I left London for the last time this year on Friday. It was bittersweet, of course. I love that city more than any other major capital city on the planet. I have great friends and I genuinely enjoy the town.
But all good things and such. Plus, I was heading north for my last English trip where I was meeting up with Laura (an old friend from Loveland) and her husband Tim.
Tim was working in London on Friday so I met him at the Canary Wharf, which is in Zone 2. I’d not been out that far and we pleasantly surprised.
However, it’s the least London-y part of London. The financial district it seemed. Or a place where financials happened. It looks quite American in its bigness, which is how Tim described it to me in an email. I believe he was pretty spot on.
Last summer, I met Nina in Liverpool. It was a serendipitous meeting. We’d been circling around each other for awhile apparently.
She’s the director of the Writing Center at The Soho Theatre, a cool multi-level joint smack dab in the middle of Soho in London. She’d been working developing new avenues for theater, particularly those tied in with emerging technology.
We kicked around some ideas for teaching a transmedia workshop for playwrights, artists, actors, writers and the like who are associated with the theatre. We weren’t exactly sure what we wanted to do, but we knew we wanted to do something.
There will be more on this in the coming days, but my last great adventure will be tomorrow night when I have the opportunity to see Marc Maron at The Soho Theater:
I’ve come to accept this as part of my life. I embrace it. I have rolled it into my personality. I’ve taken a liability and turned it into an asset. It’s a story that’s been working for the last 2 years, 2 months and 15 days.
At least I think it’s working based upon some anecdotal evidence.
You see, this year I challenged my students. I laid down the gauntlet. In writing. In health. In life. I have challenged them to write 90 blogs in 90 days. I have challenged them (and tried to support them) as we all lost weight and attempted to transform our lives.
But the most significant thing I have done this year is dedicated 2010 to The Year of Friends. Specifically: to visit as many friends as I can. To spend time with them. To see them again. To laugh with them. To love them. To be inspired by them.
To remember that we’re here not for fame or glory. We’re not supposed to be trapped by the expectations of others. We are here for the people in our lives who make time for us. Who make us better people. Who lift us up when we don’t have the strength to do that ourselves. Who sit and laugh with us for no good reason.
Other than getting sober 2 years, 2 months and 15 days ago, The Year of Friends has changed my life more than I’ll ever be able to express to my students, my family, my friends. Because for the first time in my life I’ve been able to truly enjoy all of you:
My friends Jason and Andrea (Austin) had their first child this year. So of course I had to see Ozzy.
It’s 1:52 pm on Monday. I’m sitting on a Southern train heading back to London, my last week in the city before I begin my journey home.
It’s a bittersweet day, these travel days. I’m always anxious about what’s next but surrounded by the sadness of what I’m leaving behind.
This weekend was yet another welcome respite from the rigors of traveling.
Sunday was brilliantly lazy. Aleks talked me out of my morning run, which she did my steadfastly refusing to leave the house. It was a brilliant tactic, one which I couldn’t counter since it wasn’t my town. It’s difficult to simply leave out the front door when you have no idea where you are going, how to get back or where to run in the middle.
It’s the first Sunday I haven’t run in months, which concerned me. (We made up for it today on the most brutal run I’ve yet had, plagued by tired legs and stomach cramps.) Eventually we meandered through downtown with Max, cafe-hopping while tracking down more photo opportunities for Aleks’ 1984 project. Once again, I became an unwitting accomplice:
I’m sitting in bed in Brighton, tuckered out completely. The day was an absolute complete blur of activity, but in the best possible way.
Aleks and I went for a 10K this morning along the Brighton pier. It was absolutely amazing. We chatting while going at a pretty good clip (8:45 per mile), which included an all-out sprint at the end (7:40 seconds).
After, we ate breakfast before one of Aleks’ friends from London came down for a softball lesson. (Seemed she’d signed up for a league despite having a “limited” history of the game.)
The three of us were joined by another of Aleks’ friends in Preston Park, where we played softball for two hours. Amazingly, the woman who had the “limited” history turned out to be one of those natural athletes. She had us chasing balls all over the park during batting practice.
The weekend brought close my first full week in London. While I’ve enjoyed my time there, it’s no secret I’m not much of a city boy. I’ve found myself in real life moving farther and further away from the big places.
But Friday also meant it was time to pack up and head to Brighton where I’d get the chance to hang with my friend Aleks, with whom I’ve spent little substantial time in the last few years because she was out being awesome.
That meant my first solo train ride in England. Courtesy of the Victoria Station.
The trip was pretty uneventful. It wasn’t crowded and the hour flew by as I read. When I arrived, I was greeted by this sight.
It’s strange that it takes a few days to re-orient myself in London. Not that I’ve been here often, but I’ve spent more than a month in the last year. Enough that I’m starting to get a sense of the flow. At least in the parts I roam.
I’ll say: running – as it did in Berlin – helps me see parts of the city. I’ve become familiar with the Hyde Park area.
But my love – always my love – is Soho. If I lived here, I suspect I’d need a place that was close. (Although Hyde Park is certainly a close second.)
The main reason: I love Bar Italia. Which is odd, since not only is there no Wifi…there’s not even reception for cell phones in the place. It’s the least tech-friendly place on the planet. (There’s not even room on the counter for a laptop. You can literally do nothing digital in this place.)
My friend Irene made sure we had two floor tickets to Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors tonight at the Globe. It’s difficult for me to explain how amazing this experience was for me.
I’m normally against such “art worship,” but this is one of the few places on earth where the words come to life. Where the snobbery of the theater world is stripped clean by the masses teaming in the front, away from the seats. Where the in-jokes are for the commoners and the art is for everyone.
I have a deep love of Shakespeare. He was one of the first who taught me to love telling stories. To say I was humbled and awed would be an understatement. But those are the words I have.
“I thought it would be larger,” Irene said. I agreed. Then I realized it was perfect. (Also, we noticed that if it rained the show could go on because everything – except the floor seats – was covered.)
Two years ago, I decided to spend my time at South by Southwest Interactive shuttling newbies around my amazing city and its signature conference. One of the people I can across during this endeavor was Katz, my wonderful hostess this weekend.
As it turned out, she is one of the brains behind the b.tween conference, a confab of media thinkers and producers that moves around the United Kingdom. During our conversations at SXSWi, she invited me to Liverpool to moderate a panel on storytelling. I jumped at the opportunity and soon thus our friendship began.
Like so many friends I’ve met along the road, she’s extremely busy and so our schedules rarely have chance to cross for any extended length of time. Until this weekend. We had three far too short days to spend together, days that – as we discussed this morning – had almost nothing to do with work. Instead we:
ate possibly the worst meal ever on Friday night with her friend Jo;
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