London Homesick Blues

Day one in London was an expected challenge. Between an overnight, international flight and the time difference we knew going in that we’d be exhausted when we arrived, we’d have to stay awake, and doing so would be miserable. I still couldn’t help but be excited as we dropped our things in our swank Kennsington hotel and wandered out into the city. We strolled to Kennsington Park, gawking at the luxury automobiles, marveling at the dozens of foreign languages we encountered and trying to remember which way to look as we crossed the street. We passed the site of the 1980s Iranian Embassy siege and I couldn’t help but nerd out for a moment and point out the balcony the SAS so famously breached to force entry. We stopped at a pub and I had a pint of bitters and we ate fish and chips and green English peas for a late lunch then wandered over toward the Natural History Museum where we would run into our first major hurdle.

For smart people, we hadn’t really thought things through. We arrived in London on Easter weeken because, ike so many people the world over, we were only able to travel when our child was out of school. So we took the opportunity while we still had it not thinking that the same would be true of every other family with school aged children in the US and Europe. By mid-afternoon the streets of London were packed with tourists from all around the world. The crowd at the Natural History Museum was horrifying, a snarling, writhing, hot mass of a thing. The crowd was almost inhuman in it’s density. Bodies filled every space like flood waters. They sucked the air out of the space. They jostled and coughed and shoved and threatened to separate us. We tried valiantly to see a stuffed Dodo bird, to take some pleasure in the experience, but in our exhaustion and in the crowd it was impossible until even my spouse decided we had to retreat.

We sat outside in the chilly sunlight and caught our breaths before moving on to a children’s Science museum next door. We didn’t make it past the restrooms and instead spent an hour and a half sitting on hard wooden benches in the lobby while our child nodded off, waiting for our scheduled tea time at posh hotel nearby. The tea should have been a highlight, but our kid was tired so instead we sat watching them not eat the $200 US dollars worth of little themed cakes and cookies and creams we’d paid for because they specifically requested an English tea. We’d walked over, but by the time we were done all of us were dead on our feet, so we took an authentic London cab back to the hotel and collapsed into bed, day one officially in the books, though none of us would have a real memory of it.

Our second day was fine. Pleasant even. We bought a take out lunch of pre-pepared sandwiches from a Tessco express then took the tube to the Tower of London where my spouse’s excellent planning got us in line to see the Crown Jewels just in time to avoid the crowds and the hours long wait. We wandered the battlements and museums until lunch time then took a double decker bus to a transportation museum where my kid played on trams and trollies for a few hours. Then we had ramen nearby before taking the tube back to Paddington station where we posed for a photo at the Paddington Bear statue before wandering back to the hotel. The crowds were still there but nowhere near as impenetrable and uncomfortable as they’d been at the Natural History Museum the day before. I struggled, but I always struggle in dense urban environments, and we got through.

On day three I melted down.

It started no worse than the previous day. Our bus took us past Marble Arch Station but Gary P. Nunn lyrics were, in my family’s flawed opinion, not enough reason to stop, so we continued on to Buckingham palace. Walking past the tall, brick walls, looking at the mossy, steel spikes, rusty barbed wire, and high tech CCTV surveillance, it was hard not to have the cliche thought that the place was as much prison as palace. Looking at the phalanx of police and the throngs of tourists it was hard to imagine a comfortable life inside those walls, despite all the obvious wealth and I couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for the silly, stupid, Kings and Queens and idiot princelings condemned to such a glamorous and comfortable life. I guess it’s the American in me, but I was far more interested in the unarmed Bobby’s or the Met police working the crowd than the pampered Royals behind the gate.

It was here, in the crowd in front of Buckingham palace that we’d get a taste of what was to come. It was here where I’d get the first warning that the Natural History Museum wasn’t a fluke, London was crowded with tourists all jostling and shoving their way to the front of the line. That snarling, writhing, hot mass was still growing, but it was early yet, so we made our way past a cool, calm, park toward Horse Guard road stopping only to take pictures of Big Ben in the background. We watched the King’s Life Guard change the guard and I was struck and impressed by the number of brown and black faces in a ceremonial English military unit. I know in theory that England is a diverse modern nation but as an American it’s hard not to picture an Englishman as white. From Horse Guards we made our way toward Westminster and it was there things would fall apart.

After decades of gunfire and explosions my hearing is fading. Like so many old soldiers tinnitus has been an issue for decades but lately there have been other, new, worrying, problems. Somehow background noises have begun to drowned out conversation. When my kid speaks to me I can hear the leaf blower a block away, or the truck passing by, or the birds in the distance, but not the words from their mouth. When my spouse speaks to me in a crowded restaurant I can hear the conversation one table over clear as day but her words are muffled. In London, surrounded by different accents and dozens of languages this was heightened. Standing on a Westminster street corner not only couldn’t I hear my family I couldn’t understand the background din. French, German, Italian, Russian, Chinese, all blended together with a dozen regional English accents to make a cacophony that was deafening and unceasing.

After years of carrying a gun and having to be concerned about physical attack my personal space, the bubble I’m comfortable in, is larger than most. I don’t like people close. I certainly don’t like to be touched without permission. I struggle in Massachusetts, feeling like people are too close and too pushy. Boston paled in comparison to London. As we neared Westminster the crowd grew exponentially, filling every available space, moving without rhyme or reason or care. I found myself on unfamiliar terrain, unable to hear, unsure of where to go and unused to the local customs. I was tired and growing irritated with every person who brushed past, edging closer to panic every time some grown adult stepped between me and my child.

I know this frustrates my family. I know they get tired of me not being able to hear. I know they get tired of me complaining about being jostled. I know they’re tired of me being annoyed when someone stands in my way or steps on my feet so I try hard to keep it in check and I inevitably fail. Outwardly I bitch because that’s what I learned as a soldier, to do what I have to do but complain endlessly about how unfair it is. My spouse hates it. She doesn’t understand that bitching is different than complaints or have the NCOs understanding that when a soldier is bitching things are okay, it’s when they stop that there’s a problem. So I try to keep it in check. I try to keep my complaints to myself though inside I’m in torment. I try to keep my mouth shut knowing full well I’ll fail eventually and then be ashamed of the failure.

It starts as a vibration, a tremor in my soul, before I ever think, “I can’t do this anymore” I feel the tension building almost like tuning a guitar. Then come the thoughts. “This sucks.” “Why can’t they” (it’s always a vague unidentified “they”) “give me any space?” The thoughts turn specific and angry. “If this motherfucker steps on my heel one more time…” “The next son of a bitch who touches me I swear…” But I know I can’t act on this anger. I know I can’t do anything about it, so the thoughts turn to pathetic self pity. “Whoa is me. Poor, put upon, Jeremy…” Then they collapse into despair. “I can’t.” All the while I’m trying and failing to hold it in. All the while I can see that I’m annoying my family.

We were in Westminster Abbey when I broke completely. I was tired. It was hot. The crowd was thick. I couldn’t stop to read the names or look at the stained glass without being bumped or jostled. I couldn’t hear. I felt like everyone was in my way and I was in theirs. I wanted to enjoy the beauty. I wanted to take in the history. I knew that this was a stop for my spouse, something she wanted to see, and yet I couldn’t enjoy it and it made me livid at both myself and the faceless masses that surrounded me. The crowd thickened as we approached a small stairwell. The line came to a standstill and yet people seemed to keep gathering, closer and closer, pushing and shoving. I couldn’t hear. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t enjoy anything around me. I couldn’t escape.

It was then I began closing and unclosing my fists. I don’t know when this behavior started but I’ve noticed it lately during times of stress. I clench my fists. I rub my fingers together. I feel my own skin and the tension in my forearms. As the crowd seemed to grow ever thicker, ever closer, ever louder, I could feel myself trying to become smaller. I pulled my shoulder blades in and scrunched up so tightly my muscles began to ache and for a moment it felt like I could turn myself inside out. It felt like I could fold myself up like a puffer jacket designed to be stuffed into it’s own pockets for storage. It felt like if I could just pull myself inward enough I could gain space from the crowd, but at five feet nine inches tall and two hundred pounds and carrying a tourists backpack I could only make myself so small.

I never made it up that small stairwell.

We never saw what was at the end of that line.

I broke. Or I broke my spouse. Or my kid melted down. I don’t remember. I was scared. I was distressed. I was hurting and confused and it made me incredibly angry and I couldn’t go on.

So we left the line and found as quiet of a corner as we could and I took a few breaths and found myself rubbing my thumbs and forefingers together in some subconscious attempt to self soothe as I stood with my back to the wall looking out at that horrid, writhing, mass of people. I was humiliated that they’d broken me. I was angry at myself for letting that ruin something that I knew was important to my spouse and I had a sinking suspicion that I’d made a horrible, horrible decision. I was convinced in the moment that our first and maybe last international vacation was ruined, that I’d spent more money than I’d ever spent before solely to be tortured and miserable in a foreign country. And I wondered how I’d gotten like that. I used to wander the streets of foreign cities drunk and alone and now I couldn’t take a simple family vacation. I’ve fought grown men and killers and death itself but a line in a tourist site broke me. It was impossible not to be ashamed.

Eventually I found my footing. We finished our tour with only one more, relatively minor, hiccup then ate lunch in the cafe because it was close and we were exhausted. We strolled past parliament then fought through the crowd to see Downing Street but Larry the cat wasn’t out, so instead we watched the armed police pet a posh dog as Chinese tourists took selfies. We made our two pm appointment at the Churchill War Rooms without major issue, though that tour would be only marginally better than the experience at Westminster Abbey. Exhausted we made our way back to the hotel for a rest before heading out again in search of dinner. The next morning we’d leave London on a train for Manchester where new and unexpected challenges would wait.

By now my readers, (goddamn it feels pretentious to say that, “my readers”) know that I want to find something in this story, a lesson or meaning. I’m afraid if you think hard enough you’ll guess what that lesson was for me. By now you should see this conclusion coming.

Shortly after my melt down we found ourselves in the attic of Westminster Abbey on a smaller, much less packed tour of material from the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. There were royal robes and scepters and all manner of interesting historical artifacts but what struck me was the view. There was a single balcony that looked down from the top of the building on the whole of Westminster Abbey. I’d seen it, even from the writhing mass of the crowd below but I was wholly unprepared for how striking the view was. There, cool and calm, hundreds of feet above it all I could look down at the beauty of the architecture, wood working and sculpture of Westminster Abbey and the crowd, that writhing mass, seemed so far away and insignificant. It was breathtaking.

My spouse had wandered off to look at royal robes and my child was too afraid of heights to even consider looking over the edge and I knew I would never have the words to properly describe what I’d seen so I did what we all do and took out my phone. I try hard not to be a bad American tourist but the view was so entrancing I didn’t notice that to my left and right were large signs that warned “No Photos.” I was opening my phone, pulling up the camera when once again a stranger touched me on the shoulder, thought this time it was politely. I turned to find one of the employees in costume.

“Excuse me sir but I’m afraid there’s no photos.” He said with a polite smile.

It was only then I noticed the signs and I could feel myself blushing.

“I am SO sorry.” I replied. Immediately putting away my phone. “I can’t believe I just did that. It’s just the view…”

He nodded sympathetically. “It really is gorgeous isn’t it? But we had to stop people from taking pictures. They kept dropping their phones.” He then went on to explain that they’d once allowed photos but tourists dropped four or five phones a day. “IPhones were raining down on Henry the VII’s tomb and we couldn’t have that could we?”

Then he was off, back to his business, leaving me mildly embarrassed at my mistake but smiling at the mental image of thousands of dollars of electronics raining down daily on Henry VII. It struck me even then that once again a small moment of beauty and human kindness became the pay off for my torment. If I hadn’t suffered through the crowd below and my melt down I never would have gotten a chance to experience a view so shockingly beautiful it blinded me to the warning signs posted left and right. Without my melt down I never would have met that polite Englishman and gotten to hear about iPhones falling on Henry VII. I’m not sure this made the experience “worth it”. In the moment that line of tourists in Westminster was as painful and scary as anything I’ve dealt with, but at least there was a payoff, something I could take away other than the discomfort and the shame.