 london diary Back in London It is late... yes. I write from my gorgeous new computer- the long coveted ibook. It is the twelfth of October. A month and a day since life changed. Ten days since life changed. In the past months two things have happened that have changed me profoundly. Perhaps you will find the two unrelated, perhaps you will fond me shallow to relate them. I contend that the pain has been overriding the same. For both have been about loss.... On the eleventh of September, a day after I left America for the fifth time and in my own mind, the last time, I woke up. A normal, jet lagged waking up. I walked downstairs and joined Trevor, my boyfriend of 8 months in his kitchen and made a cup of coffee. The phone rang. I was upstairs sprawling lazily on white sheets, so happy to be back in London the city that I love. His flatmate Scott was on the line.. “Hello?” “Turn on the television.” And there it was. What everyone watched. The towers had been hit. I watched, in surreal time, as they fell. Can anyone ever forget the image of the second tower’s spire collapsing into a horrifically gray, unforgiving dust? Do you remember, just days, its seems, ago- questioning when our time was going to come. Wondering, with trepidation, but perhaps a bit excitedly- “When is our Vietnam” and “when is our” (christ did we really ask- want to know) ”world war two...” I watched television for almost twenty-four hours straight for the first time. Trev sat beside me, frantically typing on his laptop. A journalist, he needed to report on London’s reaction.... I fell asleep. I was out for a few hours- the jet lag had finally caught up. When I awoke, the world was the same. The same in the sense of a feeling of dread that I have woken up with every morning for the last month. After I awoke I walked outside and down the street for some beer. Trev stayed behind his laptop. In the off-liscense Mohammed, proprietor, addressed me for the first in in eight months, “You must be glad that you aren’t in the United States!” But I wasn’t, I wasn’t. And I haven’t been for the last thirty days. Can I relate this time- so long- so short. Can I feel sorry for myself and talk about sitting in the pub and listening to the conversations of British men about the justice that America is now feeling... “As London yes, Londoners, have experienced bombing. We have experienced this all before! “And those poor people in (insert here an impoverished third world country)- well they certainty know what it is like to be at the butt end of it- has America thought of that..?” Trev was there then. I could crawl into his strong, encompassing arms and let the hurt subside. About a week after the bombing (could I say death? Could I talk about the destruction of tens of thousands of lives? Children, survivors....) I went to the American Church here in London. I signed a book of condolences, feeling completely wordless before the empty page, people standing in line behind me. I knelt, crossed myself, the first ritualistically christian act I had performed in many years. As I left the church I thanked the pastor. Could he detect my American accent? Did he know that it hurt me in a peculiar way? In the way that I couldn’t be with my family- amongst the people that I loved, amongst the people that it truly touched. Trev left on the second of October at roughly 22 minutes past seven in the evening. All of a sudden the constant in my life was gone. The love that had sustained me for almost a year was abruptly interrupted. I am not writing this to feel sorry for myself or to garner sympathy. I am writing this because loss is a horrifying part of modern life. I have read that modernity is defined by movement. That human migration, immigration, transportation creates a nonlinear sense of existence. Life is captured in moments- and these moments, whether personal or abstract create a temporal incontinuity that amasses weight creating this sense of time, of being, of personhood. We, I, move constantly- redefining a sense of home within the people that we meet and love. And loss on personal, national and international levels destruct our fragilely created senses of selves. I mourn- o so far away- I mourn the enormous loss felt by the children, women and men of September 11th. And I mourn my loss, of a good friend, lover and companion. |
London's
Calling Livin', Lovin' and Wailin' On... Back in London May 15 April 2 March 5 January 16 January 2 December 27
eurozone |
copyright © 2000-2005 - www.stellargirl.com |
|