A first time visitor to London may be entranced by it; a reaction befitting a city that over its two thousand years of history, has been researched, dissected, served as a muse, so many times, that the visitor likely brought a lens and perspective to view the city with.
After a year in London, that visitor
who evolved to a resident may be perplexed by its rules. Everything free has
been explored and there is no money to be hedonistic like everyone else, for the
money has been spent on rent and transport. This despair may be dispelled by
the friendships and connections forged in that year gone. However, realization may
dawn on that visitor-resident, that there are five airports in this city, over three
hundred railways stations, all serving as studies in how people come and go,
treating London as though it came with a personalized use by date. Unlike the
freedom that came with being just a visitor, the daily life of a young working resident
may seem ruthless. Everyone is in a rush, the tube stinks of puke, the shower
is leaking, there are too many hipster joints and everyone seems to reek of
success. Respite may be found on the weekends, in becoming a tourist again, but
that calm disappears on Sunday night, with the prospect of another week of a
big city’s realities.
After some years of living here and
getting accustomed to those ‘London’ ways, that resident may be overwhelmed by
the city’s perpetual opportunities to indulge oneself. Feel like trying some
Georgian cuisine? Drink a Turkish coffee whilst listening to some Hungarian Electronic
Jazz? Enjoy a foreign film in an Embassy? Meet people from countries you didn’t
know existed? Practise a new language? Enjoy the world’s best culture for less
than a tenner? Visit the New Tate and experience contemporary modern art in
real-time as the building oversees some high rise curtain less apartments and
the inmates present themselves to public scrutiny? Don’t know what you feel
like? A pub and beer lie in wait at the end of every street. You could get some
brunch the next day and visit the Buddhist monastery for some meditation to
make some mind space for new hedonistic ventures.
As a walker friendly city, London
offers free classes in reading the signs of modern society - those bankers made
a lot of money except that one in the corner of the bar that looks like he lost
out, that couple that was distant but is now close, that couple that seems
close but is at the brink of a break up, that ‘minted’ mum who is thinking
about shopping at designer shops in Chelsea, that teenager just got fired today,
that homeless man is waiting for the girl inside the café to bring out the
thrash.
People at times dress the same and
expose their secrets by it – the women who wear sneakers have high heels in
their bags, the men who wear sneakers have been running and haven’t had a shower.
For a city that allows so much freedom of expression and choice, there is curiosity
in the comfort its residents seem to take in consuming like each other.
Six years later, that resident may be
fortunate enough to learn how to break the shackles off those realities and see
London anew, every day. There is no dearth of experiences or enjoyment, even in
daily life, with or without money. The seasons change visibly in the city’s parks
and squares, a hill round the corner offers views on transforming skylines, the
annual ‘Open House’ event even offers the opportunities to delve into how the
city works - how it avoids floods with the Thames Barrier, how an area recycles
majority of its waste, how the rich and successful meet at secret societies, examples
of research groups that reconstruct entire cathedrals on software because they
wanted to see what it would look like.
London has the power to move you. At dawn, as
streets lie empty, the last of the night revellers are taking black cabs home,
and the Thames begins to catch the first light; at dusk as the streetlights
come on in the city’s parks; at night, when the moon hangs low over Canary
Wharf. Coming back here from other places may even be refreshing. The tube is
still there. People don't give each
other a second glance or if they do, it is with the understanding of having
have had some kind of common London experience in the past.
London is equal parts kind and indifferent to its
visitors. It is harsher towards its residents. To surpass the boundaries of a visitor-tourist,
you must learn the rules and your ways around them. So you learn how to operate
with others and independently. How to wait two minutes extra to get a seat in
public transport. How not to get upset by train delays. How to enjoy commuting. How
to stay fascinated but not choose every opportunity that comes your way. How not to compare yourself with others. How
to let go when you are in queue 1690 to get tickets for the Radiohead gig. The discovery
of Off-peak travel and quiet zones. Keeping to the left and moving right. Not
stopping in Zone 1. Walking fast in the financial districts. Walking slowly in
Westminster. Being accepting of the fact that every human, tree, plant, bird, animal
that passes through London changes the energy and flow of it in some way and
you are but one part of it.
London is being disrupted and forced into flux with
every passing day. Perhaps for this reason, there is strength to be found in
old spaces like St Paul’s Cathedral. You, who have lived in this city, and are
compelled to stop in your tracks every time you pass by, may despair that those
first visitors don’t stop and observe enough, that those residents are too
self-absorbed in their consumerism to appreciate this apparent immortality in a
city and life of transience. But, there is always the likelihood that you were
mistaken. For all around the cathedral, there may still be a sizable number of
people, who aren’t looking at their phones or taking selfies, but up ahead or
into the distance as though lulled into a frame of mind transcending this city,
its surroundings or even you.
