Saturday, March 26, 2011

Day 35: But Never Forgotten

The taxi circled right by me the first time it came around the block despite my frenetic hand waving, but eventually found its way back. 
The sun was only just beginning to rise and the cold sting of the frigid morning wove its way in my damp hair. No one was awake yet in the house when I brought my bags down, but I didn’t have the heart to wake them, it was too early and too cold. As I placed my last bag in the black hackney cab, Mrs. Maby came running out of the house in her nightgown to wish me farewell. 
As I hugged her goodbye and quickly shoo’ed her back  inside for fear she’d freeze in place standing out in the cold, the sadness that had hitherto been just below the surface of my face in the last 24 hours, made its way behind my eyes and poured out as tears. I was officially sad to be leaving.  
I took a few final pictures of the street and the house with then sun rising behind it and then got into the cab and headed for Paddington Station. 
The Heathrow Express out of Paddington Station lived up to its name, I was at the airport in 15 minutes! I barely had time to settle in before they were announcing our arrival at Terminal 3. Grabbing my bags I headed toward the Virgin Atlantic ticket counter. As expected, I was over the weight limit from all the souvenirs I had brought back and had to pay the additional overage charge, but I didn’t mind. The weight of gifts being brought back was just one sign of this journey’s abundance. My cup, and my suitcases, had runneth over.
I had about two and a half hours to spare before boarding time. The central waiting area of Terminal 3 was packed. Travelers awaiting flights to Dubai, Scotland, Shanghai, Delhi and Canada, to name a few, huddled around internet docking stations and limited computer monitors, waiting their flights to be called. 
I strolled through the duty free aisles of perfumes and alcohol bottles, trying on the occasional new fragrance finding nothing to my liking, thumbed through the newest paperbacks and magazines finding nothing that held my interest, and rummaged through a bin of used DVDs but found nothing to watch. 
In truth, I was listless. Having just ended five weeks of a very significant time in my life, finding anything else to inspire or hold my attention at this moment was going to be a challenge. I bought a cup of coffee, found an empty seat in the middle of a crowded waiting area and sat there and thought. Thought about the weeks gone by and all that it had taught me. I’m not one for the light use of superlatives. Their exclamatory overuse can tint the most inspiring of experiences with a thin veneer of kitsch if not carefully used. Adding –est to the end of any adjective for me meant it was hard won and earned.  But when I thought back on the last five weeks and all I had seen and all the places I had gone I couldn't help but put –est’s on the end of all the experiences I had come across. 
I had walked miles and miles over and under and through the city. I had seen it by underground, by bus, by train, by boat by foot and by cab. I had scoured its halls from the Paleolithic pageantry of the Natural History Museum to the marvelous modernity of the Tate. I had seen iconic relics like the Rosetta Stone and the Elgin Marbles and novel wonders like the high speed train and the Gherkin building. I had seen first drafts of the Beatles and Beethoven, laid eyes on the first Bible ever printed and seen the last printing Gutenberg survived. I'd seen established landmarks and famous paintings and seen things I could have never dreamed of like a room full of porcelain sunflower seeds.

I had seen the skeleton of the tallest man who ever lived (The Irish Giant at the Hunterian Museum) and stood by the most expensive painting ever sold (Picasso’s Nude, Green Leaves and Bust at the Tate Modern). I had stood 365 feet at the highest point of London (atop St. Paul’s Cathedral on Ludgate Hill) and at absolute zero, longitude 0°00'00'' atThe Prime Meridian of the World. I had touched the oldest object I’d ever come across (the 4 billion year old Gibeon meteorite at the Royal Observatory) and slept under the largest moon of my entire life (the perigree moon on March 19th). I had even gone back to the very first house I had ever lived in. For all my reluctance to use it, this journey was full of -est's and I was forever changed by them.
I had seen gardens and palaces and libraries and crypts, climbed hills and stairs and ladders and lifts. I had drank gourmet wine and feasted like kings, then ate simple fare and fried onion rings. I drank tea and ciders and pints and ale, ate pasties and pastries and sweets without fail. I jumped in the crowd and moved at their pace, then sat down alone in calm sacred space. I’d seen pomp and regalia of royal legacy and eaten with students on campus refectory. I’d done it all and yes, it was exciting and thrilling and fascinating and never left me without inspired wonder at the end of each and every day, but it was nothing compared to that which mattered most to me on this trip, the people who touched my life.
I had reconnected with a long lost past of friends and neighbors who had known me before I was even born, who still knew and spoke of my parents though they were a thousand miles away and a lifetime ago. I had made new friends from all around the world, who I had only known briefly, but hoped to know for a long time to come. I had lived with a family who had taken me in as their own and never once made me feel like I was too far from home.  The memory of these magnificent lives who had touched mine and the love they had shown me were the cherished gifts I was bringing home with, ones that would not soon be forgotten.
The lights on the monitor flashed my flight's boarding. I picked up my back pack, took a last long sip of my coffee and headed for the gate. As I passed the long glass corridor that overlooked the runway, I saw the plane that would take me home, the cloudy grey London day behind it, my heart full of sentiment and nostalgia. I handed the attendant my boarding pass and took a step up onto plane, with a final breath and sigh, I said a silent farewell to London in my heart.
I knew I would miss this place, this time, this experience. It had restored me, rejuvenated me, reignited a flicker in me, showing me sides of the world and myself that had been long hidden until my decision to arrive. The longing in me would beg for return, how could it not. They say the place you were born stays in you no matter how far you go from it. It was true. I was born in this city and would forever hold it somewhere deep within me. 
As the plane ascended flight off the runway from the birthland to the homeland, I looked out the window and watched the ground disappear, it was soon gone, but I was certain, it would never be forgotten.

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