I know it's cheating, but I'm going to post a journal entry instead of a recent post. Don't judge me.
(5 Jan.)
It was a serendipitous day.
I was running errands, popping in and out of stores on Fleet Street, when I saw a plaque just inside the doorway of this pub, grandiose and imposing, complete with torches lining the doorway. The plaque began with a description of the history of the pub, once housing an older pub which served such customers as Lord Tennyson. Toward the end of the history was a mention of two buildings which used to flank the pub:
- the shop of
Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street
- and the meat pie shop of his mistress.
And under those very buildings was the fabled furnace in which these terrible pies were cooked.
I laughed out loud with joy at my bizarre discovery.
Much later, I happened to look up from my computer to see steady, perfect snowflakes streaming outside. I hurried out into the night and walked to the Thames. Finding a bench I sat and watched the snow fall over the skyline of the
Millennium Bridge and buildings lining the north bank.
For a while I watched the snow gather quietly on to the bank, onto things that man and nature made. Until I became a thing for snow to gather on.
Then, across the river -
donggg
donggg
donggg
- a bell sounded from some tower across the river. Clear as if I was kneeling in the sanctuary, the water carrying its full and lonely sound to my snowy bench.
I sat in the falling snow as St. Paul's Cathedral rang midnight.
This is what it means to live in a storybook instead of visit. You chance upon these great moments, rather than seek them out. They are there, every day. You have but to look, and listen.
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