Lost In Trafalgar Square

[Plaid Adder]

I really wish I could make it. It sounds, among other things, like a fabulous party. I hope people from UFPJ are over there taking notes. It's got theater, it's got pageantry, it's got everything. However, for those of us who can't make it, we can still be there in spirit. I certainly am.

When I was 14 years old I went on a bike trip to England, Scotland and Ireland with a bunch of other American teenagers. The trip had its share of dramatic moments, but the one I remember was when I looked up from the group of pigeons I had been feeding in Trafalgar Square and realized I was lost. The rest of the group had gone on without me, and I had no idea where. Eventually they backtracked and found me, but it took them a long time to realize I was gone, and I had plenty of time to contemplate a life as a homeless woman on the streets of London.

As luck would have it, a few years later my family moved to London, and I got to know the city a lot better. I never lived there myself, as I was in college at the time, but I visited often enough to get a feel for the place. I never did spend a whole lot of time at Trafalgar Square, because it was pretty far away from my family's neighborhood, and because mostly that part of town is given over to the government and the tourists. I spent a lot of time in theaters--I convinced my younger sister to come see Derek Jacobi in *Richard III* with me by telling her that Richard III was just like J.R. Ewing--and in the parks, especially Kensington Gardens. It's a fairly easy city to navigate; public transportation is fast, easy, and cheap, and apart from the enormous main streets a lot of it is eminently walkable, although even at that time Americans were famous for their unwillingness to walk anywhere. Whenever we asked anyone for directions, they always suggested taking a cab.

After my family moved back to the states, I didn't go back to London for years. Work takes me to Europe sometimes but it usually doesn't take me to England. Last summer, though, I had to spend a weekend in London for something work-related, and since the pound is currently kicking the dollar's ass I decided to do it as cheaply as possible. This turned out to involve staying at a truly awful motel that is basically in the backyard of the London Eye, which I had not even known existed until I got there. The London Eye is the world's largest ferris wheel, and it is friggin' huge. I don't even know how tall it is, but instead of chairs it has gondolas and I think it must take about an hour to make the full circuit. It was erected alongside the Thames, and the view from it must be spectacular. I didn't have time to go up.

I did, however, walk from my hotel to Trafalgar Square, along--as it happens--some of the same route that the marchers will be taking tomorrow. Over Westminster Bridge and then to Whitehall, a broad avenue that runs between monumental government edifices (including Buckingham Palace) and looks as if it was built for triumphal processions. The whole area is littered with statues remembering the men who made the Empire--military commanders, colonial administrators. The marchers tomorrow will be walking through their own imperial past as they pour into Trafalgar Square, and try to revise the meaning of another representation of imperial power by pulling down a statue of George W. Bush.

So I stood in Trafalgar Square, looking around at the lions crouched at the foot of the column and the pigeons circling the tourists, and said to myself, *I know where I'm going, and I know how to get myself home.*

Bush isn't going to be able to say that. And unfortunately, neither can any of the soldiers who have been swept up in his production of The Empire Strikes Back. He has gotten way out of his depth, and now his advisors have wandered off into their own separate worlds, and he's stranded. And he's going to be stranded for a while.

I wish I could be there tomorrow to see the statue come down, and to feel hope again. I wish I could say that I know where America is going, and that I knew how to get us home. Until then, I guess all I can do is raise a glass to everyone who's protesting over there, and thank you. Give him hell, guys. We wish we could. Someday, maybe, we'll do it for you.

Cheers,

The Plaid Adder

[Don_G]

1. I Wish I Could Be There Now

The protestors just dumped red dye into the fountains at Trafalger Square: http://www.interwebnet.org/

[Plaid Adder]

2. Thanks!

Caught it briefly but it appears to have been cleaned up now.

C ya,

The Plaid Adder

[shirlden]

3. Nice

Enjoy your writings. Keep on keepin on. Remember one that you did before the war that I sent to everyone on my e-mail list who were opposed to this war. They loved it.

:kick: