Happiness

It's Sunday morning, it's sunny, and London looks beautiful. I woke up a few hours ago, drank some water, went for a run. I think a lot when I run, it gives me the time and the freedom to concentrate just on my body and my thoughts, few things give me that freedom.

Yesterday was the best day in a while. I think I could be happy if I had a day like yesterday... I don't know, once a month? Maybe once every two weeks? It was perfect. The sun was shining, the park was wonderful, and I could write.

I spent a couple of hours sitting in the park, close to Marble Arch. The day invited to do just that. A group of dressed up teenagers, sporting bloody clothes and horns were doing... something. I should have asked, but didn't, it was fun to just watch them run around, laugh, jump on each other's shoulders... Three of them were having the sort of conversation I miss from my teenage years, they were sitting down closest to me, solving the problems of the world, seeing all the possibilities. Have I lost that? I haven't had an idealistic conversation in years, it seems. Now it's all about what is within grasp, there's no dreams anymore, no "I can do anything if I try hard enough"...

At around 2PM I wandered down Oxford Street only to come across the Pride Parade, which I'd completely forgotten about. There were people protesting against the EDL, lots of sponsored groups and most of all just people, enjoying a day out in the sun, celebrating. It was great to watch. I went around and sneaked further down Oxford Street until I got to St Christopher's Place, where, instead of my usual coffee, I had a smoothie. What's summer for if not that? Then I kept on walking down and I tried to resist, but most good days in Central London lead me to Charing Cross and the bookshops. My most hated secondhand bookshop had a copy of "Dinosaur in a Haystack" by Stephen Jay Gould for £5... regret not buying it, but hey, I only saw it after having spent plenty of cash (bought a copy of "The God of Small Things", which looks pretty excellent, and I had lunch at the Café in Foyles). There was a "buy one get one free" deal in Blackwell's, and I almost got a couple more of Wilkie Collins', but then I remembered the deal I made with myself at the start of the year not to buy new books until I'd finished the old ones...

I sat at the Café in Foyle's for quite a while, after all, it's one of my favourite places in London, however touristy it may be. The guy who sat on my table was reading Pedro Páramo in English (I wish now I'd asked him who the translation was by). He was a writer (at least, he'd written a book) and he was enamoured of South American writers. Complained that he was reading Bolaño years before he became famous, and that before "2666" he had trouble finding translations of most of his stuff. He told me he'd grown up in London, and we agreed that New York was probably one of the best cities in the world for bookshops. I enjoyed meeting him. Made me feel for the first time in a long time part of a group, a group where all the members don't know each other, but have a kinship beyond knowing each other: they read the same books and they are passionate about them. Talking to this guy made me happy, reminded me that there's wonderful people out there who I haven't even met yet, that the world is big.

The two guys sitting on the table next to us were talking movies, being incredibly pretentious but also very knowledgable. I pegged them for film studies graduates, one of them was talking about getting financed for an experimental short, while the other one was looking at him with an expression that clearly said "you sound like an idiot". Or maybe those were just my thoughts reflected. In any case, I loved listening to them. I suspect it's a thing I miss at Imperial College, people don't talk about science the way they talk about arts, and a lot of scientists don't talk about arts at all (even though a lot of them do, perhaps most of them, but it's not the same for some reason).

I wrote about five more pages (so 1500 words, not bad) and kept on the househunt (I'm currently looking for roommates for next year). Afterwards I went down and found about five books I wanted to buy, stopped myself (now I regret it, I really should have bought "What I talk about when I talk about running" by Haruki Murakami in the very least), and then just bought the one ("The God of Small Things", by Arundhati Roy). After Foyles I slowly wandered down Charing Cross. The parade was over by then, and the streets were full of people, the pubs were crowded, tourists were looking around checking maps... Only thing to do was join the throng and get some drinks to finish off the day, so after some confusion (I still get lost around London somehow) I was led to the Roundhouse to drink a couple of pints (and a Bloody Mary to finish it off).

It was a good day. In fact, it was the perfect day. Thanks to those of you who were around to make it good (you know who you are if you're reading this), either present, through text or on Facebook. I needed yesterday. I'm gonna try and make a day like that happen a couple of times a month. I need it.