Parklife

I'm not sure how excited people are elsewhere, but London (myself included, at least for the next three weeks) seems pretty excited that Blur is back together and touring this summer. I'm bummed to be missing it; Blur was one of the first bands I can remember listening to when I was little, specifically their hit "Girls & Boys." Anyway, I stole the title of this post from another of their great songs.

Now that I'm back in London for the final stretch of my exchange semester, I have a lot of free time on my hands. I admit, I cannot avoid the sense of guilt I have experienced lately having no particular plans for each day while the rest of the city goes about its usual tedious patterns. I'm sort of just living aimlessly right now, which I'm conflicted about. It's everyone's dream-to have nothing to do, no hard work or responsibilities. I haven't felt this purposeless since summer holidays in grade school. But what am I to do, with no coursework, a visa that prohibits labor or volunteering, and a plane ticket home three weeks from now?

Well well, what better time to pursue all of the things I have not been able to do yet? One of the lines from Blur's song is spoken in Cockney, and represents the standard routine of those living the parklife: "I put my trousers on, have a cup of tea and I think about leaving the house." Lawd, it's a struggle even to get through the first of these chores before noon, innit? If I lived in Paris, I'd likely call this ennui.

Here's another perspective on the guilt that accompanies urban lackadaisia:

I'm so lazy I don't even know the source of this passage; someone posted it on Facebook a while ago and I thought about it for a while after. Now here's the truth: I'm trying to avoid this lifestyle at all costs; I don't actually "live" in London, I'm just passing through; I have every excuse to gallery-hop, listen to experimental jazz, etc. Tempting as it is to stay inside and watch reruns of University Challenge or Graham Norton all day...No way. I'm in London for three weeks, almost completely free of any commitments-it's time to live, baby.

The weather has been nice lately, so I've been drawn to the parks. I'm always drawn to the parks. When I head out for an aimless walk, I always end up moving toward them-Regent's, Primrose Hill, St. James, Green, Hyde Parks. Zadie Smith calls them the lungs of the city.

When my mom visited last week, we just sort of gravitated to the parks. On her first day, we lazed in St. James's Park by the pelican pond, then on the enormous lawn of Green Park. The next day, we spent what felt like hours on Primrose Hill just observing all the usual commotion there, and then wandered through the very delicately arranged gardens of Regent's Park. Like me, mom loved sitting on the bus, and we agreed we could have sat on the second deck again and again and it would be just as much fun every time. She also loved Somerset House, one of my favorite places to sit on a sunny day.

(Incidentally, in case any Game of Thrones fans are reading, Natalie Dormer walked right by me when I was sitting there the other day. I tried to get a photo as she rushed out to the Strand, but each of my frantic attempts resembles the typical photo one might find when searching for images of Bigfoot-blurry, indistinguishable, probably fake.)

Since we were staying right there on the Strand for the week, we saw a few Waterloo sunsets.

The last day of mom's visit we took the train to Cambridge. It's exam period so all the colleges were closed, but it was a gorgeous day-and anyway, who wants to be stuck in some stuffy St. Someone's all day? We walked along the River Cam, stopped for coffee and drinks along the way through town, spent some time in the Fitzwilliam Museum (I promised mom she'd see Van Gogh and Monet before she left), then sat at Parker's Piece for a while before heading back.

Mom at Downing College, Cambridge

I've mentioned it before, but I love the trains here; from the perspective of someone who can't drive here, National Rail seems to be one of the greatest novelties of this country, even if it is almost two-hundred years old. It's so cheap with a railcard and honestly, half the fun is watching the countryside and small towns pass by on the way. Heading back to London with mom, watching the sunset over the flowery hills of Cambridgeshire was a very beautiful thing to behold.

Yesterday I spent most of the day at Hampstead Heath, which if you're not familiar, is an enormous swath of forest in the middle of NW London. It is magnificent. I felt like I was in a Thomas Hardy novel there. In more accurate literary terms, that haloed golden boy of English lit, John Keats lived in Hampstead. He wrote his poem "Ode to a Nightingale" there, what then was a small village on the outskirts of the city.

Keats listening to a nightingale on the Heath, by Severn (c. 1845)

Hampstead still feels like a village. It seems like the kind of place where people know each other. It feels much less like London and more like the provinces; I remember I felt this way about Richmond too.

I think the Heath is my favorite park I've been to yet. It reminded me of the trails I walk on the Cape-long grassy fields, dirt trails crawling with roots, birds cooing and cawing in every tree. 

Today, on another warm, sunny day, I went to Hyde Park. I have been here many times, but I don't feel like I know it like I know other parks. After roaming around the Serpentine and Long Pond, through the Flower Walk, I went into the Serpentine Gallery to poke around. It was a great day to be outside.

Of course, I wonder about how it will feel to leave, the closer my departure comes to the surface of reality. All of these places will still exist when I leave; the birds will still perch in the same places, the trees will wade on. This thought bothered Virginia Woolf a great deal-she famously told a friend that it exasperated her how the furniture would outlive them. This does not so much bother me as it does remind me that I need to do things when I'm awake. I am happy to know that these places will still exist, and if I wait and hope, perhaps I too will be there again.

I was thinking a lot today when I walked around. When I woke up, even when I left the house in the morning, I had no idea I would end up at Hyde Park today. But it's so close to my vicinity, of course it was conceivable. And in a few weeks it will not be. This idea became clearer when my mom visited; I was sharing a place I have grown to love, a place that I know well now, and will still know whenever I return. "Growing to love" is an interesting image to me-as if growing and loving are on concomitant scales of measurement. If so, now would be the time to recognize growth, in the early warm days of spring, when everything seems, smells, sounds fresh and new

So this is how I will make something of my parklife (which expires in 25 days): something new every day, eyes and ears open all the time.