Oh, To Be Lonely in London

A gloomy, beautiful city.

Hello from London! I’m spending the next month in Europe reading, writing, wandering, thinking, eating, thrifting, avoiding email, etc. In this mini-travel series, I’ll share reflections, photos, videos, and diaries from my trip. Thanks, as always, for being here!

I’ve been thinking a lot about loneliness: its many faces and textures. As part of my trip to Europe, I’ve scheduled three, four-day periods of solitude in between loved ones coming to visit. The purpose of these stints alone is to gain a new understanding of who I am when no one is looking. When I fully inhabit what Virginia Woolf called my “animal existence.”

On day one, I went to the Victoria and Albert Museum and, for the very first time, listened to the guided audio tour. As I stood before the artwork, curators from the museum told the stories behind the objects. It made the experience so much richer. Suddenly, pieces of art I would have passed without a second thought had a whole world of meaning behind them.

By far, my favorite object I learned about was the “siphon glass,” a strange and ornate drinking object that gained popularity in England during the 17th and 18th centuries. The drinking vessel is a puzzle. To take a sip, you must determine where to drink from: the stag’s mouth, the stem in the middle, or the cup. The discerning drinker will find two holes at the bottom that, when covered with your fingers, create the pressure necessary to drink through the stag’s mouth. The museum curator referred to this as a “400-year old joke.” I still think it’s funny.

Source: V&A Museum

As I looked at the puzzle glass (which is what I’m calling it), I couldn’t help but attach my own metaphor. I think this little antique is a lot like loneliness. It’s misunderstood, not what it seems at first blush. It has character and a sense of humor. It’s delicate and capable of shattering if you hold on too tightly. It’s also (duh) a puzzle. If we are patient, we can remove its many pieces and put them back together. We can find humor, humility, and joy in this process.

I tried to think of this glass whenever I felt lonely in London. Below, I’ve recapped my first three days of ambling through the city alone. Lonely and not lonely. Alone, but also in great company with my animal, myself.

The trip starts (of course) with a book in bed

I’m staying in east London, in a residential area called Bethnal Green. The sun rises right outside my bedroom window, which was glorious on this first day (when the sun actually made its appearance). My idea of a vacation is not getting out of bed until 9 a.m., so I read Chelsea Bieker’s Madwoman with my little Nespresso coffee and watched the sunrise. It was the best.

Afterward, I ran around Victoria Park and thought about how the British really get parks. They seem to understand them on a spiritual level, and I wish we had more parks in L.A.

I showered and took a 40-minute train ride (more reading time!) to the V&A Museum. I saw this bed, which I would one day like to recreate for myself. The old Brits really knew how to lounge — I’ll say that.

I returned home to my Airbnb where I worked, did laundry, and ordered this bomb Indian food. As darkness appeared outside, the loneliness crept in. My sister has a playlist on Spotify called “Sad Girl Hours.” It features a moody combination of Lana Del Rey, Billie Eilish, Frank Ocean, and Lorde.

The hours after dusk are my “sad girl hours,” the time when I start to feel like I’m the only person in the world. And so I thought about the puzzle glass. I took apart the pieces of the puzzle. I asked myself, Why does this time of night make me feel the loneliest?

I came up with this: Growing up, I didn’t make friends easily. I remember many Fridays and Saturday nights spent at home alone in my room, reading books and watching my classmates hang out together on Instagram. Maybe that’s when I started associating nighttime with alienation, with otherness. Maybe this month, I can start to shed this narrative. Let it go.

(Can’t stop won’t stop listening to the “sad girl hours” playlist, though.)

And then I wandered around in the rain

The next morning, it was time to go into the rain. I put on my trench coat and red socks.

My first stop was an English breakfast at this little spot right around the corner. The server asked me where I was visiting from. I said, “L.A.,” and he said, “That’s an awfully long way to come for a fry up.” Very good point, sir. But also, I’d make the trip again.

The rest of my day looked like this. I hadn’t seen rain in months and months, so I welcomed the dampness. The frizzy hair. The sopping wet shoes. I talked to no one but myself and the woman who made me a cup of rose tea. I stopped in three bookstores because that’s the rational thing to do when one is in London.

How about a Bath?

I read about Bath, a small city a short train ride from London, in a Travel & Leisure article. I planned on dipping in and out of shops and touring the Roman baths the town is famous for. Then I learned there was a six-mile walk through the canals and surrounding fields. I set off.

The instructions on the bath tourism website were lengthy and made the six-mile jaunt feel like a scavenger hunt: “Just beyond the end of the field turn right down narrow footpath with hedge to the right. Pass gateway on the right; shortly after, turn right over a small footbridge and stile in the hedgerow.” Let me tell you: They love their footbridges, stiles, and hedgerows in Bath (and yes, I had to look up what 2/3 of these things are).

The whole process of following the map felt so playful. I looked forward to the next “clue” the tourism website would give me. I stopped often and stared into the distance, the many hills crowded together. The fog draped over it all. I felt lonely, but also — not at all.

Thank you, as always, for reading and subscribing to Life Lives. I’d love to know how you cope with/enjoy/experience loneliness. Please share in the comments.