No, I didn't manage to catch the sweet side of the city. Today, it was everything but sweet, London. Grey and rainy in the run-up to Christmas.
So, I went shopping. I had two choices: Westfields or Oxford Street. I went for the second one, despite the dull weather. Entering shops, browsing, purchasing something, browsing, browsing, trying something on, craving... These are the moments when I love the City. It runs in your veins with its vain bling bling, its wild consumerism, its addictive glamour. (You feel all the more guilty when tramps sitting on the icy pavement look at you, arms stretching towards your bags of you-can-do-without stuff).
Too many handsome boys. Too many gorgeous-looking specimen of the opposite sex: shopping has become a voluptuous experience since I'm in London. They work in retails, they strut in the streets, they carry their women's bags, they take a hot chocolate just before you at Starbucks, they wait and snort while their girlfriend is trying a pair of boots on (the exquisite pain of relationships), they frown as you leave the store that sells sexy lingerie. Many of them -what a pity!- are gay. You exchange just a glance, you gulp, hold your breath for a quick sec, and then it's gone. On to the next one.
Next shop. In and out. Under the rain and in the climate of a rain forest (too much heat in the shops - no wonder the ladies in their underwear at Selfridges were fine!). People are rushing to buy their last gifts. People are crowding the street in this delightful Christmas atmosphere. You feel it. You feel happy although you can buy not even a hundreth of what you would you like to. Stuff, stuff, objects. How much do you need it? How much are we defined by what we wear, what we sport, what we buy? Expensive, cheap, fashionable, eccentric, basic, casual, fancy... If I had the money, I'd buy everything. Would I? The choice, the clothes, bags, shoes, jewelry, books piled up on shelves, hanging on their hangers, more or less orderdly displaced make me feel dizzy. The paradox of choice. When a lot becomes too much...
The lights in Oxford Street are joyful, warm. Kids make me smile. The frenzy of the shopping makes everybody a bit mad, even parents strolling their prams become aggressive. The Christmas market with its smell of sugar-covered nuts and sausages adds folklore to the scene. And then I feel it. I distinctly feel it. The loneliness. I am lonely. I'm at the centre of the world. And yet, lonely. All the people around me, all the languages spoken, all the ethnic diversity around me cannot help my longing for someone to hold me. (And then I think at the poor guys enduring the torture of shopping with their partners and I feel relieved by not putting anyone in such pain on the eve of Christmas).
Today, I loved London. I loved it despite, or thanks to, its flaws: the fine rain, the money-driven soul, the shallow it's-all-about-appearances mode. I loved it because it was fun, energetic, tolerant. London pulses with life, it's vibrant, colourful, free. It made me feel so alive. I wondered: is it going to be enough, just one year, to do all I want to do?
While eating at Pizza Hut, I read the review of a panto and posted a note in the back of my head: bring Thomas to a pantomime in London one day. I want to find a job, earn money, go shopping with my sister in the streets of London, take my mom to a car boot sales, have my father pick up its own T-shirt somewhere. In London the entire world seems to be within your grasp. It must be all the faces you see around you. Handsome people, different people.
I didn't want to go home. I felt like I could walk all night -like a couple of months ago, when I was roaming in the streets of the City with a friend of mine. It was night. It was deserted all around us. I didn't want to go home then, just as much as I didn't want to go home now. My feet were soaked wet, my left shoulder hurt from carrying the bag, I was cold and my nose runny. And yet, I didn't want to go home. I would hit London streets until my shoes fall apart.
I yearned for human companionship. The loneliness of cramped streets cannot compare to the loneliness of a cosy house you call home. Even the impersonality of the tube -with the funny man checking his pocket after the message on the loudspeaker telling people to beware of pickpockets- is warmer than your couch.
I'll read the book I bought -with a 75% discount!- about the art of photography. I'll enjoy my solitude before flying back home, on Saturday, right after Christmas. Family is where your heart belong. But where you choose to live is a matter of opportunity. I love the chances this city gives me. It makes me want more. Greedy me. Greedy beings. Why can't we ever be happy with the little we're given? Why do I keep having the feeling that my life is slipping off my hands like soap? Why do I feel the weight of ageing without having achieved anything?
The City is getting to my heart. It's getting me. Slippery London, you're finally conquering me...
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