Through His Eyes

London rushes at me. Not like the first time, of course. For I am almost 20 years older and have seen more of the world than I had in 2001 when I first beached up on this shore. Still the grumbling buses, wind whispering down our street, and Saint Paul’s steeple piercing the blue dome of heaven remain a constant. I sank my compass point into London and since then have made wider and wider concentric circles around it, going as far east as Ukraine and as far west as California, both wildly beautiful lands.

My first time here I became the lazy tourist I am. I say I like to let the city come to me, which means: I camp in a sympatico café, sip lattes, and write as I am doing at this moment. Yet this activity is far more temporary today for I have fallen in love with a curious man, an art lover, a man who knows architecture and is bothered by its incongruity here in London.

I reminded him yesterday that London suffered the blitz. Much was destroyed and had to be rebuilt, some in that brutal glass and concrete ‘50’s style. All this means we must go out in search of beauty in the form of flying buttresses, places of historical significance, like Churchill’s bunker or John Russell Pope’s classical Tate Britain, complete with the world’s largest collection of Turner. His small painting of the moon on the Thames must be the most beautiful rendering of light refusing to give in to darkness.

My darling’s delight at Westminster Abby helped me to see this ancient church through new eyes. My first visit there in 2001, the summer before the world changed, I went through the church, ho-hum, so I could check it off my list of attractions. Yet yesterday I understood that English history can be learned through Westminster’s tombs, memorials, and altars. A recent grave’s epitaph: here lies what was mortal of Stephen Hawking along with an equation beyond my understanding. And near his grave, Isaac Newton, whose epitaph is the same as Hawking’s.

My love and I found each other late in life. We pack in as much as we can for we know the darkness comes. Still we refuse to give in. Rediscovering London through his eyes is such joy. We are off to savor one more day.