Musing, and missing
A lovely afternoon at SA's mountain aerie -- first pb & j (& b! who knew!) and then he was so generous as to let me watch the football -- Liverpool v Southampton, at St Mary's. Then we watched some SITC, as is de rigeur for an afternoon with SA, and then I had a lovely little interlude with Mademoiselle L, and then it was up 18th St for a Tryst/DCAC rendezvous with the artistic side of my brain, and others'.
A few days ago, I was somewhere, and damn my eyes, I can't remember where, and it smelt, for the briefest of instants, like London. Now I am well acquainted with phantom scents -- downtown, in the pit of summer, melting asphalt mixing with the exhaust fumes of thousands of inadequately upkept city buses and taxis, the air lying low and heavy, pregnant with rain -- that scent is a dead ringer for Santo Domingo. I've gotten used to that one. There were even a few times in London that it smelt like Sto Dgo -- or maybe it was more that the London skyscape echoed its fellow capital to the south -- bare bright blue, strong clouds edging round. However, I had yet to encounter a phantom-London smell. Anywhere. Yet here it was, on some anonymous street corner in DC. And I'll try to describe it, but it's a bit like looking at a star -- you can't look directly at it, you have to look to the side, sniff around a bit, get a sense of the boundaries of it.
It's a wet scent, but not the wet of Rock Creek after torrential rainfall, not the wet of bark and leaves soaked through and through. It's the wetness of granite that's been rained upon for centuries mixed with the wetness of the river, the salty riparian waves and the fresh raindrops mixing together. Throw into the alchemy the exhaust of all those bloody cabs, Black and mini, the buses, the cars -- congestion charging be damned -- and the refridgerated mayonnaise air coming from the Tube vents, and don't forget about the cigarette smoke that hangs around all the time, just over our heads. The London smell has a bit of a bite to it as well, it's not chewy, it's not tangy -- it's a clean snap of the jaws, in your nose. Pavement's got a bit to do in there, as well, and grass, and tile -- those gorgeous centenarian dark green tiles in Regents Park Tube and the bright white tiles and futuristic steel of Canary Wharf. A quintessential urban smell -- not the smoky chemical deepness of an industrial scent, not the warm ripe fecundity of a rural scent, and not like New York City, where you smell the people more than the place. London.
I wonder if it will come again and visit me. I made the mistake of looking at TimeOut online -- oops. I lost about two hours in melancholy. I've been reading this lovely site all week and been fine -- even fantasizing about writing for their football page -- but clearly I'm going to have to make TimeOut off-limits. I don't miss it as much as I used to, or something -- scar tissue over the gaping wound of my heart, etc -- but then I'll get a little glimpse and I'm back in the maelstrom, missing Brixton Brixton Brixton, missing the bridges, the Oxo Tower, the pelicans in St James Park, walking in the hordes on Oxford Street ... I 'll stop.
The Reds lost to the Saints, two-nil. We're still fifth, but barely. Apart from the total crap of losing to Soton, even if they started Jamie Redknapp, cheeky popstar-marry-er that he is -- apart from that is the awful fact that Everton is on top of us in the table, in fourth. Everton. The irony of this -- the sheer bloody bollixsieness of it -- is lost on nearly everyone reading this page, so I won't harp on.
EVERTON?!?!?!
In other news, G downstairs has safely returned from his long weekend in Paris with his amour -- and he even brought me a choccie from Heathrow! A Yorkie -- It's Not For Girls. Brilliant.
A few days ago, I was somewhere, and damn my eyes, I can't remember where, and it smelt, for the briefest of instants, like London. Now I am well acquainted with phantom scents -- downtown, in the pit of summer, melting asphalt mixing with the exhaust fumes of thousands of inadequately upkept city buses and taxis, the air lying low and heavy, pregnant with rain -- that scent is a dead ringer for Santo Domingo. I've gotten used to that one. There were even a few times in London that it smelt like Sto Dgo -- or maybe it was more that the London skyscape echoed its fellow capital to the south -- bare bright blue, strong clouds edging round. However, I had yet to encounter a phantom-London smell. Anywhere. Yet here it was, on some anonymous street corner in DC. And I'll try to describe it, but it's a bit like looking at a star -- you can't look directly at it, you have to look to the side, sniff around a bit, get a sense of the boundaries of it.
It's a wet scent, but not the wet of Rock Creek after torrential rainfall, not the wet of bark and leaves soaked through and through. It's the wetness of granite that's been rained upon for centuries mixed with the wetness of the river, the salty riparian waves and the fresh raindrops mixing together. Throw into the alchemy the exhaust of all those bloody cabs, Black and mini, the buses, the cars -- congestion charging be damned -- and the refridgerated mayonnaise air coming from the Tube vents, and don't forget about the cigarette smoke that hangs around all the time, just over our heads. The London smell has a bit of a bite to it as well, it's not chewy, it's not tangy -- it's a clean snap of the jaws, in your nose. Pavement's got a bit to do in there, as well, and grass, and tile -- those gorgeous centenarian dark green tiles in Regents Park Tube and the bright white tiles and futuristic steel of Canary Wharf. A quintessential urban smell -- not the smoky chemical deepness of an industrial scent, not the warm ripe fecundity of a rural scent, and not like New York City, where you smell the people more than the place. London.
I wonder if it will come again and visit me. I made the mistake of looking at TimeOut online -- oops. I lost about two hours in melancholy. I've been reading this lovely site all week and been fine -- even fantasizing about writing for their football page -- but clearly I'm going to have to make TimeOut off-limits. I don't miss it as much as I used to, or something -- scar tissue over the gaping wound of my heart, etc -- but then I'll get a little glimpse and I'm back in the maelstrom, missing Brixton Brixton Brixton, missing the bridges, the Oxo Tower, the pelicans in St James Park, walking in the hordes on Oxford Street ... I 'll stop.
The Reds lost to the Saints, two-nil. We're still fifth, but barely. Apart from the total crap of losing to Soton, even if they started Jamie Redknapp, cheeky popstar-marry-er that he is -- apart from that is the awful fact that Everton is on top of us in the table, in fourth. Everton. The irony of this -- the sheer bloody bollixsieness of it -- is lost on nearly everyone reading this page, so I won't harp on.
EVERTON?!?!?!
In other news, G downstairs has safely returned from his long weekend in Paris with his amour -- and he even brought me a choccie from Heathrow! A Yorkie -- It's Not For Girls. Brilliant.
posted by Hannah at 11:34 AM
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