I was in Paris when Michael Jackson died. The news broke in the middle of the night. Local time. The following day I was walking near the Eiffel Tower when I heard the faint sound of “Billie Jean” in the distance. I walked toward the music. Soon I saw a mass of humans gathered around an old boom box, dancing and crying together in the midafternoon sun.
The King of Pop had died. Thousands of miles away from the States where this iconic monarch had reigned, I found among these people a transcendent meeting of joy and despair, that contradictory state wherein all forms of love live forever.
Now, thirteen years later, I am in the UK shortly after the death of the Queen.
Royalty dies when I travel to Europe.
“You alright?”
My tired eyes look up from my plodding feet to see a security officer at Gatwick Airport staring at me. Unsure if he was asking out of nicety or concern, I try to answer all possible versions of the question at once:
“Exhausted but excellent.”
After 15 hours of travel, I have finally arrived in London, or near to it anyway. There is still a train after this. And a bus after that.
Streatham, a cozy neighborhood in the south of London, will be my home for the next month. From here, my time is a canvas. Sure, there’s a travel itinerary, lengthy, detailed, poured over for months. But it’s only paper to me now. Logistics in name only.
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Featured photo by Lou Smith.
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