WORMHOLES AND THE OLD MASTERS

It’s my birthday today. Thanks. Yep, really good thanks. Me? No, not really: same as always - went to London to take in a museum, well gallery this time. Yeah it was great.

My sister was the first to message.

I replied.

“Thanks. I’m a 27-year-old imposter really. Must have got caught in some time-accident.”

That is certainly how it feels; as though a vortex opened up in 2005 and I fell through a wormhole. I mean what happened? Is there any way back? 

Don’t write in folks; I know the answer to that. Actually the more I think about it, the more I think that I’m doing myself a disservice with that kind of talk. After all, it’s always been my goal for things to get better day by day, each month better than the last, with me proud of myself and watching that trend continue. By revealing that hasn’t happened, I must be relaying a sense of disappointment. And that isn’t the case.

All that being said, I resumed my London tradition today by viewing 700 years of the past at the National Gallery. Not my past - the past of Gainsborough, Rubens, Holbein. Their painty lenses took me with them.

I find this kind of thing very soothing for some reason. I stopped carefully in front of a few of the greats. Turner, Canaletto, Monet, Velasquez. Very careful, very delicate brushstrokes took me back through the centuries.

“No!” replied my sister by text, “Your life is just beginning.”

I guess she’s right. There’s so much good stuff ahead. I had wondered whether I ought to stop this birthday tradition this year - it’s been 14 years now of London museums, pandemic excepted. Next year I will be in a different but beautiful new phase.

But then, there’s something delicious and anonymous about London, something like a freedom from me, if you know what I mean. I felt it today in the sunlight of Trafalgar Square. The light fell across those Portland embassy buildings, the bronze lions, and the great column. The fountains sparkled joyfully as water poured into the air, and spring-like clouds hurried over the Westminster skyline. I liked it.

Anyway, it is good to hope that each day is better than the last and that life is roughly on an upward trajectory, even if it hasn’t seemed that way in the past. And actually, I’m not altogether certain that the past was much better anyway. Not when I really think about it.

Though admittedly, the art was good.