Something Like Fire

Written in my Shakespeare notebook the morning after the Thames Festival in London:

And outside, the streets of London have grown dark and cold. But not unfriendly or terrifying - just lightless. And silent.

It must be that way, though, after a city has thrown itself into carnival, into music and dancing, into drinking and eating, into laughing, feeling the warmth of celebration, feeling eternally young, riding on the immediacy of the present moment, which will soon lead into tomorrow, a day that sees an empty path along the river, formerly lined with vendors who have since packed up their carts and garments and trinkets (where do they keep them now?), and the sky above the river will have cleared from the rainbow-coloured smoke of glittering fireworks and fire gardens and cigarettes, and the lights in the trees will have been put out, and the masks and floats and costumes will have found themselves back amongst the hustle and drone of a city always progressing. Could I find traces of them now if I looked?





I have yet to know. So while it was still there, I looked hard, desperately even, at everything. I consumed the energy of that night, let it wrap itself around my skin and bury itself in my hair and squish itself beneath my feet. I let it change me, mesmerize me, dictate how I felt and what thoughts could form inside my skull. I let myself fall in love with everyone and everything around me, and I loved myself without any reason other than I was present. I was there.

What is this life I'm living?

How did I come to watching thousands of tiny fires burn in flowerpots and in lanterns and in fountains - the brainchildren of an artist whom I've never met or even heard of, whose name I couldn't recall if I tried (did I ever know it?). How did I encounter years of his (her?) life spent tinkering and building and dreaming and burning, and how did I love it so wildly when, before that night, I didn't even know it existed?



... Later on, he and I separated ourselves from the group because they were too single-minded. They wanted a great seat for fireworks. And why wouldn't they? But he and I, we wanted to be in the fire - not just among the fire gardens, but among the people: the Londoners, the foreigners, the tired, the fashionable, the youthful, the soulful.





Someone else said it best: "The only ones for me are the mad ones."

And London? This city is mad. And about it I have fallen mad as well.