During the relax-y bit of my online yoga, the teacher often asks us to imagine one simple joyful image. I find this surprisingly hard. Somehow a cup of tea isn’t enough without all of its surrounding context, and a flower just doesn’t cut it. My visual imagination has never been strong. I can’t seem to summon up the requisite cosiness or aesthetic purity of nature.
Just before Christmas, however, I found myself recording a podcast in central London and then rushing straight to a charity drinks event at the National Theatre on the south bank of the Thames. Hark at her, I know. Both events were great fun (and DEAD IMPORTANT, OBVS) but weirdly, going from one to the other I suddenly felt a real sharp thrill, going down an escalator. Now don’t get me wrong - I’ve been down loads of escalators before. I don’t want to send you into a jealous rage but I reckon it’s been maybe four a week on average.
I think it was because I felt a surge of freedom; a wave of excitement about being an adult; allowed out on my own, in my smart coat and boots, trotting through the exciting city I’m lucky enough to live in. I’m aware that London isn’t everyone’s bag. I get it. There’s no denying that it’s dirty, noisy and expensive. Famously, lots of people leave London and love not being there. As Amy Poehler loves to say
“Good for you, not for me”.
I’ve lived in London all my life, except for when I was a student in Norwich, which I loved but was never going to compete - all the escalators were in a shopping centre for heaven’s sake.
It’s like a marriage - I have to accept the bad bits to get the good bits. Life is all about the little things. In order to get the architecture, the free exhibitions, the endless variety and culture, you have to accept the manky pigeon shit, the vomit in the streets, the smog, the siren wails, and the sheer, brutal rudeness of your fellow commuters. I sort of do love it all. When people ask me why I don’t travel more, I answer “I haven’t finished London yet”.
The London I live in is pretty different from the one I grew up in. It’s obviously literally different - taller buildings, no Our Price, and the Swiss Centre is now an M&M World but it’s also different because I’m a middle aged woman and what I want from it is different. The sticky floors I experience these days are more likely to be in a child friendly chain restaurant than a dodgy club in Soho. I spend a lot less time on night buses. Let’s face it, I spend zero time on night buses. I have some vivid memories of them - the night we all cheered as we were stuck in traffic in Trafalgar Square when through a tiny window, a man managed to order and receive a hot dog from a pavement cart. Another time, I watched a seemingly prim, but clearly hammered woman trying to disguise the fact that she was spitting colourful globules of vomit into her handbag. Does this stuff still happen? Probably, but I’m not on them any more.
Anyway, back to the escalator. To be fair, an escalator is an amazing feat of engineering (a travelling floor that becomes stairs that become floor!?), but it’s also something that takes me back, as well as up and down. I can remember the fear and awe of tube travel I felt as a child. I remember being taught to step between the lines to ensure we didn’t tip over when they lurched downwards. Descending into the belly of the city to zip around in underground trains; breathing in those weird blasts of the indoor breeze they create.
I think I still feel a thrill because I still find being an adult a thrill. I love that I know how to “do” the tube. I’ve been doing it so long so I know all the nuances. I’m not one of those people that gets furious with flustered tourists getting it wrong (blocking entrances, swiping the wrong side of ticket machines etc), - I’m more like a benevolent fairy godmother, whispering advice and then floating past them into the street. I imagine they admire my smooth debit card action and exit know-how with the same awe I reserve for incredible pianists or like, super competent baristas.
I sort of hated being a child. I wanted to grow up quickly. Don’t get me wrong, there are things about being an adult that suck too - I speak, not only during tax season, but as someone who had their bathroom ripped up and abandoned as the result of a leak back in August, and has been arguing with various council departments every day since. But being a kid… there were thrills, sure, but you were ultimately on someone else’s timetable. The choices I have now still excite me - even the tiny ones, like making myself a boiled egg and soldiers for no reason at all.
When I was a kid we used to go to the bakery on Saturday morning and we could each choose a cake for tea. I always chose this weird wafer cone with mallow and hundreds and thousands on it because - get this; I didn’t feel I DESERVED a chocolate eclair. I know, I know; it’s bad. These days I understand the world a bit more. By which I mean, I know that life is a shitshow, but it’s you buying - so treat yourself to the best bloody pastry you can afford. Life is more frightening than ever so it’s even more important to turn that face to the winter sun and be kind to yourself. Get on that escalator. Give yourself permission to make little choices that thrilled the young version of you. It’s almost certainly where the answer lies…
Lovely stuff. I have spoken to the pigeons and they want to know where you expect them to shit?