Missing London

"I am homesick for Paris, although that’s where I am. It happens to me every time I visit. I grieve for this great city I have lived in and left, precisely because I’m only visiting. Like having a drink with an ex-lover: We don’t belong to one another anymore," writes Nancy Kline in Missing Paris, an article on WorldHum.com.

What I like to call "Iconic London,"
Big Ben flanked by an Underground sign.

Boy, do I know how that feels. My 3.5 months in London were some of the best of my life. I felt like I belonged there. The city was MY city ... oddly enough in a way that New York never was, though I grew up living around that metropolis for the majority of my life. And yet that amazingly strong connection I have to the city, the one that makes me anxiously anticipate every possible subsequent visit back is precisely what makes me realize that it isn't my city anymore.

The picture to the left is what most people would consider "iconic London." But that's not the London I know. It's definitely a part of it, but my London starts in South Kensington, the neighborhood in which I lived throughout Spring 2007.

On my two visits back since leaving (so far) I have attempted to recreate what my typical day was when the city belonged to me. I went to the same cafe on Gloucester Road that offered a free croissant with coffee purchase. I walked down the same streets I walked down three years ago, but they weren't my streets anymore. I was a tourist, not a resident. And yes, it may be presumptuous and ignorant to think the city was mine after only 3.5 months. I wasn't a local by any means, but I sure did feel like one. I lived there. I knew it. It was mine.

On my visits back I found myself doing the touristy things that I didn't even think to do when I lived in London. I didn't see Westminster Abbey in the entire 3.5 months I was there. I went when I came back for my first visit. It's as if doing those things would help remind me of the feeling of belonging to the city and of it belonging to me, but all they did was make me feel more like an outsider than ever.

The only glimpses of that old feeling I get now when I'm back across the pond are when I am with my British friends. When I'm with them, it's like I've never left. We meet and talk and have dinner and I feel like I'm living in London again.

And then when I get on the plane to fly back home, I remember that even though it may never fully feel like my city again, those rare moments that it does make every trip back worth every second.

Do you have any cities you miss?