Setting off to Paris

A cold, windy morning, grey. This is what dawned outside, on a Wednesday in February. Storms last weekend, stormy this week, another storm this coming weekend. Weather forecast for Paris is calmer than home, cold when I get there on Wednesday evening, grey and wet on Thursday, then sunny and warmer for Friday and Saturday. I have few fixed things once I arrive there, other than where I stay and my ticket to the Leonardo da Vinci Exhibition and my train home. So much space to use, filling it with activity and stimulus and unplanned sittings, writings, experiences. While it’s not home, it is appealing and calling and safe – at least from this distance. I’ve planned this trip for months, inspired by a chance discovery somewhere about the exhibition, booked tickets and Eurostar within days. Only in recent weeks have we have decided that I’ll travel on my own, as the time out was causing some difficulties for beautiful T. She travels with me, in me, alongside and ahead and behind, in every way my travelling soul. 

I have planned to spend some time in London on my way to Paris, and I arrive in London with the British Library as my first destination. The British Library is a fine quiet place of studied calm, and there I sat to work on a summary for beautiful T. This was about the leadership of change projects in commercial organisations, building on our studies at Henley and especially T’s dissertation. The seating has changed since my previous visit, now benches and looking modern, fewer little tables and chairs. 

On my way there, I stop at the Kings Cross Food Market for a vegan wrap roll, food to nourish my spirit and my soul with. It’s also my brunch. No virtue signalling in this, no consideration of what it means and how to use my consumption to influence others. None of the professional identity considerations which I’d probably have been indulging only a few weeks previously. In my new identity, as Alan, who writes, simply not yet for a living, this is a simple soulful choice. And, the food tasted great. 

I sat there for over an hour, working on this summary, connecting my new Chromebook to the BL Visitor Wifi, and sending a few copies of Listening’s latest draft to friends for feedback. My vegan roll from the Kings Cross Market filled me, in place of breakfast and early lunch, sustaining my body and my soul. Simply, feeding my spirit and my soul. 

Once I finished my work on the summary, it was time to head out for air and exercise, via the Gents, and filling my water bottle at the water fountain there. Measuring how cold it was, in the courtyard, I found it was too cold to walk far. Foyles, on Charing Cross Road was certainly too far in this cold wind. I had considered going there, from a process of evaluating and choosing from the big bookshops which I knew to be in the vicinity of St Pancras. In my mind, I needed to visit a big bookstore and assess where, in what section, Listening should sit – autobiography, personal development, wisdom, running? I knew not, yet I have a route to an answer already, a process of analysis to apply, a paralysis to grapple with as the anxiety in me is close at hand,  and it matters little. An example of anxiety gently and unhelpfully taking a role in simple stuff of daily life. 

I walked, directing myself towards Granary Square, probably via Battlebridge place. The pedestrian lights were against me to cross Midland Road. Will I wait? Cold here, on this corner, though, so I moved instinctively along Midland Road, down beside the British Library. Crossing the road to the St Pancras station side, I spotted a set of banners outside the Francis Crick Institute, and resolved to visit there. Been a few years since I was in there, surrounded by high quality photography of high quality science. This compelled me to the pedestrian crossing, over I went and through the visitor entrance. Rather quiet in here, I thought, and a quick chat with the reception staff revealed why. The cafe and visitor area were closed for refurbishment. Hmmm, so much for that impromptu inspiration. 

Outside again, I wandered along Midland Road to St Pancras Church and Gardens. This church is one of the oldest known sites of Christian worship in the country, and the gardens hold a grand monument designed by Sir John Soan.  Across Camley Street, underneath the railway lines then crossing the Somerstown Bridge. To my left is the St Pancras Lock on Regents Canal, in front the Coal Drops Yard development leading to Granary Square. My destination, by a different route, lay closeby. 

All the while, even since before leaving the library, the analysis rolled over and back in my head. Where will I go for a drink? Will I go for a drink? Or, will I wait to take something on the train with me? This is not a good idea, as it will not keep cold while getting through security and waiting to board. Ok, I’ll go somewhere for a drink. What about the Waitrose Wine Bar? Only £3.50 there for a cold bottle of beer, Wifi and a power socket. That’s a bit dull though, in mid afternoon, with the grandeur of Paris ahead. I could get a few cans from the shop, any shop, and sit by the canal like a hobo – except I dont look like a hobo, just act like one. I’ve done this before. Definitely too cold today though, to sit around outside. Not very creative either. What about the station bars – Sir John Betjemen or Sourced in St Pancras? Neither appeal as they’re expensive, and so is The Parcel Yard in Kings Cross. I also get sniffy about their wide selection of good beers. Ah, Beer and Burger is ahead. I loooook longingly in the big glass window at the listing of twenty craft beers, friendly staff smile out the window at me, and still I can’t make a decision. I walk along York Way, and see another pub across the way, also advertising Craft Beers and Burgers. God, this is interminable! 

And, with the benefit of getting cross with myself, quietly, sharply, gently, I wander into Beer and Burger. The conversation in my mind subsides, until I begin to consider the choice of twenty beers on tap. At least I’m inside. Ignoring the extensive fridge displays, I focus on the simple descriptors hand written on the large menu boards for each of the twenty beers. Criteria I quickly choose are “new to me” and “worth drinking” and “pale ale or IPA” with “no lager or stout” to complete the boundary conditions. . I also manage to avoid the beer menu, with its extensive description of each. With a taste of the Double IPA called Norman’s in Hanoi, I choose this, one third of a pint at 8.5% ABV for £4.80, and I sit down. 

Wow, all this analysis going into the simple task of having a drink to mark the start of my trip. Overthinking, over analyzing. However, I’m chuffed that I didn’t get into an overly anxious state about this. Being on my own makes this easier, I think, as at least I only have myself to manage. This exercise is a useful barometer for me, an indicator of progress in recent months. It also acts as an indicator of much work still to be done as I continue on my path to recovery from the depression and anxiety which have been causing me difficulties in home and personal lives for months and months.

My last bastion had been breached most recently, when they both conspired to create a tumult of tears and uncontrolled emotion in place of the calm professional expert I have been and expect to be in my workplace. This was the place which had provided most hurt, and most of the anxiety triggers in recent times, yet it was the last bastion of mine against the crashing tide. The tide of losing control, the tide which had been lapping at my shore for a long time, arrived once more, this time tsunami-like. 

How absurd this was. A salutary reminder that I have been out of control for quite some time, building my identity post-running with crumbly foundations in a tremor-prone zone that could be so easily swept away, as castles in the air and on sand would be. 

Today, travelling to Paris via London for a few days, is part of putting this right. Travel, literature, humanity, writing, listening. All soulful and true, genuine, buildable on rock-like foundations of myself, rather than the tremor-prone of work.