This is a letter to my father who has terminal leukaemia*. I use this space to tend to my grief The grief that life will eventually end. To immortalise who he is and who we are as a father and daughter. By writing this I recognise that we will never be able to say everything we wish to say. Death just doesn’t work like that. I hope that it will be a source for others to tend to the colourful waves of grief, its beauty and it’s rawness.
*I know longer use the word terminal, because, in essence, we are all terminal, we just don’t always acknowledge it. Terminal strips away hope of a miracle. And I believe in miracles.
Dear Dad,
The other night I was feeling romantic. Charmed.
In those blissful yet heart wrenching moments when you know a love affair is coming to an end, the yearning you feel for every second is almost euphoric in its intensity.
I threw the windows open, despite the uncharacteristically chilly nature of June. My flat still contained its familiar and suffocating nature, as a flat in the rafters often does in the summer. I wanted to hear the city; every siren, every drunken argument, the raucous behaviour of the newly born fox cubs scrounging through the bins for the very first time.
In that moment, I felt intoxicated. Even the smell of the engine oil leaking from the planes as they flew over was appealing. I couldn’t get enough.
I think you often question why I have not settled down. You were keen for me to marry the builder down the road. The builder who said he’d mould the earth with his bare hands, construct a home for me from scratch. Choose the land, he said, and I’ll build you a dream. You’ve never questioned my choices out loud. Never once said whether someone was right or wrong for me. However a mortgage, a house down the road, a 9-5, I know all of them would have put your mind at ease. I would have been….established.
I hope you don’t worry about me, and how my life will go. I will of course eventually have a home to call my own, but until now, it has been all about the adventure, the unknown.
I tried for a while to live in our home town. And for the last 12 years experienced the regular office hours of a stable job. But I have no interest in tame, or mediocre. Peaceful lulls or slides into domesticity. A therapist may tell me that I am the dramatist, that seeking such butterflies is the route to unhappiness, a red flag in itself. But give me passion or nothing at all. Why live for a life half baked, why eat the chips without the salt, the strawberries without the cream? I wish for a love you just can’t let go of. The pain of an ending, not the shrug of a shoulder, a silent malaise and then a quick move on. I have been the only family member that has every painted outside the box, to have gone beyond the confines of the country roads cradling our town. Always looking for something more. And this time is no exception.
But, on this occasion, I’m not talking about a particular person, that, I feel, is a conversation for another day. Instead I am talking about the greatest love affair of my life. My love affair with this city.
London.
Insane, beautiful and grubby old London.
The egg timer has started and my time here is running out.
Many tell me that she will still be here, and that I will live just an hour or so away. You can visit, really make a day/week/weekend of it. But I know it will not be the same. I will no longer be the Carrie Bradshaw of my own life, running across the city I love in high heels, feeling the expanse of possibility.
I remember when you first brought me here. It was a real treat; our yearly visit to a show. First my Fair Lady, then Grease, Wicked and the Phantom. Trips to White Hart Lane, spat at by Leeds fans in the away seats, shouting down at Robbie Savage, screaming as the goals came in. Eating at terribly overpriced and overcrowded bog standard restaurants, where the food was chewy, the waiters grouchy and the tea cold. We’d giggle all the way home on the train, thankful for the relaxation after the sensory assault the city would bring. I remember at 10 years old feeling the emotions of the crowds in the Covent Garden lifts. I could feel every flicker, every feeling. Since I was a kid I’ve always felt that my superpower was to be able to sense the will of others, a 10 year old calls it superpowers, an adult calls it hyper vigilance. Those lifts are always a mistake anyway, a rookie error I would no longer make. I remember thinking then who would want to live here. I never had the desire like others did to live in the city. It was just so dirty.
As I got older, everyone I knew seemed to talk of London. As if it was the city of dreams. As I lived in Edinburgh, a friend and I used to daydream about careers there, jumping on the tube with a takeaway coffee, perfect hair, and flirting with the whole town. The reality was you were lucky to find an unstained seat, a seat you hoped hadn’t been urinated on the night before. And there’s always someone who stares, or talks, or gets that little bit too close breaking the unspoken rules of the underground.
Arriving here, suitcase in hand, my nose crinkled, my nerves set alight. I don’t know that I ever really wanted to be here. It was just the done thing. Surprisingly though, life came naturally to me in London, I felt myself melt into its pavements, its habits, its juxtapositions. Knowing which times and lines to avoid, jumping on tubes as a regular with the understanding of which trains and stops would increase my likelihood of a seat. I would never ask strangers how they were, it was usually met with derision. What do you want from me? would be the look. I’d inhabit the Prince Charles Theatre, watching black and white movies on weekdays, ‘A Wonderful Life’ at Christmas. Attend parties in aquariums, and salsa clubs in basements. Dancing until midnight with strangers, drinking from fountains of water as the sweat poured off of our bodies. Noodles at 2am, dry cleaning at 4. There was nothing this city couldn’t give. I’d feel as if my life was full to the brim yet equally empty. The light and the shadows played out every day on the London streets felt so bracing, so very real.
But as always, such love affairs like these never end the way you want them to. That night as I left my window open, and fell asleep to the sounds of the city at night, I awoke with not 1 but 5 huge mosquito bites. Trust me to get bitten, both literally and metaphorically in the ass by this city. London doesn’t do romance. Always reminding you that she is not there for your adoration. That she will come and go as she pleases, and behave in whatever way she wants to. That’s what I love about London, so grimy, so below expectation, yet blowing you away when you least expect it. I could not have hoped for a better love affair.
Although my nervous system feels ready to leave London, and my hyper sensitive super power longs for a rest from absorbing everyone’s mood, I already yearn to return. I’m still waiting for someone to tell me where the best cakes are in the city, take me for a late evening gelato. There are plays and operas I am yet to see. I intend to go out in a flurry of confetti, brass bands, late night dances along the river. I want to make sure the city knows that I love her, that when I return we can fall into one another’s arms again like old lovers remembering each embrace, each kiss. I want her to know that I will never forget her.
I don’t think you will ever understand why I love it so much. I just wanted you to know Dad, that you might not get it, but this city makes me feel alive. In a city where death is part of the day and is pushed out into the sunlight, where the shadows live alongside the joys, the ugly next to the beauty, I feel like all life is possible. We are still possible.
I come home with a full heart but boy, I really will miss this.
I can’t wait to see you soon Dad.
All my love, always.
Anna xxx
I am writing this essay as part of the 24 essays club (this is number 9) with the wonderful
you can read more about the essay club below.
Wow. I could feel your deep love for and the pulsing life of the city in every single line of this, Anna. And, oh how you inspire me and at the same time get me. For, I, too, feel most alive in the heart of the city. The forest and the seas give me deep calm, but the city gives me life. So much so that Lina and I will be moving from our mid-size city to Stockholm in a year. And we cannot wait to start our new love affair there. ❤️
It’s so interesting how life moves us in different circles and cycles and new adventures and homecomings. So, if I understand you correctly, you are moving back and away from the city? xx