Where will it all Lead Me?

Another day, another park, another lamp post. Speaking of post, that’s what the office I was looking for specializes in.

I’m glad I’ve found this park. Green Park. But honestly, it’s been 3 days I want to send out these postcards and I don’t know where to go. Perhaps I’ll go and say it, despite my pride, but here I go… googlemaps and London are

a pair made in Hell. They just create more confusion together. I’m going to keep using googlemaps but I can expect to get lost numerous more times. I’m not really lost though. I know how to get back home with ease, I just can’t find that damned post office.

This weekend has been a very slow yet very satisfying one. The hostel I’m staying in, the Phoenix, is so far from the corporate, businessy, traveller-mongering hostel that Generator was for instance. If it wasn’t for this bloody dry cough I’d actually sleep really well at night. It’s kind of dirty and all, but it’s homely, I like it. It lacks pretention which is nice. It’s in a nice pub-like place. The people are nice. Anyways…

If I don’t find a place to live any time soon I’ll probably book more nights there. I’ve only got one more night, then it’s Monday and I’m on the streets again. It’s getting easier on me though. At the same time, I get this impression that the things I miss back home, the people I love, my idol, are all starting to drift away… forever!

It’s not as scary as it is unwanted. I just don’t want that to happen. But what if better things await here? Should I let go and forget everyone and live here to the fullest, get attached, change my life’s purpose? Should I at least try?

I’m sticking around that’s for sure but I think I would like to keep a foot back home. I don’t think I will be able to call this place home. When I will talk of ‘home’ I will always refer to my homeland. When I’ll come back, I probably won’t be living with Mum and Dad anymore… so that can’t be home anymore, but being near them is home enough. I am ready to start my own life. But must it be here? I’m happy here, but not as a resident, more as a visitor, a friend, a great friend, a friend that sleeps over, that gives gifts, that writes songs to, but that must obviously head back home and take care of what he has over there.

What will home turn into? Will it transform through time? Will I even notice? Only in hindsight. Will I read this one day and realize that I

was wrong, that home could be somewhere else? Will I fall in love, something unforeseen, much stronger than what I feel now?

Again. I’m happy though. I’m not settling for less than what makes me happy. So I’m keeping a foot back ‘home’.

I had Lunch with a Swan

Just to say... I guess this is how people start to become pigeon people....

Not Lost in Hyde Park

Walking through Hyde park I feel quite sacred. It’s night time and the temperature is autumn-like and perfect. I do little of my days and it’s weighing down on me so it’s ironic that my favourite moments are the ones when nothing productive happens any more but I visit the most beautiful places in London. I must say I do remember now why I came to London in the first place. It was for aesthetic reasons. Why have I not been striving to fulfill them? Trying so hard, so blindly to start a life? I should be trying to figure out who I am. I didn’t come here because I had to work. I came here to find what beauty was mine, is me, and perhaps find out how I might share it with you, with the world, with those I love. If I can sustain myself, stay alive, and then visit the most wondrous places I will be happy. I know one must wake up from dreams, so my walk in Hyde Park will end soon enough, there are many hardships ahead, but I’m proud to be able to feel the way I feel now. If only there was a way to make this my life. Sleep in the park if I'm stranded in the streets! I’m glad to admit though, that when I do wake up from my dream I will remain happy (In-script addendum: Despite the fact that I got lost once I left the park and that bothered me a little bit…)

Now the wind is blowing, it’s getting quite eerie. There’s no one around but I’m afraid someone will come out of the blue and mug me so I’ll finish this inside. I’ll be talking about fences and secret worlds.

I walked out of Hyde Park on the verge of tears I was so moved! The dark winter trees in the distance across black fields of grass, and people far away, little shadows walking to places unknown. The dead leaves on the ground dancing in the wind like waves making soft rustling noises.

And at first I was afraid I was not going to be able to come into the park at all. For some reason when I came out of Queensway station and walked along the park fence, all the gates were closed. Perhaps they shut them at night or perhaps they never open them. Either way I had given up the idea of walking through the greens. I kept looking over the fence wistfully, looking into the pitch darkness on the other side, wondering what kind of secrets lay there. Was there a secret world fenced-in so Londoners could not get in. The fact that the fences were old mossy brick with iron bars really heightened that spirit. I was tempted to jump over the fence, my heart would have loved it, but I was shutting him up at that point.

Then I found an open gate. Walked passed it (stupidly) Told myself I would simply go into the park another day when it would be light out (Though this was all at night… I wonder how it is in the day. Probably still nice, but not quite as magical…). But luckily there was another gate open where I saw others walk in. I walked in too.

I did listen to my heart though, that time when it told me to walk through the grass (step off the path) and follow the light post, which I did (after hesitating). As always my heart was right. That is where I discovered the whole greatness of Hyde Park.

*sniff* Homesick *cough*

So the night began by me starting to feel sick. My throat was hurting and my face was hot. Damn it! That guy who'd been coughing below me in the bunk bed for 3 days has gotten me sick! Whatever, I'll get over this by pretending it's not there. So I went to the hostel bar to drink a pint or 2 before going out on London.

I'm always sort of awkward when I'm in bars, or in public. When I'm my own generally. I thought I had grown out of it but no, if I'm uncomfortable I feel like the smallest thing around. Though most people in hostels are ages 18-25, I always feel 15 when I'm around them. I even thought I was tipsy enough to start a conversation with these two ladies but yah... that was awkward.

So I moved on. I wanted to find a good pub or club to hangout in and make some British friends. Boy is London generally not a night life kind of place. And you know what, I don't think I am either. Anyways, after about an hour of walking around Soho I finally found a decent looking club with a line up of young people so I queued up too. "Is this a good club?" I asked someone going in and she said it was. In hindsight it w

asn't really. It was kind of like a dance party at the Club Optimist back home only... a little bit more "official" oh and there was booze.

Anyways, I tried making friends with the graduates but most of them were cold and huddled in their groups. Even on the dance floor everyone was rather uptight and turned around on themselves. Alright, I get it, you can't go out alone in London. I'm going to leave then... It's 1 in the morning, but I know my night bus, it's N7... I

'll be fine. So I go to pick up my coat but I can't find my number. Will this matter? Of course not... What do you mean I can't pick up my cot without a number? Oh come on, I know which one it is... I have to wait 'til the night is up to pick it up... 3:30 am?

I was going to sit around and wait, but then these Spaniards kept picking me up to dance, I felt like their play thing... blabla dancing, I'm a funny little monkey.... Then one day it was 3:30 I got my coat. It felt amazing to have it on me, like I was back home for a moment, and then I was out.

Now, the N7 bus passes on Wardour street, so I had to find Wardour street. Then I had to find the bus stop. I had to buy a ticket because my week-pass had just terminated, 2.50£. Then wait for the bus, hiccuping, sniveling, coughing, humming a tune. And then the bus appears in the distance and I hold out my hand to say, 'yo, pick me up!' AND IT JUST PASSES BY ME!! OI! So I start running after it like 'I don't know how to get back home!!' I got scared for a while that I would get lost and wander 'til the tube stations worked again, though I am proud to say I have found my way back with little trouble :).

Then I went to bed and woke up very sick :(.

Me not following my heart's impulses.

I'm sick and homesick. I'm wondering if I want to stick around in London. Why did I even want to come here? The nightlife? Changing my own life. Figuring out how to live on my own? Figuring out who I am and what I want to do with myself. I thought this place was beautiful compared to home, but I haven't even had the chance (or taken it) to appreciate the beauty. I wanted to live the fast life, but now I'm not so sure. I think I'd like to live the slow life in the country, should I follow that lead then? I think I'd like to meet people like me, people who might find me loveable. Being homesick has made all my unloveable sides flare up. I'm absolutely not trying to make friends or get a job. Those are signs of depression. I keep dreaming of home at night. I miss it.

I guess that's being homesick. It'll pass. I'm not going home 'til I'm happy here.

Being Scared and Bad Habits

Me in my hostel bed, on the top bunk above someone who keeps coughing...

It’s strange. I came here and it felt like I’d gone back 2 years psychologically. Sure I had to adapt, I still do, but it was all the programming, all the uncertainty, all this scrabbling to get attached to something. I have not come here to get attached (unless my heart dictates it). I know when my heart has not attached me when I feel like an absolute coward, not the powerful, passionate man who left home for an unknown life. I feel young, short, and different. But I’ll keep feeling that way if I think about it, if I mull. I’m here to live! I’m in a new country, I’m not home, I’m all alone… practically free and so goodbye to conventionality, goodbye to safety, hello me… hello beautiful London, beautiful UK.

I’d like to meet other passionate people!

London Chronicles :O

Spotted crows, swans, black swans, and pigeons. I just saw a crow rib a squirrel but then steal his hidden peanut.

I just walked by the parliament. It was gold in the sunlight, spectacularly gold. And it rang, 3 times because it’s 3 o’clock. I never expected that. So I am pleasantly surprised whilst I write this sitting in a park bench. There’s the most wonderful wind blowing, the kind of wind I so covet all the time… and it’s only my second day here.

The Bremen mask is taking place in front of me right now and for real! Papa duck is yapping about, like a little tune, and there follows his disciple-like family in a single file.

See, if country-side London looks like this I will be complete because right now this expression I used to say is ringing so familiar. I just want to lay down in the grass and die. What’s quite enjoyable about the city is the busy-bee, quirky, and citybound londoners walking through and talking their day-to-day talk. They say wonderful things and since I’m so high on this environment it sounds probably nicer. In fact, this amalgam is perfect. A London park is… perfect! A London park in January is deadly perfect.Gosh I don’t even know the name of the park, though it’s probably something famous as it’s right by the parliament.

It’s a sad thought that I will have to leave soon, my battery is dying and I have to go to the loo and then I’ll have to start looking for a job, get a job have less free time to enjoy this space. In a way that might be good too so I never get jaded… as though I could get jaded.

I’m almost invisible, all thee people walk by… it’s quite like a film.

P.S. Old ladies smile at me J 2 today… such life-loving old women.