A New London Christmas

For 17 years I have been making the same trip, same time, same general routine.

I leave from Dulles the Sunday of Thanksgiving, arrive in London Monday morning, go to the office in time for my morning meeting (10:15 back home, 3:15 London time).  

Regular visits to this coffee shop or that bookstore, depending on where I'm staying.  Beers with MRDC'ers, a lunch or dinner with the team, maybe meet a friend.  It never never dulls.

Whether a drink at the Jamaica Wine Bar, pasta at Guiseppe's, a walk amid the Christmas lights on Oxford Street, I never tire of this city, listening to these people, watching.

In the shadow of the Paris attacks there is an unease that has replaced the usual holiday joy.  

Maybe it's no different back home, but riding the Tube here you can sense everyone looking more closely at each other, the bags they are carrying, wondering.  

Someone in our office, apropos of nothing, mentions how his morning train gets backed up at the same point each day, three trains lined up in the same tunnel and they all think the same thing, easy target.

Piccadilly Circus is filled with tourists, lovers surround the Eros Statue which is shrouded in construction materials.  A group of Muslim men walk the area with pamphlets that read, "I am Muslim and I love Christ."  Police stand by, waiting for trouble.

My plane taxis away from the gate, Thanksgiving behind me, another ritual on the horizon.  I exhale, take my Melatonin with a glass of red wine and am asleep before we are in the air.  I am awakened by the woman sitting next to me as she leans in too close, bumping my shoulder and asking why we are flying so low.  The Captain announces we are returning to Washington.

Everyone thinks the same thing.

We land, surrounded by firetrucks, the lights are stark through my rain splattered window on the cold dark night.  It turns out we've hit a bird.  Even in the bleariness of my Melatonin coma I know we are not leaving any time soon.  The rush to the Virgin desk, the luggage, home in time to put the girls to bed and back at the airport at 7 the following morning.

We all want to believe that we are keeping calm and carrying on, but we know it's coming.  Just like the shooting that occurs in California while I'm there, is it Middle East terrorism or just more gun violence?  Either way we are not surprised.  

It has penetrated our thinking.  The 20 minute Tube ride, the 10 minute walk through the train station, the 8 hour flight home, it is there.  They have won this battle.

"So now we're bombing them," the cab driver says to me, referring to the Parliament vote from the previous day.  He is driving me back to Paddington Station early on my last morning.  The Prime Minister said Britain is safer now that the bombing has begun. "What good does it do bombing Syria," he asks, "if they're living next door."