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7:53 p.m.
2002-04-08
Glimpse of London
Walking out of the English building filled me with an interesting feeling. The lightly falling rain, the light ambient city noise...it all felt so unreal, somehow. It's difficult to describe adequately. But when I started down the alley, heading towards the post office and then my room, it hit me. I felt out of time. It didn't feel like this year, but like something out of Victorian England.
The second I stepped onto the cobblestones of the alley, I was there. I looked at the rows of beautiful houses through the nearly transparent sheet of silvery rain, the varied gardens and trees behind the wrough-iron fences drooping from the wetness. I took all this in, then turned to smile at my fiancee (or something of that nature--young ladies rarely went out walking with men who weren't their fiancees, especially alone), who was done up in the standard black suit of the time. He looked down at me and smiled back, and we continued our walk under the large umbrella he held over us. We were just coming from tea, ready to go home and enjoy a comfortable evening in front of a warm fire, the rain falling outside our window. It all felt so real--I almost didn't feel the rain anymore, and I even carried myself differently as I walked.
And the end of the alley hit. The El announced a Red Line train to 95th, I saw cars and buses and asphalt instead of cobblestones. As I jumped to avoid a puddle, I looked at my feet, and saw not the black button-up boots and long, floaty maroon skirt I had pictured myself in, but the standard black work boots and baggy grey jeans of a normal weekday. Then, the coup de grace--the rain fell on my face once more. There was no umbrella, no fiancee. I was alone.
I bypassed the post office, promising to mail my letters tomorrow, and simply went to my room, marvelling at how something so gloomy could easily turn into something beautiful--and then just as easily change back.
Quote for the Day: "My body aches to breathe your breath, your words keep me alive..." --Sarah McLachlan, "Possession"