Recently, I had the pleasure of traveling into Liverpool Street on an overground train. Gliding through the changing land and cityscapes of Walthamstow, Clapton, Hackney Downs and Bethnal Green the train provided a delightful rolling filmic experience from the comfort of my seat.
Traveling to the cities interior, sunlight flickered, flashed and faded upon the windowpane. Remembrances and emotions were sparked, juxtaposing my life experience so far - faces, places and events popping up from an internal hard drive. My home turf elicited soothing feelings of familiarity and belonging, viewpoints swept by, street lines opened up and slid away allowing sneaky peeks into back gardens, of living room sofas and unmade beds. There was a feeling of mental breathlessness as I attempted to piece the city together, to understand what was before me as it evaporated. The ungraspable, the fleeting, the vanished-ness of this attempt is pleasurable.
The city interior loomed large. Graffiti tags multiply on Victorian railway architecture as London youth rub up against the cities ghosts. Histories overlap, reaching into the past and towards the future as the city breathes. Careful listening reveals the beating heart of London within the trains rhythm. Transported and blinking in the sun's rays a thought shimmered in my awareness, this is my heaven. My heaven is to travel by overground train from East London into the City. Outward and return. Forever.
Arriving into Liverpool Street Station rows of round glowing lamps guided us into the platform. Within the stations darkness a wonderful sensation of being part of the trains fabric revealed itself, as if I could sink into the seat unseen, receptive and connected to the city and her inhabitants.
Reluctantly, I allowed the spell to be broken and alighted onto the platform.
