London, On the Knowledge

The return to Chicago has been way busier than I'd anticipated (entirely to the good! but extremely busy) and so this is a bit late, but: London! It's all very "hat on a hat" at this point, but I'm still feeling grateful-within-my-gratitude for the time - and the quality of that time - that I got to spend there this August.  After the jump: videos, photos, ramblings, all the gumbo you've come to expect...

My last full day in London: reading Emily's copy of High Fidelity on the South Bank before diving into the Tate Modern, an ocean of happiness unfolding before me. THIS WAS NOT A TERRIBLE TIME, GANG.

I'd initially only planned to spend about four days in the city, which is about par for the course given its expense, but when Emily offered up her place for about an extra ten days and an ocean of guidance about her pocket of non-touristy London, I tossed my plans and jumped. Between a haven of a home and some real treats around and about, this was a grand stay - a nice local-routines gearshift from my initial burst of tourist goofiness. That's all thanks to Emily, who was both patient with my nonsense ("Let's go to Fortnum and Mason! Oh, to be able to afford the uh... lifesized leather pigs? OK this is a shop for insane people") and generous in showing me all the best tucked-away cafes, running paths, and so on.

Even on a cloudy day, the Lea Valley canal (from the Regent's Canal) is a superb and glorious spot to roam

The best of these, as you'll see in the video above, was the Dalston Curve Garden, an amazing and free community space full of plants, families, kids, couples, dogs, and hipsters, sitting and chatting, drinking coffee or beer, or taking in a concert. As with so many places like this, it's under threat thanks to high-rise condo development (late-stage oligarchic capitalism! Is there anything it can't ruin?) but for now it's a special enclave, and an essential part of a neighborhood that feels populated by ordinary folk in a city that's increasingly the realm of the monied classes.

I think this is actually technically Hackney, not Dalston (I will learn these things better someday) but the street art in this neck of the world was extremely solid, I THINK.

But you know: the grand stuff is grand too! I loved the chance to meander around Savile Row and Jermyn Street, checking out incredibly well-made and beautifully-designed garments that I'll only ever be able to afford secondhand, as well as top-flight butchers and stationery shops who do what they do out of love and passionate commitment. The apex of this line of exploration came in my trip to Northampton - from whence, my dad reminded me, my great-ancestors came to found Northampton Massachusetts - to visit a handful of the best shoemaking factories in the world, and to geek out at their factory shops.

Here's the thing, most grand 19th century European department stores still have great architecture but the second you step inside you might as well be in an H&M in Indianapolis. Fortnum and Mason is insane and ridiculous but hokey smokes it is one of those places where you know it has a history and a tradition to it...

And leather pigs and rhinos, this was not poetic license, that's just how things go sometimes, I don't understand it either goodnight.

But really, this leg of the trip was a time to downshift a bit, to soak in the perfect oasis of Emily's backyard garden, to get work done at the British Library, and to find the routines that would keep me pretty well balanced as I headed into a huge pivot into my return to Chicago. It treated me well, and now I find that I miss it - one of a handful of spots for which I'm homesick even as I find myself back in the home I love best. London: I'll be back, and that right soon.

My happy place, built by a gal who knows how to make with the humane empathy, joy-of-living, and design-of-space.