Home(ish) for the week: London heatwave

It’s the middle of the week, the heatwave has brought out the whole of London for beers and rowdy cheerfulness and the 24 bus is nowhere to be seen. I walk the 35 minutes necessary to reach my hotel, arriving sweaty and emotional. Staying in a hotel in London, alone, there’s something inherently wrong with this picture.

I’m decidedly more fortunate than most – leaving a city I called home for over 20 years to live somewhere else and yet being able to come back somewhat often. When I land at Heathrow the tiredness falls away because I’m home and the streets beckon. I’m staying in Victoria this time around – a fancy hotel – and I’m thinking about all the times over the years when friends asked for hotel recommendations and I had no idea what to say. At least now I’m gathering some information and I’ll be better prepared.

I walk the streets and I belong and yet I don’t belong. There is no house to return to, my stuff is now in the Bay Area and some have been sold in Dubai. My suitcase is filled with what’s necessary for a work week, with the addition of – for the first time – converters from US to UK plugs. I am however, an adult here, in my mind – whereas when I land in Athens I’m still 20 years old. In London I’m closer to my present reality and yet at bit disconnected.

Regardless, I take a lovely American out for a walk; Bloomsbury, Seven Dials, Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly. I point out in turn the actual seven dials, the Covent Garden market, the bridge of aspiration, Nelson’s statue, the plinth Londoners left empty and the posh F&M. We have breakfast at The Wolseley because that’s the most old London place I can think of. He bravely tries the black pudding. I have tea with milk instead of coffee.

In the evening I sweat it out having tapas and wine with friends in Covent Garden – feels like we saw each other yesterday but it’s been over two years. We perch on the stools, talk prices, elections and new adventures. I crash at around nine thirty and face the long walk back to the hotel with my jet-lag punishing me for choosing to have a long day. The city is breathing the humid air, I always notice the northern European pasty skin – always on men – getting redder and clammy.

In the morning I put on my office attire and drop by the fancy Scandinavian bakery to grab something to eat – actual food being something I tend to forget when I’m in this state. Nostalgic, melancholic, determined.

The first evening I did a little tour of Pimlico. A propos, I do this in every city I travel to. I download an audio tour (I highly recommend VoiceMap) and just walk around to get the airplane feel off me and try to sleep better after long flights. As I learn about Pimlico’s history – once grander, then seedier, nowadays desirable – I do contemplate the magic of any city with a long history. The waves and the rhythms and the people who come and go and make it what it is and what it isn’t.

I’ll get on another plane soon to go meet my 20 year old self in the streets of Athens before I face the insanely long flight to the West Coast, back to sunny California and the tender kisses of my son.

At what age, exactly, are the pieces we leave behind irreplaceable?

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