homeless

This week I stayed in a hotel on Embankment in London. The view from my window was bittersweet. It was familiarity and safety; the constant traffic a deafening reminder of what has gone.

I love embankment. I love its hustle and bustle. I love the business men wondering around with their briefcases, and the pubs so overfilled with them that they stream out onto the street at home time. Like well dressed students laughing and joking and basking in the sun.

I love embankment tube station, with its fresh flowers, and narrow road. The multiple starbucks, and the London chain bar and grill we ate in on Tuesday night. Dozens of people crammed into a low ceilinged room, a candle lighting up each table, out of place in this noisy, hot piece of London town, each flickering wildly as if daring you to suggest it doesn't belong there.

I love the sheer freedom and creativity of the people. The softly spoken, smiling German waitress, working late hours to fund her penchant for extravagant leather shoes. The pedestrians with their uber tight skinny skinny jeans, and un-matchymatchy overgrown scarves. The faces of the commuters, ever pissed off, ever tired, ever in a rush to get to that meeting, fighting their way through the herds of European students with cameras and notebooks and excited laughter flirting out amongst the landscape. The Big Issue seller posted on most corners, and near most tube station exits, a physical reminder of the raw and rough side of town.

I love that on a clear blue day you can feel like you really are in the middle of something special. Walking and breathing amongst history.

Mostly I love the feeling of being home. That feeling of belonging somewhere. Of knowing where to go, how to get there. Of loving random tube stations that are not frequented by the tourist mass. Of knowing that my London walking face is perfected, because I am from London.

I love embankment.

I did not love staying in hotel on embankment. I just can not seem to adjust to the fact that I will never drive down there again with the intention of heading for another part of town.

It felt alien and wrong to be walking around the streets I know so well, with nowhere other than a beautifully presented, yet functional looking room to go back to.

I love london. But I miss my home, and the familiarity and safety it brings, dearly. This feels like something that will take a long time to work through.