An essay of questionable literary merit (The Street, vol. 1)

A one-thousand page tome never fails to remind you of its presence in your backpack; and so on my maiden voyage to the great city of London, my excitement was somewhat clouded and tempered by Dickens’s apocalyptic depiction of the city. I daydreamed of Harrod’s and the Dickens House Museum and the Victoria and Albert; I was remonstrated back to reality by the weight of the work on my back. Seeing no other way to rid myself of its lingering presence, I begrudgingly acknowledged the little voice that had been entombed amongst a litany of other papers and pens in my backpack, and forced myself to admit that “yes, you must do this, you have too, you don’t want to fail a study abroad session.” So I removed Bleak House, but couldn’t really focus my mind on the plot of the novel, and instead skimmed the opening passages that we had discussed in class the previous day. I wanted to get a sense of how Dickens wrote about what I was just about to see. I practiced holding my breath for extending periods of time, remembered the sage advice of firefighters (smoke always rises, so stay low!), and repeated a hundred times in my head, “dinosaurs ARE extinct.” Though I would remain, I concluded, hyper-aware to any sudden blockages of what little sunlight was cutting through the fog, for such blockages could very well be caused by elephantine lizards, or Noah’s Ark, at which point I would probably be hopeless.

Thankfully, London was sunny on July 12^th, 2006, and, I might add, rather scorchingly so. This is not meant to undermine in any way my feelings about London. It’s a funny thing to be driving on a bus and to hear your bus driver say such silly things as Look to Your Left to See Big Ben; to be in a place that gives you a sense of déjà vu, like you’re walking around in a postcard, and that no matter how much you’ve looked forward to an experience, and no matter how toweringly high you’ve stacked your expectations, they are still toppled every time you enter a city like London for the first time.

And so, like an 8 year old meandering about in Disney Land, I skipped along the streets of London, humming the Barney Song. When our group stopped at Lincoln’s Inn, I was frankly shocked at how serene and pretty the courtyard was. Adam and I walked onto the grass to get a better angle for a photograph, when a (random?) British guy walked up and, without bothering to make sure he had our attention, bluntly ordered us off the grass, and inquired if we had not noticed the many signs posted? For There Are A Good Number Of Them, Sirs. Grass must be a serious thing, I thought, but why? It could not be the same grass Dickens had traipsed, for surely that Megalosaurus would have devoured all that grass within a few hours of its discovering the grass. Or, I further thought, any combination of extensive flood waters, mired dogs and vagabonds, deluges of mud, or proximate humans in the process of Spontaneous Combustion would have equally served the same purpose, in regards to the grass, as the aforementioned Megalosaurus.

So, I stepped off the grass and looked back on the garden mentioned by Miss Flite. I noticed the flowers, I felt the sun, and all of a sudden I wondered why this weren’t bleaker. During Dickens’s time, a sign warning those less informed to keep off the grass would’ve been a) laughable and ill-suited; or b) what grass? But the moment when I was kicked off the grass crystallized just how much this city has cleaned itself up, both figuratively and literally. In Bleak House, lives are ruined by interminable suits snagged on by-laws and bureaucratic triflings and ineptitude. Countless orphans roam the streets and sleep in gutters and beg for work, any work. Fog emanates from the people themselves. One would need an umbrella to not be mistaken for a chimney sweeper. But now, 150 years later, a willing traveler to this place, lost amidst thoughts and the awesome sights and the peaceful aura, is breeching the grass boundary, an act considered damaging to the serenity of the city.