THE PLACE BETWEEN PLACES

I’ll tell you what I didn’t expect to be doing today: sipping a tea in Paddington Station, with pigeons picking at my feet.

There is a reason. Sammy’s meeting an old friend and she didn’t want to travel on her own. I figured the plus from her spending time with a friend was greater than the minus of me spending two hours kicking around a London terminal.

Like motorway services, or even airports, these old railway stations are places between places. Everyone’s on the move, from somewhere, to somewhere else, wheelie case and rucksack in tow. Let’s have a look around…

Chinese guy in baseball cap. He sips a coffee, rests his light coloured jeans on the bench and pulls his black case slightly tighter towards him. He’s with a lady, standing, checking her phone. They aren’t talking to each other.

Next, an older guy in his fifties stands up. He’s wearing a cool blue jacket and bright white trainers. He doesn’t look happy. I start inventing stories for him in my head.

I’m next to a shop called Cards Galore. They’re not getting a lot of trade - just one girl, black shiny coat, peering intently at the rows of coloured cards. They seem to sell tourist trinkets too - now she’s scrolling through a tower of personalised Toblerones  - Becky, Charlotte, Evie, Emily, Daisy, Phoebe, Freya. I wonder what calculation goes into those names.

I can see people move in and out of the Paddington Shop too - that’s for all things Paddington Bear of course. A young couple who are more rucksack than anything else just nipped in. A woman in dungarees just nipped out.

The Chinese couple are smiling now. He’s chatting to her and she’s listening intently, purple phone in hand. A pigeon swoops overhead. The automated lady bursts into an announcement, loud above the low-level hubbub. A beeping, probably from a rubbish cart, starts.

There are lots of shops in this bit of the station. I notice from the letters on the glass entrance that it’s technically called ‘The Lawn’ - but there is no grass in sight. A Ritazza stand in the middle takes up the real estate where a square of grass would go. It’s surrounded with people contemplating croissants, muffins, smoothies, and posh coffee on the go. Grass is not lucrative.

On the go. We’re all on the go, aren’t we? Some tug cases up the stairs toward Leon and Bar Burrito; others move gracefully in queues down the escalators. Headphones in, sunglasses on head, small child in arms, umbrella clutched like a wand, tying hair, playing with earring. Unique lives, passing through. Going somewhere. Not stopping.

I wonder if there’s something in this moment. Observing humans, watching the movement of life from a position of stop, of focus. Perhaps I’m so busy thinking about my own journey that I rarely stop to think about the moment, the people around, the lives lived, and the people God loves. I’ve been to Paddington a thousand times. I’ve been laser-focused on the next thing - the tube, the train home, the departure boards, the reason for being in this here London.

But life itself is a place between places, isn’t it? And there’s so much to see if you just stop and look around once in a while.