Umbra Sumus

On my flight home from Amsterdam just earlier today, I was seated beside an old, sweet Polish couple. The red-haired woman, in all the struggles of trying to speak as much as good English as she could when conversing with me, sputtered the word 'beautiful' when I told her that I'm studying architecture. It was because of her that, with a slight hope that is definitely void of expectations, I wished guiltily that things could be going just like she mentioned it to be: beautiful. 

It was raining quite heavily for a morning downpour upon my ascend onto KL. In a manner all similar to a sloth, I was quite in a bummed mood. I didn't want to go back to Malaysia, to where I'm studying. It seems that London, despite my constant and repetitive visits, caught me this time. My recent visit there, in all oddities, made me fell in love with the neighborhoods I have never cared before, and I'm starting to think in a way an immigrant does whenever upon he steps his foot in the good old great city: I want to start things anew. With slight corniness, I'm proud so say that I think I just did.

The Klang Valley, of course, taught me a lot of things, and since I grew up here, it's just befitting to say that it's a very firm part of my life, the setting of all the good times and the tragedies. Shah Alam and PJ are the center stage, with KL and the Subang Jaya areas aren't to be left out, with Ampang as the recent addition, alongside the farfetched areas of Klang, Gombak and Kajang which still play some roles anyhow. 

For London, however, it was just another city to visit when I first came there. It was only three years ago, and for Malaysian standards, that's new. It was another city that Malaysians, to some extent,  frequented to upon the basis of being indulged in some level of 'classiness' and 'prestige'. In other words, most Malaysians either flock to London specifically and the UK in general just to study or to spend the their new money while intending to tell the same malignancy in their stories of their visits (which, typically involves visits to the Palace, Madame Tussaud's and areas around the Thames' embankment) to their friends and stories back home.

At least until the sixth time of my visit, I still saw London in that light. The London of double-decker keychains and cheesy sightseeing tours, to be topped with photos with the red telephone booth and the Royal Guards. There's nothing wrong with those, in which, however, all of them I have never done before, not even once, during my visits. This, to me, is the lighter part of London. The beautiful, all-laughter, severely touristy and occasionally thrifty part of London. Reality came to me, strangely, during my last visit last Christmas and the New Year's. 

And the reality, out of all words and even weirdly for me to say, is enchanting.

Collectively, I saw the city as a good teacher. It condemned me, then it healed me. It condemned my friends, and it healed them. I had a huge chunk of deal of drama over there, all of which dealt with many different kinds of people -- some I love, some I have ceased to love. The Tube lines remind me of a certain past and a distant future, the street smells gave me a sense of being nostralgic, and the districts and neighborhoods are just being reincarnated for me to be just as amazing as the world. 

It was in the parks and hidden corners, often with surprising offerings, that I sought refuge in pain. It is true that in any good city, that the roads, the buildings and the people will ignite all your human senses which in return makes you, well, human. London did that to me. Alongside with millions of others who have said this, I'm saying that the city is, indeed, special. To be fair to other cities that I have lived and visited, they have their own qualities too, but embedded within this overgrown village sprawling from the West End and the East End is something that I have found a must to be treasured in a part of my heart, if not all parts.

I must have said all these upon the realisation that life isn't always 'glamour' and 'easy' in London like the New Malays converging in Kensington and the streets of Queensway and Bayswater are picturing. For many students, even those with scholarships, it's a struggle of life. As I became grown with my visits, I find that it is a must to respect whatever that everybody's doing in this city -- Malaysians and other citizens of the globe included -- and that London is no playground for the non-serious to criticise whatever that others' are doing. It is a point to amalgamate, respect and understand each other to make the city, and eventually the world, go round and round.

These conclusions should have came from my intention to stay in London for awhile to escape, and ponder, after a stupid period of a huge depression to put my mind back to its pieces. From that point I the city has seemed for me to be presenting itself from a wholly oblique, new perspective, the buses offering views from another angle, the walks telling me different stories from the familiar footpaths. From the foolishness of myself, I have became aware of the foolishness of others: something my best friend, Dira, who came to London from Sheffield for my visit, pointed out as a 'phobia'. She got her point. 

It was from this phobia, most probably, that I ventured out for new 'hoods even in a city that many see that is alien to me. I rediscovered the East End.

That's another story altogether. Then there's Amsterdam, and the next thing I know, I'm already back here facing the realities at home. I find some friends are willing to leave me out of their lives altogether, which I find very amazing. Yet I find comfort and safety amongst those who still cared. And in the messy state that I'm already in this morning -- I kind of right away coming to the studio straight from the airport, the extra things you get when you study in the KL area, not Perak -- I find that what I have to do is relax and keep calm, just like what I have done all the time in London.

May we all have a good year ahead of us. Just like the inscription that I saw on one of the buildings at the Brick Lane: Umbra Sumus. We Are All But Shadows.

The visual memoirs for the trip, both London and Amsterdam, is translated in the album "Ex Nihilo" in Facebook. Ex Nihilo is a Latin phrase for 'out of nothing'.