Reflections on a Quarter-life Crisis

Dear London

Dear London, 

     You are a curious creature, I must admit. I've little ability to discern your true motives but I know you're up to something.

                                                                       Much Love,

                                                                               Tara Lee

GETTING TO LONDON

Spring Break and the living is good. After a week of two gross anatomy exams, I was ready for adventure. Not that I don't enjoy digging through cadavers searching for vestigial muscles but I needed some human contact... living human contact, that is. Feeling extra high-strung the morning of my flight, I tapped my foot anxiously outside of Ashley's building as I waited for her to come down. Her flight home to California was departing around the same time as my flight to London. Prospective freshman passed me on the street eyeing my hand-painted suitcase. Before going abroad the previous semester, I had painted my black suitcases purple and gold to make them easily recognizable on the baggage claim carousel. The heavy door of Ashley's brownstone creaked open as Ashley wrestled her suitcases down the steps. At the same moment, the bells of the approaching train clanged warning us that we were soon to be late. We flailed our arms as the T driver motioned to close the doors.

I stepped into Logan airport with a pumping sense of pride: I had run up three flights of stairs in heels and carrying a suitcase to get to the airport the recommended 3 hours in advance. The couple drops of sweat on my roommate's blouse was so worth it. After getting my ticket, checking my baggage, flirting with a Starbuck's barista, going through security twice, repacking my suitcase, calling my mother, and registering for a chance to win a free trip to Cancun, I waited 2 and half hours.
I plopped myself in terminal B and watched two flights to London take off before mine. The airport had the distinctive stale air taste sweetened only by tablespoon of impending adventure. The spine of my tour book creased as I unfolded to the table of contents: ‘London with Kids....pg 83' Not anytime soon. ‘London for Lovers... pg 95' Shouldn't that one be before the kids section? ‘London's Art and Architecture... pg 72' Yes Please! I skimmed the numerous museums and famous pieces or artwork that awaited me just a flight away. At the top of each page stood a plump beefeater, eyes fixed forward waiting for me to turn his page only to find another one of his friends on the next. The pages were glossy and brightly colored, standing out starkly in the grayness of the airport - I could have led the planes to  myself with the brightness of The London Tourist. During my semester abroad, my shame for being a tourist had gradually grown into denial and eventually acceptance... like the 5 stages of grief for my jadedness. Eventually, I learned to embrace the natural tourist within like a lion in the wilderness foraging for food and adventure... only, I had a fanny pack and a sunvisor.

I had read almost all the way through The London Tourist by the time my flight took off. One glass of Pinot Noir and I was as tired as a puppy with a new chew toy. 7 hours later, I staggered off the plane with a stolen pair of headphones in my sweater pocket. I tried to comb though my hair with my fingers before I reached the perky flight crew but only found a cluster of knots and a couple crumbs. How those crumbs got there still evades me to this day as I had not one bite of food during that flight.

The Tube was all I had dreamed... fully equipped with an operator greeting me with "ello, Love!" and an accented intercom voice reminding me to "Mind the Gap." After having grabbed a toothbrush and a comb in the airport convenience store, I walked around like a proud Londoner.

For days I caught up with old friends and made new ones. Groups of college students, BU and more, sat in the dormitory kitchen area talking about internships and romances. The thought of both made me ache to see Geneva just one more time.

While our hosts were in classes and at work, my friend Jen and I took to the streets in search of everything and anything that embodied the spirit of London. My favorite stop: Westminster Abbey.

WESTMINSTER ABBEY

Westminster Abbey could be considered one of the religious buildings that provokes the least religious sentiments. The spirit that wanders around the cathedral is not Divine, rather it is Royal. The tradition of crowning inside Westminster Abbey dates back to William the Conqueror who decided to be crowned there on December 28, 1065. The Abbey embodies the marriage of church and state rather than celebrating its separation. The gold-plated caskets of seventeen famous monarchs do little to contain the sense of royalty within - the spirit seeps through the cracks and into the open air of the building, whirling around the high vaulted ceilings and teasing tourists that pass through it. In most cathedrals, find my thoughts wandering to the possibility of eternal life and the fruits of Eden; in Westminster Abbey, however, I seemed to be continually reminded of the constant change of society and each person's mortality.

Although the building was intended to serve as a place for meditation and reverence, it seems that a peaceful mind is hard to find in the bustling aisles of Westminster Abbey. The cluster of unremitting tourists jostles the mind and halts the imagination. Constant flashes, despite the No Pictures signs, create a high-paced environment that eats away at the goal of reflection.

Coronation Chair

If it weren't perched high above the steps within Westminster Abbey, I might have mistaken the Coronation chair for a free chair at a garage sale. The Coronation chair was first used in 1308 to crown King Edward II and has been used in every coronation since. The chair was originally painted with the painstaking details of birds and flowers but the butts of the royal families past have worn away the images leaving only faint sketches.

The Cloisters 

Before the building even existed, the Abbey space was used by Benedictine monks for meditation and worship. The cloisters were preserved with each construction and serve as possibly the only source of living, breathing, growing life that the Abbey has. We went on a drizzly day that kept most of the other tourists inside. I, however, wandered about in the mist, breathing the scents of sweet, wet grass cut by the smell of the bitter soil. This, this was the place that I could think. I breathed in the history, the tranquility - hints of sandalwood and tea mingled with the grass and could have kept my attention for days. While most of the light inside the Abbey was colored by the tinted glass, the sun beamed unadulterated rays into the cloister.

Poet's Corner

In Poet's Corner, statues of some of the greatest writers of the past stared at me and reminded me of my inferiority, giving me a jolt of humility. I stood among the burial places and commemorations spots of some names that I almost revere too much to even talk about them in my little account. The statue of William Shakespeare sat next to me trying to decide on the ending of Hamlet; I felt the need to write an Ode to Poet's Corner in honor of John Keats; I endured the hardships of the socially deprived portrayed in Dickens' novels. My head spun and my blood pumped in awe of the greats with whom I could stand among for just a moment.