If Heels Could Talk: A Letter To London

Dear London,

Gosh our relationship has been tumultuous. I wasn’t interested in you for the longest time. You’ve always been so hot and cold and you rain on parades alllll the time. But then in 2008 one of my favorite people in the world love fell in love with you. In 2011, she introduced me to you. I mean you were beautiful but you were so cold and dreary. I explored you in December 2011, I fell in love with double decker buses, I spent hours in Primark, but I still wasn’t feeling you like that.

I wasn’t in a hurry to visit again but in 2014 I considered visiting my sister again for Christmas but that was never to be. Why? All of a sudden you (okay, not you) but under your watch that someone I love went to be at rest rather unexpectedly. Time passed and time stood still at the same time. I found myself flying back to you, to say goodbye. Funny enough, for all your dreariness, you were quite sunny on the day we laid my sister to rest, how ironic.

You really showed us your bright side in that last hour especially. I noticed as the clouds gave way and I felt the sun on my back. Ha, I actually needed the shades I was wearing. Who would’ve thought! I looked up and I smiled halfway as I tasted my own salty tears. How ironic!

July 2015 (one year later) I’d move to Scotland in another unexpected life move. I literally had plan A to G written down and being your neighbor was not in ANY of those options. As neighbors we got to know each other a bit better. I saw you ALOT and it was NOT love at first sight.

The first year was especially rough. I cried every single time I landed at your doorstep at Heathrow. Memories from that trip in 2011 were so vivid. I remember where my sister stood waiting for me to come out with my suitcase, always there just like she’d been my whole life. I remember crying goodbye as I left and then laughing at ourselves for crying. I was so tickled by double decker buses on that that I made us ride on them and sit on the front row at the top. I sobbed every single time I rode on a double decker bus afterwards.

But London, I kept coming back to you, I had to. So I visited monthly from September 2015 to April 2018 and it got better. I began the tradition of riding double-decker buses with my niece and going on little adventures around you with her. Zoo, aquarium, parks, we did it. We still do. She now reminds me that riding in the front of double decker buses is our tradition. I tell her it started with her mama and I. Today (Sunday December 1^st) we even had afternoon tea in a double decker bus!

I walked through your doorsteps four days ago (second visit this year) and it felt so familiar: the crowded underground, the variety of accents, street musicians, hearing ‘mind the gap,’ walking through Canary Wharf and Covent Garden. I didn’t feel like a tourist at all. Two days ago, I was minutes away from the knife attack but your people swung into action. While I was stuck for three hours, I still enjoyed the kindness of your people as I got free Prosecco for the ‘inconvenience’ of my own safety.

London, you have broken my heart, you have had me soaked from your rain and from my own tears. You have been the (physical) place of my greatest pain. London, you’ve also been a place of growth and kindness, a place of new friendships, great faith, and opportunities. You’ve been a place of joy and new traditions. More than anything, you are proof to me (and to anyone reading this) that beauty can still come from the very place of one’s deepest pain.

It’s been so great to be back briefly in the great city of London. I can’t believe I’m saying this but I’ve actually missed you and I see why my sister loved you. Now, easy on the rain, and I’ll see you next time (publishing this from the airport)!

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Till next week,

Dee (Ms. Heels)