Freedom

Yesterday after meeting a couple of friends for a coffee near Oxford street I ended up wondering around London. Soon enough a realisation downed on me that I knew my way around better than expected. There was no fear of getting lost. No frantic search for the next tube station. Just peaceful and calm walkabout the city that I now live in.

After an hour or so wondering, I found myself in Trafalgar square, what seems to be my favourite place in the whole city. You can be surrounded by hundreds of people here but still stay alone. Gleeful shouting of children playing in or near the fountains is neither unpleasant nor irritating. The murmur of so many different people having conversations is like music and then there is traffic. You can hear it all and yet it is just as easy to shut it off and forget about it or just listen to the water flow of the fountains.

I sat myself down on the staircase and finished reading my book which I have been carrying around in my union flag bag all day. It was a lovely and well written book by Ian McEwan called Black Dogs and I am sure if I am not too lazy one of these days I will write a review for it. Then as the sun disappeared behind the National Gallery I moved down the square and found myself still a sunny spot on a bench. Then I pulled out another book from my bag, a book that I was given by a friend just a few hours ago, a gift she bought for me on her way from Paris.

The book was one of those magnificent photograph books filled with lovely comments on the side. It was about Montmartre village and the photographs were truly magnificent. I was so consumed by it that I did not notice that the sun disappeared out of my horizon completely, that there were less and less people left around me, and that the shriek of playful children was gone. When I came back from my quick visit to Montmartre I felt alive. Felt so alive like I haven't for years and then amongst the quiet of central London, funny as it sounds, I realised that the last time I felt like this was when I lived in Paris. Young, stupid, poor. Still there were hours of blissful comfort in my existence back in those days and I finally after years of struggle I felt so again. Whilst couple of days ago I was a Londoner because my address is within M25 yesterday I felt as a Londoner because I felt alive and free. It was the freedom that made me feel so alive in the first place.

Afterwards I decided to take pictures everywhere I go so that I never forget the love I feel toward the place that I now call my home. That I never forget the gift of freedom, within all of its traps, that it has given me. For that I am grateful. And faithful.