The Feeling of Place

I’ll never forget the last day I was in London. I found myself in Hyde Park on the final rainy day of my vacation. I had no destination in mind, so I chose paths at random. Once, I followed a cute puppy through the paths and ended up at a beautiful pond. The whole day was like that. I wandered and got lost, but managed to find something I didn’t expect. For lunch, I found a small pub in the back of an alley whose only patrons were two men. I sat in the back, away from everything and listened to the rain beat against the windows.
That day was calm. I didn’t notice it until later, but the day didn’t have the same feel as any other day. It seemed calm and melancholy. I think it was the rain. The streets were less packed with people, and the city was quiet. The tourists were back in their hotel rooms, waiting out the rain, and the only people out were the natives. It was still, fragile. Almost like one gust of wind could knock it all down.
It was the first time I could really absorb where I was. Minimal distractions made everything easier to feel. Every place has a feeling, a certain mindset you get the moment you step foot there. Disneyland has excitement, Boston has hunger, Santa Barbara makes you feel lighter. I couldn’t feel London until that day. It had just felt like any other city. That day I felt calm, melancholy. London melancholy isn’t a sadness, it’s more like a heaviness. You feel rooted in the city, the history. You feel like it’s a part of you. A part of you that’s grey and old and knowing. It’s seen more than you ever have and more than you ever will.
Every place has a feeling, but not everyone gets it. I’ve been to Los Angeles and felt nothing, while other people have been there and had their lives changed. Some people keep going back to Rome because it gives them a feeling no where else can, they connect with it. Places like that leave an imprint on you. A part of it stays with you, even when you’re not there. It calls you back and makes you long to bask in that feeling in its entirety.
When the day ended, I walked back to my hotel in waterlogged Converse high tops. I realized that it wasn’t Westminster Abbey, The Globe, or the waffle shop down the road I’d miss most when I got on that plane back to California; it was the feeling London gave me.
The beauty of a place isn’t in its landmarks, its foods, or its people. Its beauty lies in its feeling. It just takes a quiet day to find out what that feeling is.