Starting out- Cities and how we navigate them

Cities- [written in June]
A city is a territory delimited by our perception of its contours and given texture by the people we know.
St paul’s cathedral isn’t just a cathedral (although this is definitely a phrase symptomatic of M&S brainwashing) it is walks with Nicole and tales of her life. It is walking back to a strawberry scented nest in a silvery sheaf. It’s not just a place of worship for an alien religion, but beautiful song and the smiles of strangers. And I’ve never been inside.
The river isn’t just the Thames- putrid waters and a trapped whale. It’s a sweet 21st made bitter by impromptu yearlong goodbyes. It’s blue and yellow pictures of a city dusk., a drunken duet of “things” and a sobering walk explaining how those “things” went wrong.
Camden road is London seen from an 8year olds car window; “coolness” for an Oxfordshire 14 year old, and the long walk home weaving through the drunk, the stoned and the high, after a day and evening speant cramming for uni exams.

It follows that cities we live in, as opposed to those we visit, are mostly two dimensional until we get to pear in through others windows and see the life going on behind the curtains and under the covers.

I like the idea of a city as lit and unlit tunnels. We reside in conceptual bubbles that are linked to each other by an infinite number of tunnels. Some lit, some lit, some obvious, other tortuous, steep and generally a lot more fun. Some tunnels are well trodden, other we need to dig ourselves. Each meeting, each random discovery, each flyer we actually follow up is a new torch to guide us though these new channels. Each new friend, new smile often acts as a guiding hand- showing which of the tunnels make up “their city”- offering bits of theirs to be made your own.