Alone in London

Things not happened as expected, as simple as that. The fact is due to unusual circumstances I’m alone here in London with a week ahead and nothing to do. I had planned a full-time schedule for my stay and right now the only place I feel safe is my hotel room. It’s ridiculous to call somebody at home to explain this surrealistic situation so I prefer to carry on and keep it to myself. Anyway, I could imagine some kind of answers like this: -are you kidding me? A week in London and you say it’s embarrassing? If I were you…-. I’ve never experienced a panic attack of any kind or something like that, but I feel it won’t take a lot of time before I absolutely need to go out for a while. It’s completely ridiculous to stay fixed sitting at my desk in front of this laptop all day long, specially being abroad only for a few days. I’m in this hotel located in the heart of the West End. Close to the window, I can easily hear the traffic noise and catch the stress of people in a hurry. That’s just another working day. I would give anything to feel like all these people but, rather than that, I feel like a fish out of water with no one to enjoy and share this special time. I try to breathe deeply and imagine someone stronger and more self-confident than me in this situation. To be honest, I can’t go on.

Only two days barely completed and all that I want is to leave the city but, in the same way, I don’t want to return home either. I’ve come a couple of times to London in the last few months to find a way out and clarify my fucking personal doubts, once and for all. Nevertheless, now I can say it’s over. Thus, not difficult to understand I feel tired and weary, the only thing I want is disappearing. I ask to myself if that’s possible…Suddenly, I banged the table. The best I can do is to get some fresh air, immediately.  The best and quicker way to do that is going straight to the Thames. I want to feel the breeze and the cold wind upstream coming to my face. Once downstairs, I say “hello, good morning” to the hotel receptionist and I’m pretty sure it’s about the only words I’ll say this morning crossing the city centre. People are having a quick breakfast in the coffeehouses and juice bars around me and I can see all these faces looking so natural and ordinary… Why’s not my case? The day before yesterday everything seemed fantastic to me, a perfect way to introduce me one more time in this lovely city and however, right now, I’d like to become invisible till the last day, in which I see myself yet returning to Victoria Station, then to Gatwick and fly away. It’s only a week ahead, ok. Keep calm, it’s only a week ahead, not the end of the world.

Walking down the street, I think I have enough money in my card to try to attend some cultural events, since it’s about to fill my free time somehow or other. I love culture and London is undeniably one of its best places, but anyway I prefer not to feel me forced to play it mandatory, since it’s the same as having sex without wanting to. For the time being, let’s go to some of this city bridges and we will see about mandatory culture.

Thirty minutes stroll later, I find myself in the middle of Waterloo Bridge in this wintry and windy morning. That’s all I needed to take away my deepest and darkest fears. I pass some time over the bridge thinking why on earth I’m not happy and excited with my circumstances. I’m in a city full of opportunities but I’m feeling terribly out of the loop with this state of mind. I feel too old to looking for new friendships or try to be nice and talkative all the time considering I’m not in my best. In fact, in order to go unnoticed, I’ve wanted to look like a student or somebody respectable –in other words, with something to do- so I’ve picked with me a folder, some sheets and a pen, simply to carry them. I order a hot milk coffee and take a seat at a coffee shop on the river’s south bank and spend my time looking the Time Out magazine to see the culture offer. I decide to write a simple list of some places I could go. Quickly, this list doesn’t seem to have an end, the prices no limit either. At any rate, that’s not the way to do this kind of things. I feel deeply ashamed just thinking I’m writing this fucking list so I’m not able to tackle this empty-free time normally. But what the fuck does “normally” mean? I think it’s better to let it be and keep on walking anywhere till lunchtime.

Good news. At least, I know that tomorrow I’m going to attend my first great event of the week. That’s funny because only this appointment will keep me busy for half a day. The venue is expected to look fantastic, too. A classical concert with entire music of Tchaikovsky, extraordinary if it were not for the price, one hundred and fifty pounds, since the day before the show almost all the places had been booked. I realize that surely it will be the first and last presence in such a great event this week if I don’t want take a guitar and going to play and sing at Trafalgar Square for begging! In any case, my wallet has trembled in a way that’s for me it’s clear we’re going to have to find some other places like galleries, libraries, bookstores, museums, to spend my time the next days in an appropriate manner.

The concert has been great, perfect. It has well deserved all my economic efforts and the most important and unexpected thing: I’ve met somebody who was alone like me. No, It's not about falling in love at first sight, and I’m not going to relate you a romantic novel or a soap opera in this post for free either, my dear. Seriously, the truth is I feel better after this experience. I’ve met somebody sitting next to me who walk single, stay single, travel single, in short, think single! It’s hard to get how this very interesting person easily flows that way. I’m not mature enough to be able to do the same, of course. I’m rather fascinated but in any case, that’s encourage me for the rest of my stay.

It’s funny to walk quietly around the city centre while looking all these people going to work or dropping children off at school in a rush. With this new spirit more positive, I’m trying to do my best for finding new different places because it’s impossible to return to some ones already visited in the past, since memories usually come to me like a knife straight to the heart, and in fact, the consequence is a double and lethal effect; they can ruin my day today and at the same time they sully, now and forever, the real good times from bygone days. This simple consideration cut down drastically the list I made the other day. As a result, there’s no choice. I have to change the emotional scale of my visit as well as to start zooming the city otherwise, maybe street by street, like an alien, if I want to survive.

This is me taking a long-long bath in my hotel room some hours later and for the first time I don’t care what time is it. Suddenly, these thoughts as well as the person I met in the concert make me wonder about my way of thinking, my lifestyle. I realize that I’ve passed all these years planning and scheduling a lot of stupid things. I simply cannot go on like this, trying to control everything… This does not make sense! So bathed and dressed, I go out on the street again without looking the map and walk, just for pleasure. Little by little, another London appears before my eyes. I focus my attention in every single input in front of me, with no other intention. At last, I let myself go for the first time since I was child. I hesitate a bit for a moment, and I wonder whether it’s not possible to change my mind in such a way and make a clean sweep, but in fact it’s not tricky at all. It’s about to apply the same inner determination that makes me unhappy, usually with fucking schedules, shit projects and deadlines, hurting me for free, in order to do exactly the opposite. Just using properly this energy that we have and we simply cannot take it out of us, cause it’s ours -it defines to each one of us- but do it in the right way. That’s it!

The force is always with us, of course, we have just to put it in the right sense, but you have to notice it as well as fancying a real desire to change. Suddenly, as a result, the music of the last concert comes to my mind, particularly the long 1st movement of the Tchaikovsky’s 6th Symphony “Pathétique”. At the end, I’ve got the message of its 2nd theme in D major, a sunrise, a sudden burst of light after a four long minutes intro full of dark clouds, troubled waters, clusters and nebulae. Right now, I don’t know yet that this simple tune will be to come along with me for the rest of my life.