When Time Was Slow And All Was Grey: Hope and Uncertainty on a Dismal London Day
What an intense parting of ways. I could only stand there afterward.
The afternoon was dim. The sky was pressing downward. The clouds were like heavy iron, banded in endless swaths. Specks of water had made their presence known as I went back to my studio flat. I walked in, and it felt more of a hallway. A hallway with a bed.
The heavy, iron outdoors felt more welcoming than this.
Besides, my heart was pounding. It was that classic sickeningly-sweet pressure, that classic undulation between sweet hope and sickening uncertainty.
Jacket: check. Headphones: check. Backpack and water: check. IPod: check.
I left without looking back.
The Thames and Canary Wharf, a scene I know like the back of my hand. This was taken on a much brighter, warmer day.
The Thames and Canary Wharf on this particularly dismal day.
This was one of those times I needed to wander far. Very far. To find new, curious, beautiful things while simultaneously finding myself from within all the imperfect emotions I felt. And, as always, music would play a central role.
The wind was almost unfriendly. Gusts were sporadic, but strong. When they came the autumn leaves would thrash about, dead and soaked, sinking into gutters and cracks. And the chill was palpable, reaching all the way down to my bones through the heavy clothing.
So this is London at the end of the year, I thought. I put on my gloves, too. The parts of me that managed to stay warm only did so because of the sickening-sweet.
I was determined. I needed something new. A new adventure picked form the myriad adventures London seemed to have.
To me, the history in London is so grand that it became an ever-evolving phenomenon, based in eons past…. Today, though, this phenomenon seemed to slow down morbidly. Like some poor soldier caught in the muck up to his torso, struggling to be free of the damnable circumstance.
The scene at the Cutty Sark on this day, in all its bleakness. This tea-clipper was one of the last, and finest, ever built, traveling thousands and thousands of miles in its time before retirement. But today, it was purely ominous. I guess I was getting the worst of the London weather. Oh, how the clouds pressed downward.
Time was just…there. Perhaps the molecules of every single thing around me were slowing. There I was, with the rain falling, completely hesitant. Time seemed to seize up. Was I the one feeling completely hesitant, or was time crawling to a standstill?
Ahhh my heart. If only I knew how to deal with this feeling after so many years. Here I was, yet again.
I don’t recall clearly what kept me going from that point. It must have been the brand-new experiences I planned (on a much-needed whim). I had not been inside the Greenwich Foot-Tunnel; I had not walked from the other side of the Thames to Canary Wharf; I had not explored Canary Wharf on foot. Yet I know music contributed to this determination. I was equipped with the music that made me feel reality from a transcendental place, and I needed this today.
The Cutty Sark on a much better day than this particular day. Oh, how the clouds pressed downward….
For a couple years I had been digging into Ben Allison’s quirky, colorful, and all-around epic compositions which blend jazz, pop, rock, and the avant-garde. Ben Allison is an incredible musician in his own right, but his music often expresses grandiose feelings to me. It was Think Free that I needed today.
“Fred,” the first track, captured perfectly the swirling turmoil of the sickening-sweet inside. As I surged forward into the Greenwich Foot-Tunnel with the tune in my ears, it absolutely had the sounds of bittersweetness. The drama of hope, and of good things to come, and the drama of sadness, and of unknown things to come. The A section took on the metallic color of the sky. That messed with my inner turmoil. The B section and that awesome, epic violin solo took up the hope I had. But it felt vain to hope. That messed with my resolve.
Ben Allison’s “Fred” is imprinted permanently to my first time in the Greenwich foot tunnel. I have substantial memories discovering the cold, damp air; the long, long walkway that disappears into a point; and the heavy-duty reinforcement of the north side of the tunnel. It reminded me of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Star Wars all at once. This scene and the music…it was somber, but so much more powerful.
But the second track, “Platypus,” was not helpful. Tragedy eked from its sound. This was especially true of the end of the piece, where the music goes into a dramatic, mournful vamp. My hope may as well have leaked away into nothingness….
I turned my IPod off. I couldn’t finish it. I couldn’t take it. The sky was heavier, the air was harsher, and my emotions were woeful. Time was threatening to stop.
And yet I took my time, from the Isle of Dogs. My resolve had rekindled, dim but alight, as soon as I shut down the IPod. I took my time, though there seemed so little time to be taken. Everything was dull…everything seemed to move only like a phantom would…and yet…I took as much time as I needed to get going. Then I did. Patience is golden.
The new sights reigned, as time creaked uncomfortably forward. The important thing was that it was, indeed, moving forward.
I was the one now moving slowly. For certain, I kept my pace. But the sickening-sweet was beginning to flower again, to stick to my insides like so many soft cobwebs.
And then BAM. I was lost. I was getting wetter. The rain was steadier. I had to listen to something else. Radiohead.
“How To Disappear Completely” was it. It was just what reality needed to be. The intro of sounds reminding me of countless galaxies sparkling in the void. The soaring vocal sounds of Thom. The instantly subdued, infinitely intimate textures of the verse, from the void to your ears.
My body still moved forward. I felt almost nothing. It was just the gentle sound of rain against my hood, and the music. I didn’t want it to stop. But everything, at some unknown point, had finally become still…. Moving your body forward while numb to the momentum, and numb to time, is the strangest feeling. I immersed myself in that feeling, in that achingly gorgeous music for—well, who knows how long. Transcendence was happening. Transcendence at the expense, however, of sadness. So it was that time became still.
East of central Canary Wharf.
When did I get here? Who knows. It just appeared. I probably teleported. I must have. When did I start feeling significantly better all of a sudden?
When did time start again?
Canary Wharf in earnest stood tall and reverent, defying the dismal day and instead incorporating it into its own substance. The skyline, the canals, and even the houseboats made a reverberating statement. To think that the waters here housed one of the busiest global trading ports from the 19th century until World War II…. It was also hard to believe the area was left to fester in the damage it received during the Blitz, but eventually the area was revitalized starting in 1988. Over the next decades the skyline changed drastically on the Isle of Dogs, and now Canary Wharf serves the globe, once again, as an international business district.
With an exorbitance I didn’t see coming, the need for music of a different kind rushed into my awareness. Something driving. Something quirky but mighty. Something steeped in groove. Something from Chris Potter’s “Follow the Red Line.” Goddamn, I love that album. Unreal music was made in the 2000’s by Potter and his group.
A main bridge leading into the center of Canary Wharf.
“Train” was the tune I wanted. It went up against the iron ceiling, and pounded at it. It pounded at it just like the sleek, colossal modern skyscrapers of Canary Wharf did. It rushed at it with the flurries of glorious improvisation by Potter’s epic tale of a solo. It morphed it with Adam Rogers’ deep, sassy low-register solo and its subsequent preacher-like fire. Nate Smith’s drumming dealt the finishing blows, bursting the gloom. The sight of Canary Wharf now dominated me, thanks to this story-of-a-piece. “Train” helped me be myself in this formerly pitiful atmosphere, now radiating in a silver shine I had never thought possible.
I stood here at West India Quay for what seemed countless minutes. The Museum of London has its “Docklands” site right nearby. Besides imagining enormous trading ships coming in and out of this canal, day in and day out, I became ever more comfortable with the chill of the day in my bones. I was still damp, and my shirt stuck to my skin where the rainwater ran through my jacket. I was happy to see my breath in the air. And I was content with the pace of time—yes, it was still slow, but now it was slow not because of depression, but because of peace. Peace was needed, and accepted graciously. Here, I felt my consciousness expand to embrace this place in veneration and awe. It was a moment among countless moments that have built me over many years. I remained here for a while more, rooted in connection to Canary Wharf’s future-like wonder.
Several places to dine and drink run along this quay. Across the bridge, more can be found along the road leading up to and past the pyramid-crowned One Canada Square. This building symbolized Canary Wharf ever since I knew it from the window in my flat…. Now I had been close to it, and this place.
From Christmastime, one year later: 2019.
Oh, I thought, snapping back to my normal body and mind. I needed to get home. How long had it been? How long did I walk through Canary Wharf? All I knew was weariness now. My legs were pulsing and sore. My feet were coarse. Yes; the DLR back across the Thames was the best way back to my hallway of a flat.
The Sun, finally peeking through the iron ceiling, razing it, and granting London a lovely end to the day. This is West India Quay from the DLR station. There’s something so comforting and enchanting about this picture which leads to thoughts of the “end” of something. The end of an episode; all is well; not “to be continued,” but a heartwarming end to a dreary tale.
My flat didn’t feel like a hallway anymore. Everything was silver now. Precious, and pure. Sure, I was still hopeful. Sure, I was still uncertain. But these emotions, too, were precious and pure, and they were me.
This was the view from my first flat in Greenwich. I was blessed with it all year long.
About the music
When Time Was Slow and All Was Grey has a form that rises and falls, representative of the hope swirling alongside the sadness and the uncertainty, all dominating my mind on that day. Each section of the piece is distinct, and grows into one another. The first is the mixture of sadness and uncertainty; the second is the tumult of the resulting emotional state; the third is the wrenching-away from that tumult into the bright, relentless optimism of hope—of the imagined fantasy-to-be that desire conjures but, inevitably, is just a fantasy….
The groove of this tune, however, is meant to be upbeat even danceable—like hope should reign, despite the odds! Rhythms work and weave, giving that hope a bite.
Ultimately you’ll hear the swirl of uncertainty and sadness, giving way to hope and brightness in a cyclical fashion.