Two years felt more like two weeks, as I made my way from airport to tube to cab to the flat, navigating with the comfort of familiarity. As I waited for Shane outside the flat building, school children sprinkled out with hovering and scarved mothers close by. The richly moist morning air and brilliant green grass revived my travel-weary eyes and lungs, if only temporarily. Shane suggested an appropriate first meal at Pelicci’s where I caused some amusement by ordering lunch at what was really breakfast time. Bright mid-morning light and the sounds of week-day life filtered through the yellow curtains as I lay down in the familiar room. The combination of travel, time, and recent insomnia overrode the beckoning brightness as I fell soundly and quickly to sleep.

Upon waking from a much-needed nap, I began my “new” day tending to the immediate needs of travel with a trip down to Oxford Street for mobile phone service and pharmacy. While there, I took a gander down Charing Cross road with the aim to pick up a travel book on Spain. Naturally, I felt obliged to first try Lovejoy’s Books, which is quite small and not much for travel books, but does have a sex shop down stairs. Considering the number of times people have joked about my porn star last name, I found this all too appropriate and wondered if I had missed this grand fact on my prior visit. Returning from Tottencourt Road, I got off at Liverpool Street, strolling down Artillerary Row, through Spitalfields, up Brick Lane, and down Cheshire Street barely suppressing an outward smile. By the time I strolled to the local grocer, the backdrop of Bethnal Green Road had turned to mottled pinks and blues and then glowed gray and orange in the direction from whence I came. It is a beautiful mystery that this place, so different from the clean, crisp airiness of Boulder, Colorado, can feel so right, so engaging, so much like home.

--- Lovejoy's Books (and other sundries...) ---