don’t forget to look up

02.may.2005: the service was over, and i found myself walking to the train station with a very friendly woman, originally from new zealand, who had to take the same train i was taking. she asked me various sundry questions about my stay, how i liked greenwich, how i liked london. i told her that london wasn’t too interesting to me for some reason. perhaps i wasn’t a big-city person, perhaps i’m turned off by all the tourist traps, but it just didn’t click in my brain.

“yeah,” she said. “sometimes the smell of pee can turn anyone off.”

well, true. but i don’t really recall the smell of pee in my experience. as it just so happened, the train pulled up and offered us the aroma of which we just spoke of.

“i’ve gotten used to it,” she said. “it’s just the smell of human nature. everybody has to pee.”

i laugh, then she dishes out more sage advice:

“in london, you will never appreciate the city unless you look up. at eye level, it’s like every other city. but you never realize how much history is in london until you look up to see the architecture.”

and it's true. in my experience, it’s like that in every european city i’ve been to, including in italy and austria. at eye level, it’s a city. above it, a legend. sometimes it’s sad how little the human neck strains upward and onward. we all get so busy in the muck and mire of the day-to-day stuff we wade through, don’t we? i remember days at school where i would literally forget that there was still a sun that existed beyond the fluorescent tubes lining the ceiling.

but skies are full of blank mystery too infinite to contemplate. ah, there, next to the ground, something we can stand on. something we can see. something we can grasp. yes, let’s stick with that.

next thing you know, you have tunnel vision. and you will have tunnel vision. and you’ll miss all the best parts of life, the nooks and crannies and histories and myths and stories and mysteries of infinite proportions.

she interrupts my thoughts. “just remember to look up once in a while, and you’ll be ok,” she said with a laugh.

so i look up, and i see a few lights, the roof of the train, and a tiny piece of everything.