grey and dark skies all around. not really the pre-autumn weather i was hoping for. patches of blue pushing through the mass of darkness overhead. but the grey isnt really grey after all. there is a lot of puffy white inbetween breaking the darkness. somehow i can compare the emotions in me with the skies above. perhaps i have a touch more blue though. but still its feel as if the autumn has come before its time. these thoughts wash through my head as i stare out the window of the train and absorbing the environment that has become my home for a few days. somehow the greyness has become more and more attractive. broken by the green parks of the london suburbs and the brown red brick building of old industrial areas. i stare out the window as the train is about to pull into waterloo once again. this has become my daily route. fourty minutes and i am in the heart of london. a city that has captivated me by its colours and the people. watching them on the tube. waiting impatiently on the platforms. the lovers tiff on the banks of the thames. the mother picking up her kid from play school. the group of student rambling on about last night out on the town. the tourist with his camera. the girl struggling up the stairs with her big suitcase off to terminal five. the old couple clutching each other like walking canes and both in a different world of paging through memories of london after the war and the grandchildren. the guy with the hard hat under his arm his clothes stained with paint and cement telling me that he is pushing two jobs at the same time to make ends meet. the frustration and dispair tarnishes his face as the dirt clings to his eyebrows and the soil is evident under his nails. the middle aged women with her chelsea wanna be accent speaking on her mobile to a friend and discussing the new surgical procedures to enhance this and to reduce that. a conversation that brings my breakfast to the shallow of my throat and i turn the volume to max on my ipod. the cute blond girl that has just finished night shift as her head bobs and weaves with the rhythm of the train. my laughing wakes her and she sheepishly winks at me trying to hide her embarrassment. the people of this mystical city are endless. days on trains and tubes are enough to write for years. but the thing that hit me the hardest was the thoughts i had to struggle with as each person walked pasted me. stared at me. winked at me. barked at me. how do others perceive me. where do i fit in. which box. which category. and thats the beauty of my own thoughts. perhaps i can see myself in each of the characters i briefly described. or perhaps it is just my way of seeing things. non the less. these are real people. that breath and live. they go to work. they pick up the kids. the have arguments with loved ones. the swear at the boss. the curse the slow service of the waitress. they moan about the increased transport fares. they run the rat race and cram their lives into small boxes and folders like trying to get onto the tube at waterloo during rush hour. all pushing towards something without knowing what or where to. i feel content within myself that i can stand outside this race. that i can stare through my train window and laugh at myself. the breaking of hearts. the skipping of chapters. the hopping continents. living in my imaginary world where it is me and me alone. where i make the rules as i go along and dont have to give account for it or answer to all the whys. where i am king of my castle. but praise be to the Lord that this is only in my imagination. that i too live in the real world. perhaps more real than many ohters. perhaps because i am step with what ticks on the inside of me. that is perhaps why i can just be still and know...
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