On Leaving London
One of the perks of living life is that sometimes you experience the delight of being proven wrong. I had one such experience on my recent visit to London. I don't really know what I was expecting, but it didn't even come close to the overwhelmingly positive experience I did end up having. Woman breaking down on the underground, crying, screaming into the phone to her ex/lover, "But how could you sleep with her?, how everyone tried to ignore the phone call, but by the end, someone asking her if she's ok, and the fact that she is allowed to break down so completely and totally OUT IN PUBLIC...hmmmm....I thought that was cool.
The brown hands reading The Heart is A Lonely Hunter and as I hitchhike a read, I find she is in the midst of reading that brutal rape scene...
Discovering bookmark--the socialist bookshop right on the same street as my hotel!), buying a copy of Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita and so knowing that McKinley was there, winking down at me. Reading it, on the way to the airport and laughing out loud cause I can't help but think: Damn, McKinley was right, this is a great book! And why didn't I read this before so that I could have shared his joy?
The disinterested woman whom I ask directions and the way she proceeded to open a jar of hair wax and comb it through her hair, and tell me quite politely, "No, I don't really know what you should do." That was just brilliant.
Things I loved doing in London:
Eating Jamaican food at Jerk City, 189 Wardour Street. Calling Kadija Sesay of Sable and having her invite me to her birthday bash (I was really touched). Taking the bus to Dalston Junction and eating the most amazing African food and meeting some really cool women: Poet Valerie Mason-John , Jennifer Dean (fellow Trinidadian!) and Elly Niland.Walking on Oxford Street completely by accident, eating Korean food at Bi Won (24 Coptic Street), Japanese food...Looking up at the sky and seeing it blue with white-ribboned clouds and knowing at that moment that the sky will never look that exact way again...Having the Jamaican bell boy talk to me, and how I anchored my eyes into his and we connected over writing...watching the Jeremy Kyle Show (!?!?), falling in love...
I liked London, okay?!?
The brown hands reading The Heart is A Lonely Hunter and as I hitchhike a read, I find she is in the midst of reading that brutal rape scene...
Discovering bookmark--the socialist bookshop right on the same street as my hotel!), buying a copy of Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita and so knowing that McKinley was there, winking down at me. Reading it, on the way to the airport and laughing out loud cause I can't help but think: Damn, McKinley was right, this is a great book! And why didn't I read this before so that I could have shared his joy?
The disinterested woman whom I ask directions and the way she proceeded to open a jar of hair wax and comb it through her hair, and tell me quite politely, "No, I don't really know what you should do." That was just brilliant.
Things I loved doing in London:
Eating Jamaican food at Jerk City, 189 Wardour Street. Calling Kadija Sesay of Sable and having her invite me to her birthday bash (I was really touched). Taking the bus to Dalston Junction and eating the most amazing African food and meeting some really cool women: Poet Valerie Mason-John , Jennifer Dean (fellow Trinidadian!) and Elly Niland.Walking on Oxford Street completely by accident, eating Korean food at Bi Won (24 Coptic Street), Japanese food...Looking up at the sky and seeing it blue with white-ribboned clouds and knowing at that moment that the sky will never look that exact way again...Having the Jamaican bell boy talk to me, and how I anchored my eyes into his and we connected over writing...watching the Jeremy Kyle Show (!?!?), falling in love...
I liked London, okay?!?
Comments
I’m planning on heading there for some much needed “I’m a fabulous black woman and I need to see other fabulous people of colour” time in March or in summer. Every now and then the walls begin to close in on me here in Stavanger and all I want to do is GET OUT OF TOWN. The States are in my sights as is London and somewhere in Tuscany or Southern Spain.