I wrote this on my socials:
Love letter to London
“Over 8 hours straight walking til we both felt like our feet would fall off. Visiting my old neighbourhood & home. Seeing so much the same, some different. The memories. The love. The secrets of the city. [my boy] fell in love with the city. Wonderful seeing it all through his eyes… WOW. It ignited something in him. The food (snuck in some cocktails). We never got to see everything… I think for that we would need a week. But for a moment, I felt like I was home again. Like I’d bump into the same faces. Having my son with me was spectacular. And he got to see all the things that he wanted to: war museum, Big Ben and sooo much more, more than I can list. We did the double deckers. Tube one end to the other. It was a jam packed day! Loved it”
❤️
My feet hurt, my body was a wreck.
But to stand outside of the front door, which hadn’t changed, that I grew up in.
To be merely at the other side of the door – felt like time hadn’t passed, that I was just coming home. I just needed to pull out my Yale and door key, and presto, I would be opening the door to the sounds of my Nan watching her favourite programmes, the creak of the laminated floor and the peeling wallpaper in the hallway. Entering into my bedroom. Home. 15 again. My family alive.
Looking at the view that hadn’t changed. I remembered the dogs playing and watching people pass by. The winters of heavy snow and writing on the snow that we could still read it 6 floors up/.
The local shops that were still there (and some wasn’t).
The area seemed more gentrified and cleaner – the block certainly was cleaner, the lifts almost broke down on the way up to the sixth floor (some things never change) though. But otherwise, [with the exception of a new sign outside of the lift] everything was exactly the same.
My neighbourhood. My home.
But then the Elephant and Castle, down the road, has changed, deeply changed. No old-fashioned shopping centre, the underpasses were gone. The area with large buildings and a few old-buildings smattered in. It was… weird. The old bus station… poof.
The Little Apple Pub was now The Kings Head.
So much was the same, but little things changed, and something big. Like walking into The Twilight Zone, about shifting realities or the Mandela Effect.
But it FELT like home.
The same streets that I had, in my past, walked a million times.
The place that I felt intense homesickness at times for. As I weaved my way through the nature of South Wales, the accents and the signs with two languages – I missed the city.
Where I dreamt of the travel card and few quid in my pocket, because that day out, always was an adventure.
The city that you could get lost in.
Fall in love in.
Disappear in.
Find yourself, in.
The city that weaves history, magick, secrets, cultures, food, dreams into every inch of the streets.
Where the bodies were buried and uncovered [two just by my block – then the suicide and the murder – later downstairs and around the corner from me – terrible things].
The streets did talk and gossip and rumour. Even the quietest person heard the circulating news.
The stories and census’ that talk about the deep history of where I grew up… from the hanging circle, the roman road, the great fire, the plagues, the poor, the poor houses, the many lives that touched the places where I once also walked. I traced their footsteps as future generations will unwittingly trace mine.
London was built on stories and everyone can write their own.
Where everyone is in a micro-universe of Main Character living.
Where you can be a ghost.
[or chase them – as I did]
I love London. I always will.
But having children, I chose them.
The wildness of where I was from, was less family orientated and at the time, wasn’t as safe as I wanted it for my children. I had to leave. To give them the opportunity to play out, more green space and extra curricular opportunities, plus… I could not afford to buy in London.
You may look at what I said – and think my area is surprisingly green etc – but I had been stabbed in my area, and was well-aware of the underbelly of it. It was not what my children deserved.
I wanted something a little slower paced and nourishing to the soul. And it worked out well for my children.
The City can chew people up and spit them out, show them things and parts of themselves that should remain in the dark. It can make you grow up far too fast and expose you to things… I lost people, people who should be here today. I wanted my children to experience a more childlike, innocence.
But when I miss it, when I need home, London is but a coach away.
I love you London, always will.
Thank you for allowing me to visit home.
I will pop back again someday.
The Sacred Unravelling 