Memories of London

ANTHONY ON LONDON

That's what happens to cities; they are scattered between the four
invisible walls and divided between the gift of light and darkness,
most of all the memory of good and evil.

Could world imagine itself without London?

Could you imagine a modern world without Thames, Times, Thatcher, or
the British Royal Throne?

There is no specific boundary to London. London begins and ends in our
minds.

For a Bohemian on his honeymoon with his Australian-English angel, a
London seemed like a love affair. I was drawn into a foreign city and
that invisible strangeness alive with mystery and possibility.

Bohemian luck, one lover and hundreds of spectacular memories. Fire of
love, air of history, water of tea, earth of scones and spirit of
lightness of being.

'Lauren' (pregnant pause), 'I'm sure you realized when you put your
shoes this morning that your high heels are not the most comfortable
way to walk along the Thames River.'

The ultimate charm of foreign cities and lovers are their
unexpectedness, their mystery, their determination to impress.

There she stood, in her high heel shoes. She stood and pointed out the
stillness and energy of the Tower of London. The frozen history of the
parliamentary debates etched in handard: Lauren words swam or drowned,
it was hard to tell which, my senses seemed to remember Munich of 1968
in London of 1984.

We both saw London in unique ways. There was a "George Orwell" of 1948,
a self preservation mentality of the Iron Curtain, London's soulful
hospitality. Seeing London for the first time at the age of 26, I had a
mixed feeling about being a first Imrich to visit a city of British
boldness and betrayal.

Imagine me in London like Basil Fawlty, not thinking about the War,
Second or Cold, or about my dead sister, or about my drowned friends
that seem so present, but always beyond my grasp. It was not the time
to think about the past.

I found myself torn between two poles: between present and past;
between memories and now; between a yearning for answers to the complex
life of the 20th centenary.

In tracing the choices I made a conscious effort not to dwell on the
past as we walked past the House of Commons, the sound of the Big Ben
created a musical note that rang true to London's multicuturalism.
Melting pot of nationalities simmered in every little pub and lane.
Voices of India, South Africa, Russia, Turkey, Italy.

Would I be here if politicians did not refer to my homeland as that
little country somewhere in Europe. But of course not. I felt somehow
grateful for the sorrow lessons of Slavic history. Without that lesson
London's Lauren and I would never exchanged glances.

London attested to its Chekhovian ability to create real characters.
Characters, no doubt flawed, shaped by love and loss and the simple
passage of time.

Lauren affirmed the sense, wonder and order of the world.

After four years of studying walls of the city of Sydney with Lauren, I
have picked up lots of pointers that all add up to a successful
exploration.

If you are exploring a new city it is good to walk everywhere.

For Lauren looking good and having blisters were an essential part of
exploration.

Each city exploration tells us that in the long term, the fate of men
and cities are the same. As the one dies, so does the other, for there
is one spirit in both and city's chronological distinction over the man
is nothing, for everything is temporary. All go to one place, all come
from the dust and all return to the dust.

When we were not walking or studying the shades of the dawn and dusk,
London's cosmos was encapsulated in a steaming teacup.

There was more to London's social history than drawing attention to the
great gulf which divided the rich from the poor.

In my eyes, the city was shedding its Dickens' darkness. The orange
sunset was reflecting in my green tea leaves. The rising cream on our
scornes became purple.

Lauren's history lessons were catching fire and her blue eyes made me
embrace her disciplined bones of a ballerina.

Lauren's stories about various characters who tried to lose themselves,
either through greed, alcohol, or a host of other royal and landlord
vices made the tea grow cold.

As one of the decendant of Anne Hathaway, Lauren was like Shakeaspeare
in a skirt strong, intelligent, and attractive.

So why, with all these blessings of London, did her parents leave
England for Australia? Why did they feel all joy leaking out of life in
1958? Restless and empty, her father saw his life as a long corridor
with endless numbers of doors. One by one, he tried them, yet behind
each was only shadow, with no substance.

Until, one day one door was marked "Australia."

Inside was another maze of doors. But here we were grateful for the
mystery of life and its amazing grace. Our visits to relatives
resonated with the beautiful sound of 'Les and Ruth are sending their
love.'

Chekhov was young when he died, and was well aware that he would never
be old. Through the voice of a doomed character he tells us, 'Life is
only given us once and one wants to live it boldly, with full
consciousness and beauty.'

Is there an experience as profound, as indefinable, as cherished, as
savoured as visiting long lost relatives? Not for Lauren. As if on cue,
we realised how much roots mean to us. Roots located in the cities
which gave birth to the escape of our ancestors.

We talked about London and Prague. Birmingham and High Tatra. The mere
memory of stories told at night about Lauren's auntie Olive or uncle
Arthur, the soft gaze of parents' dewy eyes, the strengths and
weknesses of exile, the making of the myth of London.

But what recollection of childhood can be held more dear than that
first sentence of a first story about the royal palace? It is the
treasure of our memorabilia. This is, for the most part, a fairy story
that had its stirrings in a most unusual place in Winston Hills, and
which began with the first colour photographs in the Australian Woman's
Weekly of Windsor Castle. This is a story for all those who have known
the power of symbolism, the power of the real Queen! London royalty is
a story of "memories," under arrest and revered. But then, London is
much more ...

Nothing could perplex my tastebuds as much as the pub food in London.
Every spoonful of food in London is a leap of faith.

There are times in our lives when we can live a lifetime in a moment.
There are times in our lives when we wait a lifetime to live a
moment.
London was one of those times for both of us.

After seventeen years of a emotional see-saw of marriage, the spiritual
experience of London cemented our will not to take our egos too
seriously.

Even London does not seem to take itself and its history too seriously.
The history just is for better or for worse. In buzzing light or in
humming darkness.

Each memory or photograph of London, like history, is a prologue.