Jenny, at home, with Mehrunnisa in London
I’m on the way to being back in the world again. When I was making plans to see old friends who were over here visiting family, I resolved to meet them on their Airbnb doorstep and then drag them, in a socially distanced way, to the beach. But when I arrived, they invited me in I caved straight away. I thought I’d made the psychological leap look easy. Two days later they sent me a photo of their negative COVID tests, and I thought again.
My friend and I go all the way back to school, but the ‘grown up’ phase began the day I bumped into him on Victoria Street, on a mission to buy new trainers for the Belfast City Marathon. Since then, he and his partner have got engaged and married and had two children, and I’ve marked the occasions with them. In turn, they’ve gone above and beyond to see me through my life on the flip side of that turn of events, giving me respite and refuge and inexplicably implacable support.
It was so good to sit at a table with them again, to hear from them about family and friends and to help them out in a small way by witnessing a signature on a form. Even when there isn’t a pandemic on, it can be hard to get a witness, and even when it’s not for one of the biggest occasions, it’s usually for a pretty important promise: a passport application or a lease agreement or a loan. The virus has made it more of a logistical challenge. A few weeks ago, a colleague and I arranged to meet in a car park to witness each other’s forms. Scratching out wobbly signatures as the sun bounced off the metal and glass around us felt silly and profound at the same time.
I’m happy when a friend asks me to witness something. I like the idea of my name being associated with theirs in connection with some important thing in their life. My preference is for the event to be an undilutedly welcome one, but complicated and/or sad is especially significant, because it says: I’m here with you, and this is me signing up to be in it for the long haul.
That’s just the token, though, a symbolic snapshot of a continuing act of observation. We’re each other’s lookouts as we look out for each other through the days and years: to remember is to testify. It used to be my party trick to retrieve and report entire conversations and the causes, course and consequences of events long past. When I think about it now, I’m aghast at how little regard I must have had for the feelings even of people I loved. I tread much more carefully now, knowing both that my recall is as subjective and selective as anyone else’s and that eyewitness accounts of friends’ histories are not to be unfolded with a flourish.
The virus has been a refresher course on that lesson. I think that the pandemic has thrown people back on the past, whether to relive it as it happened or to try to revise and rewrite it in hindsight. With or without witnesses, it’s been a lonely business, so when the question arises, it’s best to go gently. To begin with, anyway, it’s enough to say: yes, I was there. I heard that too, and I saw it happen. I saw you happen.
Things to remember: the long-forgotten feeling of getting homework done on a Friday night, old friends, new running shoes
Things to forget: balaclavas on parade again, a peculiar state of panicky exhaustion, the delta variant in Kilkeel
mehrunnisa, at home in London
london is animated again; a varied treble and bass note depending on the postcode. the parks are as busy as they were through lockdown, especially since winter spring has given way to summer. but it is slimmer pickings on weekdays though, an indication that structured office and school life has shifted the pattern. a handful of colleagues have been speaking about returning to the office. the underground is getting busier. soho and its surroundings have been transformed into alfresco dining spaces. some restaurants have sought cover from the elements with umbrellas or tent-like structures. the ones in covent garden have more substance as they are made of sturdier plastic.
the city is clearly returning to itself. london, even in its half state, is so full on the senses. i am struck by this each time i return from zurich. everything feels technicolour, vivid and loud. zurich is wide open skies and sharp peaks anointed with snow. the lake that sits in its centre has such clarity that one can see the rocky bed. in winter, a lid of fog sits over the lake, colouring the city many shades of grey. it is a pretty city, with little by way of sharp edges. i love the opening season of swimming, when the water is refreshingly cool and still clear.
london is its opposite. even in lockdown, it had rhythm and pace, especially in neighbourhoods removed from the centre of the city. it took the whiteness of zurich for me to actually see the diversity of the city. the city’s neighbourhoods announce their character and status by the house fronts and the types of shops on local highstreets. there is a fullness to life here, a kind of reality that can be sharp and discomfiting. its beauty is in recognition, in finding parts of oneself represented and on display. it could be in a familiar language, the smell of food and spice from one's heritage, people who look like you or better yet cultural offerings. there is an exquisite display of artifacts, art, textiles and pottery at the ‘epic iran’ exhibition at the victoria and albert right now. i found a little bit of pakistan in kings cross at the ‘silk road’ and the travel photographer of the year exhibit. i ended the weekend at the ‘art of banksy’ in covent garden. it is a display of art from private collections and has not been authorised by the artist.
but this is only half the story.
the joy of rediscovering the city is tempered by absences and closures. it was a shock to come up at oxford circus with no sign of miss selfridge. it had been there so long and was a landmark. it was the perfect meeting point in the days before mobile phones became ubiquitous. the shifts are more perceptible on tottenham court road where paperchase’s flagship store is no more. habitat has also closed its doors. cubbits in goodge street is gone too. these are the visible ones.
adam gopnik has written a lovely essay on ‘how a city comes back to life’ aptly filed under the ‘department of returns’ in the new yorker. i held these words of his in my head as i retrace my footsteps around london - “we’re reminded that the city got turned inside out during the past year, in the specific sense that sidewalk dining and parkgoing became central to urban life; the outdoors became indoors, and the indoors outdoors. this may have extended past recreation into the more hazily poetic sense that the first became last and the last first—with an altered sense of who was and was not an essential worker, and what was and was not essential work. it is hard to turn a city inside out without turning its citizens’ consciousness around, too. we did not change our lives, but the hope persists that, by redefining our space, we may yet remake our essence.”
things to note: a lockdown compatible haircut which is a compromise between the boy cut that omair was keen for me to get, but that would not work if salons had to close again. excellent dinner at clipstone on a warm summer evening with i and s. we shared a number of plates and the ones that i loved the most were the nettle and pecorino arancini with parsley mayo, green asparagus, hazelnut miso and parmesan and ravioli of trombetta courgette, preserved lemons and parmesan. blackjack soft serve at sons + daughters in kx.
things to remember: that omair will be here soon, the joy of museums, eating out
things to forget: the march of the delta variant, the rage i feel against people who refuse to mask, that the pandemic isn’t over