#18. Time traveling
The more things change...
I was recently in the UK for several days. I didn’t spend much time in London proper, where I lived from 2014 to 2017, opting instead to spend time with a friend outside of London for some much-appreciated fresh air, relaxation, and sunshine. We walked, we talked, we ate, we read, we loafed, we Sunday roasted, we found a gin distillery and and winery and had a little tipple (or two).
It was exactly what I needed, exactly when I needed it.
I worked from a WeWork near St Pancras station on the day I arrived and the day I left, with easy access to the Eurostar. Coming into the city on Monday morning, I passed train stations I know from the three years I lived in London - Clapham Junction, where Stephen and I briefly lived together, before I moved to Paris, the station where we’d walk together in the morning on our way to work; Vauxhall, where Pete lived, where he made me poached eggs whenever I slept over; Waterloo, where Stephen and I would meet to head to Clapham Junction together; King’s Cross, where I once stumbled upon an outdoor showing of Wimbledon, complete with hammock chairs, beers on tap, and bowls of strawberries and cream.
It all seems so very long ago, and somehow, also, like yesterday.
All places change eventually. Maybe not for better. Maybe not for worse, either. Just for…different. The tall apartment buildings that were just foundations near Vauxhall had risen to heights I needed to crane my neck to see the top of. The factory building by King’s Cross that I am certain I never stepped foot in had become Coal Drops Yard, now full of clothes shops and cafes. The empty gasholders, relics from the past and instantly recognizable along the canal, had been filled with flats, of all things, their insides now filled with an alien glow.
Although all things change, the changes are more stark when you return from being away for a while. The favorite cafe has shuttered and is now a vape shop. The local tailor has shut, and has been replaced by a boba tea store. The supermarket I went to regularly is still there, but has a new name. The places that were “mine” for so long belong to someone else now.
And on the flip side, some new cool cafe has opened where that ratty electronics shop had been. The old man pub is now a chic wine bar. The empty factory building now houses a shopping center. The history has been preserved, even if it’s filled with brand new everything.
It can feel like a gut punch to walk down a street in the present with a memory of the place in my mind, and discover that my memory is wrong, that that shop is not what it used to be, that the picture in my mind is not the current reality. Can I be in two places at once? Sometimes it feels like it. Sometimes I’m in a memory in my mind while taking in what’s around me in the present moment. Both can be true. I can be in my (possibly faulty) memory at the same time that I’m in the moment.
When I live in a place, I know it’s changing all the time, of course, but the changes feel less stark, less gut-punchy, more expected. Instead of shock [“what did they do to my favorite cafe, and WHY is it a(nother) vape shop?!”], it’s more of a quiet acceptance [“oh wow my favorite cafe closed, I’m so glad I went before they shut, shame it’s a vape shop but oh well”]. There’s a cafe near my flat in Paris that’s been closed since I moved in and now it’s finally being renovated. I walk down the street relatively often, so I notice the small changes week over week. But I’m sure the people who knew the spot before and come back to visit after time away will be shocked by the transformation, the paint on the outside, the benches ripped out, the awning gone.
This can be true of people, too. I am, I hope, constantly evolving. Like a place, I’m changing all the time, not the stark change overnight (except for that one time I chopped my hair into a chin-length bob). But if it’s been a while since I saw someone or since they’ve seen me, it can feel like that stark, gut-punch change. Did they always have bangs? Were they always so tall? Why don’t they fit the image that I have of them in my mind?
I can’t expect people or places to stay exactly the same over time, because even my flat changes frequently, bringing in the new and removing the old, and I change frequently too, interacting with different people, which impacts me and the way I see the world in ways big and small.