It is the very late 1990s and I am coming back home to London for the first time since leaving for Wolverhampton Uni.
I’m with my new friend Liz who’s from a small village in Gloucester. We walk out of Euston Station into the chaos of London and I suggest walking back to mine. She asks if it’s far to my house from the station. I say, ‘Not really.’ So we set off.
I live in Tottenham, which is five and a half miles from Euston Station.The walk takes us just over two hours. Liz is surprisingly understanding.
We sing 80s songs. We compliment strangers on their outfits. We talk and talk some more. An hour into the walk we find an abandoned shopping trolly and take turns pushing each other in it before dutifully leaving it in a supermarket trolly-park at some point later on. It is a great way to introduce her to the city I love.
Even if you have been to London before, the back streets and alleys, railway bridges, parks, canals and small connecting paths away from the tourist spots are different – part of the reality of it.
Never again does Liz trust me when I say, ‘It’s not far.’
I have always done this. Preferred the travelling to the destination – felt at home in the in-between.
It’s not just walking that works like this for me – untangles my mind. Buses, tubes, trains – all offer me that ‘travelling space’, which is so specific and helpful for me.
I went on my own by Tube to school in central London from age 11. My route meticulously planned – 12 minute walk to the station – standing on the specific part of the platform where the doors would open and line up perfectly with the exit on the way out.
Often in the morning rush hour the carriages were so packed with people determined to get to where they were going, I would be lifted off my feet. I became a ninja at getting on a packed train – finding the spaces between the grown-ups. It’s strange to me now. Sometimes I see children as young as I was navigating the tube and they seem so small.
I have always enjoyed being on my own. I realise this is part of my joy of travelling. The world can be very intense and I’m not always ready to talk. Sometimes I just want to take things in.
Often, when a colleague realises that we will be on the same train and suggests meeting up I’ll find a way to say no.
There is something about what people do on transport that is both public (of course) and yet private.
I travel often but in small ways – mostly different paths across the same city. I am a freelancer so I travel quite a lot for work. I work all kinds of hours so would sometimes be travelling back from theatre jobs late at night. Instead of taking a half hour tube journey I would walk for an hour or two until the early hours of the morning.
Stopping to notice my surroundings keeps me connected – I see that patterns all around us, people and animals and even litter in a breeze following routes both practised and spontaneous like animals crossing the Serengeti.
Travelling around alone with my senses open to experience means I get to know the way these places fit together like one of my daughter’s jigsaws, which is a lovely thing.
Miranda’s book The Year I Stopped to Notice is out this week.
Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing [email protected].
Share your views in the comments below.
Source: Read Full Article
