So Long, London

Photo 16. London

Battersea Park

Like all cities, London doesn’t miss you when you’re gone. Cities are the guy running the dodgems at the Easter Show: no interest at all in the grin on your face. It’s all just move along please.

This was our last day in London: checking out Battersea Power Station, dinner with whanau at Rovi. Eurostar tomorrow: move along please. So long, London.

So Long, London is a Taylor Swift song (but you knew that): a break-up song. London is how she refers to the guy she’d fallen for…

I saw in my mind fairy lights through the mist

Except, she’d realised, he was no longer keen on her…

I stopped CPR, after all it's no use

(Move along, please.)

However, even though London (the guy) doesn’t love her, she still loves London (the city):

I'm just mad as hell ‘cause I loved this place.

We loved London too. Our cities’ gleaming spires point to the greatness mankind can achieve¹: the art, the architecture, the parks, the shows, the Tube…what a marvellous, marvellous place. We had a rich and wonderful time. A grin all over our faces; a dodgem ride coming to an end.

I’ve written previously (Garpar Siffix) about coming to Aotearoa New Zealand from England as a child. Now here I was, back again. What if I’d never left? Would I rather be living here, in this cabinet of curiosities? If so who would I be now?

Miriam Sharland is English. In her book Heart Stood Still, written after seventeen years living in Aotearoa, she explores the dilemma of wanting to be in two places at once: wanting to go ‘home’ to spend time with her Mum, but loving life here as well.

Miriam describes driving to Foxton, to see the kuaka (godwits) at the Manawatū River estuary. Kuaka fly long-haul, twice a year, with the change of seasons.

…like these avian migrants, she writes, I’m also bound by unseen ties to two countries…I want to fly away too.

No, I don’t want to live in London. Unlike Miriam, I am not English now; this is my country. They have their tall buildings, we have Waipoua Kauri Forest. They have artistic masterpieces, we have Abel Tasman National Park. They have gardens, we have Rakiura/Stewart Island. They have their Christmas lights. We have stars.

In other words, their spires may point to the greatness mankind can achieve; but our motu offer the greatness nature can achieve.

If I were a kuaka: I’d migrate too: back there, again and again. Best of both worlds. But—as I’m not—I choose here: Aotearoa New Zealand. But thanks, London…

And So Long.

---

Next week: I want to wake up in Paris

1. writes Edward Glaeser, in Triumph of the City