden Town so we went there to drop our things off, then swung by the shop nearby where his best mate Dan works. The three of us headed back to the bar and Dan and I stood watching and screaming our lung out while Tristan drummed up a storm with his samba band in the streets. Somehwere along the line, we made a pact to try to embarrass him as much as possible and ended up screaming ridiculous profanities at random times during their performace, such as "Prickboy!" and "Tristan is a big girl!". We amused ourselves greatly and over a shared bottle of scotch and in a thickening crowd, crept closer to the end of 2005. At midnight, Dan and I were dancing around in the rainy streets, watching the fireworks above us and kissing random strangers in passing, screaming Happy New Year so loud that we must have been heard halfway across the city. We opened the bottle of champagne that Tristan had brought with him for the occasion, but ended up letting him drink most of it because he had been sober the whole night to play. Champagne in the eyes, thrown Capirinhas, dozens of pictures and spilled tears over a presumed lost bag led us deeper into 2006 and by the time we left the club, my head was spinning with the delirium of hope for the year to come and the effervescence of champagne bubbles. By the time we reached home, we were completely exhausted, but thankfully unaffected by the strikes hitting the London Underground.
Samba!
Rock! And a little bit of roll.
Midnight!
Show me your wabs!
More wabbage.
Getting champagne in your eyes really hurts.
Wholesome sobriety.
The first morning of 2006 was greeted with only traces of a hangover and Tristan and I stalled plans to go to the Tate Modern until the day was nearly over and we decided just to stay in bed and get out only to cook for Dan, Marcus, and Keri who came over that night for Duck and Orange curry and The Princess Bride. The day after, we did manage to emerge from the house sometime in the late afternoon to take a stroll along the Thames at Waterloo, then up to Regents Park where we walked all the way to Camden Town to have one last dinner with Sally and Rose (Tristan's mom and her wife). It was a beautiful meal and the conversation was plentiful and relaxing. We finished a bottle of 10 year-old Rioja that Sally had been saving for a special occasion and listened to Astor Piazzolla. Afterward we caught the tube back home and spent the entire night awake, sitting in a bubble bath talking like we hadn't in ages, frolicking around the house like naughty children, drinking Red Bull until our hearts felt like they would burst out of our chests. At 4am, I found myself in the sitting room watching Tristan play Chopin and Peter Schmalfuss and writing random bits of poetry in the dizzying realization that the end of my time in London was approaching and that there was nothing I could do to stop it. We were sober all night, not wanting to miss a second of those last glorious hours in which I flew through the entire spectrum of human emotion and pushed even deeper into places I'd never found myself before. At dawn, we crawled downstairs and Tristan made us fresh crepes with strawberries, whipped cream, and Cointreau. Afterward, what started as an innocent toss of a strawberry turned into a full-fledged food fight and we collapsed with laugher on the floor of the kitchen, covered in jam, eggs, and whipped cream.
After a shower, a quick nap, and one more delicious meal together, we walked to the station smoking a brand of cigarettes which Tristan had brought home with him on his last trip to Vienna that has since been discontinued. He caught the train with me to Clapham Junction and I stood on the platform humming London Calling by The Clash, stealing glances at him and wondering how it was that so much time could have flown by so unbelievable and painfully fast. We said goodbye with palms pressed against windows as my train pulled out of the station and the taste of cloves, tobacco, and a goodbye kiss mixed sweetly in my mouth.
Sitting on the train to Gatwick, I couldn't bring myself to look out of the window, couldn't accept the fact that, once again, I was leaving the city in which life burns inside of me like a never-dimming roman candle. I listened to the songs that Tristan had assembled for me into a playlist for the plane and exhaled a sigh that comes only with the knowledge that you have found something real, something inconceivably beautiful, completely and utterly unparalleled by anything else in the world. For twelve glorious days, I held in my hands what some will only ever dream of, let it consume me and change me in ways I am only beginning to understand now. I let it play like fire on my fingertips, then released it again smiling into the cold gusting winds of the wretchedly breathtaking city of my heart.