No where to be No one to see

I find myself thinking of the time I went to London to try to find tickets for a train journey. I arrived earlier than the ticket shop opened, and because there was a chance of rain (but when is there now a chance of rain), I was wearing my grandfather's bright yellow raincoat. Besides the fact that it is made of thick plastic and is so big it could probably shield another person in the case of a storm, the added aspect of it once being my grandfather's property seems to give it extra protective properties.

Unfortunately that ticket shop didn't sell tickets for trains on weekends, but thought another shop might and so I took a walk to another part of London, stopping in the most beautiful bookshop and peering into a window display of Alice in Wonderland's Mad Hatter's Tea Party. The second ticket shop had ceased to exist, and so instead of tickets I bought a small baguette and decided to keep walking, to nowhere in particular.

Perhaps that is something I ought to do more - spend a day alone in a big city, with no time limit, no plans, no where to be and no one to see. Just me and wide pavements and expensive shops that smell of perfume and leather, and a man getting his shoes shined, and posters of vintage Vogue covers, and Islamic tiles in a window, and warm bread in one hand.

That was the same day I discovered just how in love I was with A Wheatfield with Cypresses, and after buying postcards and emerging from the National Gallery, I was on my way to the tube station, on a quest to find London'd best vegan cookie, when I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to see a young man.

'How... are you?' he said, but with the rush of London around me and the lingering memory of A Wheatfield with Cypresses in my head I didn't properly hear him.

'Good?' I replied, more of a question than an answer.

'No, no...how old are you?'

'Nineteen?' (definitely a question) I was perplexed. Who was he? What did my age matter to a boy in a white t-shirt? Was I really nineteen - was life passing by so quickly?

We ended up having lunch together, during which I discovered that his name is Pablo (I hada to ask twice because I forgot the first time), he is nineteen too, has a father from Spain and a mother from England, and a younger brother. He is going to the University of Southampton to do engineering but before that he's just travelling. After that, we did much of what I had been doing earlier in the day - walking around London aimlessly.

The best thing about meeting stranger is that you probably will never see them again, and so I decided to be bold and ask him all the things I wanted to know from strangers, but never asked the hundreds of people I walk past every day. I asked him what his purpose in life and what he thought happened after death, whether he believed in God and what made him most happy.

Pablo lives life the same way I lived that morning. Aimlessly and experientially, for the purpose of trying all he can before he dies, and having the most fun possible. He avoided the question about what happened after death, saying he simply saw death as a reminder to live life to the fullest, and asked me instead what I thought happened after death. I felt a sense of sadness, because despite the beautiful freedom of no where to be and no one to see, it isn't sustainable. It's a drifting through life, like a paper boat floating down a stream, brushing the bank, grazing against over hanging leaves, oblivious to the water seeping in. It's regenerative sometimes, but other times you need to walk on the firm ground of the bank and dig your toes into the soil and have purpose for yourself and for others and for God.

After 5 hours of conversation, in which we also discovered a book sale under a bridge and found our way to Hyde Park, I lied about my train, saying it was earlier than it actually was because I was very tired from the walking and the conversation, and so we parted. After making sure he'd gone onto his train, I doubled back to where we'd come from initially to buy some dinner and a slice of cake, and then caught my train to Oxford with just 2 minutes to spare.