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Smoke

Invisibility in the city of 10 million people

By Jon SmithPublished 3 years ago 5 min read
2
View over East London

From the outside, it’s seen as a scary place. Big, immense, full of crime. It’s seen as dirty, crowded and full of pigeons. And in fairness, it is. It can be overwhelming to those who’ve never set foot in a city - and of course, it would be. It is rainy and stuffy all at once. It is dense and heaving and wildly expensive. But those things only emphasise the moments that flow from the unexpected. There are definitely areas that can get a little rough, but as a whole, as a beating heart, it is beautiful. There is always something to do, someone to see, something going on.

Near Leicester Square on a busy weekend evening.

But the reason I like it best is that you simply vanish within, which wouldn’t be possible if it wasn’t scrambled together. You can explore for hours, days, weeks and constantly find new things to do, new places to see, all without being seen yourself. There are Jack-the-ripper style alleyways that open up in cavernous courtyards full of one-off pubs and bars, independent shops and overpriced coffee. Or there are alleyways that don’t open up, only housing a small pub that you’d only know about if you were to stumble upon it.

St. Paul's Cathedral.

The architecture is gorgeous and constantly changing. From what is left of the Romans when they took it over and officially made it a city, Londinum, to the steel and glass of the last fifty years and everything in between. Beautiful Tudor style houses in the suburbs. Intricate Victorian-based buildings that now house a H&M or a Starbucks or a bank. It is the city that is rich with maze-like cobbled streets where top hats and tails fit comfortably, old Gothic style road signs sit beneath their new shiny replacements and policemen ride around on horses. It isn’t just that everywhere is within walking distance, it is that you’ll be awe-filled as you walk through it. You can’t explore all the twists and turns and random alleyways in a lifetime. And even if you have, there are always new artworks cropping up, new pop-up coffee shops, food vans coming and going and street-performers trading entertainment for the price of whatever you can spare in your pocket.

Everyone is here. The culture in this place is second to none. Any kind of food you can imagine, cooked authentically. All the art you could ever need, shown in pop-up galleries on South Bank or in one of the free-to-visit museums. Ten million people cluttering around, living, breathing as one.

The National Portrait Gallery.

It is more than just concrete and steel and glass. It is more than Beefeaters, Tower Bridge and the Royalty. It heaves with festivals in the summer and simmers with fairy lights and roasted nuts and mulled cider in the winter. It is the place I trick-or-treated as a child, the place I went to school, made friends. It is the place that is endless in its discoveries. The place where you walk past a blue plaque and realise that Bob Marley once lived here. It is the city with tall shiny buildings and small cobbled cottages. It is the place where you can get from end to end, top to bottom completely on water. The place that literally celebrates an attempt to blow up parliament. It’s where police don’t have guns and feel safe, not scary. It is where healthcare is FREE. It’s where New Year’s Eve feels like a festival, and shops and street lights go all-out for Christmas.

The view of St. Paul's over Millennium Bridge.

London is a noisy place. A cluttered bustling culture-pot of a place. Sirens and parties and concerts and pubs and clubs and foxes that wake you up at ungodly hours by going at it in some alleyway by your house.

How small skyscrapers can make you feel.

But for me? The city is a haven. It is a place that is bustling and busy and alive. It is a place that has its seasons, scorching summers where everyone lazes about and eats ice cream. Where everyone agrees that the pints would be better enjoyed outside. And it is the place where it rains a lot. The umbrellas that appear out of smoke in the same instance as the rain. The reflections from Soho’s neon signs in the quickly filling puddles that swamp the streets. How everything looks even more Gothic when it’s pouring, dripping like ink has spilled over the brim. It is how when it snows it blankets the city. No one goes to work, dogs run around unleashed in parks alongside families. Others throw snowballs at each other. But, if you stop for a moment, if you forget your to-do list just for a moment, you find discovered silences. The quiet moments, the hidden spots, the rooftops, the tiny little cafes and the wistful second-hand bookshops. The one light on at three AM in the tower block - the business creating, the artists working. The silence on a Sunday morning. It’s that quiet spot, in the silent, snow-covered dead of night, when you’re walking home from a long shift or a maraud around the city, and you spot the couple slow dancing in the middle of the street, in the middle of the snow.

A couple playing in the snow by a lake in a park in London.

The Big Smoke. To me the nickname represents the way one can vanish whenever they want, whisp away like smoke. Take the train, sit on a bus or in a coffee shop or on a park bench and no one will notice you if you don’t want them to. Slither through the crowded Oxford Street, or dodge the throngs at Victora Station, invisible, yet, there. Observing. People-watching. Walk through one of the many parks and just be present. How nature sits in the background most of the time, but when you stop and look it shows itself to be very much prominent. It’s about how you find yourself having a staring contest with a fox in the middle of the night on a quiet street. Alone but for this one fox, watching.

The same lake just on a very foggy morning.

For me, London is a place where I can run, earphones in, and see the world happen around me without having to be part of it if I don’t want to. Any problems on the street are only a problem for those involved, for that brief second as I run blissfully past. I never run the same way twice. It’s always a different route, always out to find intricate places tucked away in the folds of the city. The paths Google doesn’t know about, the running routes that, timed well, line up with the sun setting over the river.

London is the place that keeps marching forward. It is the place where we are piled atop one another and I love it. It is huge and bustling and crowded and noisy. But to me, it just proves that you can always find beautiful moments of solitude, even in a place as immense as this.

Skyscrapers in East London.

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