Walking

I’ve recently discovered the past time of walking; walking and exploring. Others had tried to introduce it to me but for years I was inactive, didn’t like to get moving because of my flat feet that ached with only an hour or two on them and my sore creaky knees. It wasn’t until I started to regularly work out that I realised my feet hurt less when they were being used more. So now, I love to explore London, well I have always liked exploring it since I’ve lived here, but now I feel I am really exploring it, on foot, for hours at a time sometimes. I am finally learning how all the bits join up, how close together so much of it is. Instead of taking the closest tube to somewhere, I might get off a bit earlier and walk and explore. There’s so much history here too. People have been walking these streets for centuries. How many of them were like me? I have been reading books set in London while living here and that has been quite exciting (there aren’t a lot of books set in my home city, but I will definitely explore more of them when I get back). I am getting homesick though and while I’m very excited about the idea of going ‘home’ (which is on the other side of the world), I will miss London a lot. I am making lists of things to do here before I leave. I have not found London a friendly city (something I struggled with for quite some time when I got here), but I have found it interesting, exciting, sometimes playful, only occasionally scary, and the bookshops, so many bookshops. I love it.

Lunchtime at Euston

I sit in the food court at Euston station, it’s very loud, lots of people, lots of movement, lots of talking: one big loud murmur. “Eat here or take away?” Chairs scraping across the floor. “Do you want anything to eat?” “When does your train leave?” “Next please.” A woman asks me, “Are these seats taken?” I say “No” but want to say “I wish to sit alone.” I don’t say it but I’m sure there is an unwelcome look on my white face as I write in my notebook and drink my (very bad) coffee. I wonder if the black woman who sits at my table to eat her lunch dislikes white people. “Are we always this unfriendly to her?” I wonder. “I hope not.” I try to soften my demeaner as I close my notebook and eat my lunch. I dislike my positioning of her as an other, someone ‘different’, but how do I change that? I know so few black people and rarely interact with them. I like the black security guard at my work and regularly talk to him but this and the few others I know are not enough to stop my feelings of ‘those’ people who remain ‘other’ while I see ‘them’ as ‘them’. She eats and leaves. If she had been white, would I have felt so insecure about coming across as unfriendly? Would her race have even entered my mind?