London

He went to London to be with his friends.

Images in my mind swirled in a syncopated cacophony of myths, memories of movies, recollections of books,  imaginations of ambiences of London.  

To London I will likely never go.

In person that is.  In virtual reality I am on my way.

I think of little Oliver Twist, the movie incarnation of Oliver Twist.  A plaintive little boy from the country, dumped into London, hired out to an undertaker to lead the funerals of children.  He was so young, so naive, so tender, so angelic, the epitome of empathy stumbling along in that death march in his oversize boots, frumpled hat, and hole-infested coat.  The sanctimonious clergy in sway with the chants and burning incense to escort some little coffin-bound offspring to the nether-land of hoped for imagination.

I think of little Oliver Twist, escaped to a salvationist respite of a gang of thieves inspired by the old heathen himself, Fagan.  I think of Oliver’s lessons in pick-pocketery.  I think of him watching and listening to the sizzle of sausages browning in a stolen pot, where all his mentors are sequestered away in the depths of some rejected triumph of England’s industrial revolution.  

I think of little Oliver Twist, rescued by a man who lost his daughter, who sees her face in the face of an arrested pick pocket, who transfers Oliver to the environs of heaven on earth.

I see London as a cinematographer showed me London.

I think of another boy who went to London who makes me think of Oliver.  And Oliver makes me think of him.

I hear the bells.  The incessant, the seemingly never-ending of the peeling of bells.  Bells in celebration of royal weddings.  Bells in auditory despair in funerals of fallen royals.

I watch the pageantry of pomposity. Archbishops with flanks of accolades sashaying  down central cathedral isles.  Incense migrating to vaulted ceilings.  Massive pipe organ pipes shaking the very foundations of the bishop’s throne with harmonic vibrations of renaissance anthems. 

I listen to the boy choirs singing with prepubescent purity.  I relish the Gregorian chant.  English choral music gives me the chills of awesomeness.

I watched an Olympic epic of British Empire proportions.  I envy the sanity of the National Health Service.

I feel the smugness in my admiration for the secularization of London.  The British Humanists . . . Of which I give my allegiance.  England, emerging as a freethinking nation, as a leader in the rational world.

I think of London where I will never drive.  I am not suicidal. 

I long to be a part of London.  I long for the fog.  I long for the belonging.

The Queen is my queen too.

I wonder of London.

Wonder if the national mindset is one of making fruit salad, or fruit smoothie.

I wonder of a London in the inevitability of co-mingling of colors, creeds, persuasions, principles, traditions, aspirations.  I wonder of the strength that will emerge from which it never had. 

I wonder of how it  really is to be as an “other” in London.  In this era of emersion of things inclusive.

I wonder if I will ever know.

My imagination tells me London is on the move.  That London is an assimilator.  That London knows, accepts, tolerates, affirms.  That London harbors the Oliver Twists of yore.  That London is welcoming and nurturing of the Oliver Twists of this contemporary day.  That London is a venue of fulfillment.

For my friend went to London to be with his friends.