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| The square from the National Gallery stairs. |
My mom and I walked out of the National Gallery, blinking in
amazement at the crowd. In the short amount of time we’d been in the museum,
the foot traffic in Trafalgar Square had grown by about a million percent.
Tourists from every time zone bustled past, Big Ben keychains already dangling
from backpack zippers, cameras at the ready. Children scrambled underfoot,
chasing pigeons and climbing on the lions at the foot of Nelson’s Column.
Street performers dressed as Darth Vader and Yoda posed for photographs, and on
opposite sides of the square, two guitarists serenaded the crowd at once. Some
might have called it a sensory overload, but I found the energy stimulating.
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| St. Martin in the Fields |
I
excused myself from my mom, darting up the National Gallery steps for a
photograph. At the top of the stairs, I struggled to fit the whole of Trafalgar
Square into my phone camera frame and took about ten shots, planning to pick
the best one later. Nelson’s head was cut off in all of them, but what mattered
to me was capturing the way the square felt. I hoped to somehow freeze this
moment in time, but keep it feeling as alive as I could.
Lowering
the phone, I looked out over Trafalgar Square. From up here, I could faintly
hear the fountain rushing and murmurs from the crowd. Red buses, black
taxicabs, and a couple of police cars rolled past in every direction, adding
their horns and sirens to the din of the tourists and locals. Then, over it
all, I heard bells ringing. Smiling, I glanced over at St. Martin in the Fields,
the little white church to my left.
A thought tugged at my sleeve,
commentary on the wonderful madness: When
a man is tired of London, he is tired of life. This was life indeed, and I
was thrilled beyond all expression to be a part of it. Laughter, the kind born
out of mind-boggling happiness, accompanied me back down the National Gallery
steps. I was only a bit surprised when I realized it was my own.
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