Walking in London
“To walk alone in London is the greatest rest.”
– Virginia Woolf
To be fair, I wasn’t entirely alone in London; I had come along on my husband’s work trip and he was next to me, or rather behind me as I forged ahead through the Sunday market crowds on Brick Lane. I had to ask him to stop getting my attention by putting a hand on my back or shoulder; my body, keyed up by lack of sleep and the excitement of the trip, responded in an adrenaline-fueled fight or flight kind of way to his unexpected touch. Anyway.
But Monday and Tuesday of our trip he worked in the mornings and I walked alone through a city that I half-remembered from a study abroad trip 20 years ago. And despite the 8+ miles logged every day and despite the crush of people out enjoying the sunshine (I got a little sunburnt…in LONDON), and despite the complete and utter sensory overload of taking in a city that manages to cram together the contemporary with the leftovers of so many different ages, I found that rest Virginia Woolf talks about.
I suppose it comes from the complete and utter absorption of navigating your way across the town, the concentration it takes to land in the right place in a city whose streets exist without an overarching organizing principle. It’s a city that grew by consuming the towns and hamlets around it, and I found myself in so many different Londons in a day (although, as several locals told me, I’d have to go much further afield than the central districts to see the truly distinct bits of the city).
All that to say, as I walked from our hotel in Holborn down Fleet Street, across the river to wave to the Globe Theatre and then on to Borough Market and then past it to see just how far along the Thames I could make it, I found myself in what the business books my husband reads would call a “flow state,” that rare frame of mind in which you are so absorbed in a task that you lose track of time, and even track of yourself and just exist in a moment that feels, well, outside the ordinary course of time. As I walked, I didn’t think about lunch or souvenirs, or my schedule. I didn’t even think of my children back at home or my mother who was expecting some news from the doctor.
In this mental place, my body ceased to exist as something that needed tending or attention–despite the miles logged already, I barely registered hunger, and self-consciousness about my very practical travel clothes next to some of the wonderfully wild and loud fashion around me completely evaporated. I hear illustrators talk about the flow state, and programmers. Rock climbers certainly mention it; how their attention shrinks to just the next handhold above them and they feel free from all other mental burdens. I don’t climb rocks, but I confess that a particularly difficult jigsaw puzzle can bring me to a similar pinpoint of focus, without the risk of falling to my death.
When you come out of such a state, jarred by pressing need–eventually my feet simply couldn’t take another step, although I wouldn’t have been able to tell you they were so far gone–or by a sudden realization that the sun’s position indicates that the day has gotten away from you (I’ve always liked that phrase, as if the day has a mind of its own, like a mischievous puppy who broke free from his leash), you wake as if from a dream. I found myself at a bar seat of a gastropub, ordering a pizza topped with octopus and preserved meyer lemons, which was fantastic, thank you. You also wake with a hunger for more, more of that time, more of that focus, more of a break from yourself.
Coming home from such a trip always brings a brief mourning period, and while part of it is for a public transportation system that arrives on time (even the buses!), and part of it was for the freedom of vacation to eat and drink what and when I liked, and part of it was for the person I get to be away from my children and daily tasks, I think a large part of the mourning period for me is for that rest I find walking an unfamiliar city. Of course it has to end–I can’t endlessly drift through a new place ignoring my body’s basic needs, forgetting who I am, setting aside obligations and natural bonds–but goodness, it’s hard when it does. Looking forward to the next time and the next place to find that singular type of rest.
In the meantime, comforting myself with some of the beautiful smells I brought home. Namely:
Tobacco, by Perfumer H:
It’s wonderfully herbal and dry to begin; this brings some airiness to a note I often avoid in perfumes as tobaccos can end up feeling a bit dense and clingy to me. I don’t want to feel like a plug of tobacco tamped down into a pipe (or worse, wadded into the corner of a cheek). This feels like the tobacco leaves are wafting in the breeze as they dry, before settling down into a rounded sweetness supported by tonka and amber.
Ambre Noir, by Angela Flanders:
I’m going to put this purchase down to being in such an overwhelmed state in the shop that I needed something strong enough to bring me back to the present. I’m glad I went for it–it’s a singular thing and like nothing I own. On one hand, it’s an incredibly deep and rich amber with a hint of incense, on the other, it smells like nothing so much as burnt sugar. Basically, think the cosmic swirl of Calling All Angels by April Aromatics meets the torched sugar top of a Crème Brûlée. Incredible.
