"I enjoy the walk from home to the office and in the evening from the office back home. It takes about three-quarters of an hour."
- Vincent van Gogh, in a letter to Theo van Gogh, London, 30 April 1874
"The Lord have mercy on those who weaken and stand in the middle; only at the end, the only salvation is at the end of the road."
- From 'The Fratricides' by Nikos Kazantzakis
In the very middle of the bridge, between St Paul's and the Tate Modern, you find the peanut sellers, gum painters, fake art-dealers, wedding photographers, TV crews, and tourist groups. Walking towards them from the Southbank the dome of St Paul's hangs in the distance, the wind comes off the river a little, and looking down towards the water you see a long stretch of mud, brick, and dirty sand. On some days the river is sludgy, on others it’s dotted brightly with waves. Sometimes, when the tide is low, little figures comb the shoreline.
The shoreline is a kind of no-man's land and the bridge is a kind of no-man's land too. Maybe it's interesting to think of these places as being no-places, suspended between museum and church. Maybe it's interesting too that we name bridges. To the right is Tower bridge, to the left, Blackfriars and this is the Millennium Bridge which, unlike the others, tells you nothing about where you are going or where you have just been. Perhaps it should have been named after St Paul. It is in these middle-places that time slows and magic sometimes happens. Sunsets are middle places and so are sunrises. In a way they are little commutes between ideas of what is definite.
Bridges have something of the magical commute about them and though St Paul watches over this one there is no 'Saul on the road to Damascus' stuff here. The surface of the bridge glints and shimmers in the sun without requiring an epiphany. Standing in the middle with the little gum paintings and trying not to get in the way of people’s photos, it's enough that St Paul's, beautiful with its white dome and little flourishes of gold, is here as the back drop to a journey home....
... Sunlight catches a gold statue on the roof of St Paul’s... A breeze blows steam from the peanut vendor’s cart... I’d meant to say something about spires, about the shard being unfinished at the top, about St Paul's and other buildings including intricate designs and sculptures so high up that only a god would be able to see them: this seems important somehow... but as I wander down onto the opposite bank, with St Paul's school, the breeze, and little mirror ball sculptures in front of me, I try to remember a poem by Wallace Stevens instead. How does it go? What does it mean? I'm not sure but it ends something like:
The shoreline is a kind of no-man's land and the bridge is a kind of no-man's land too. Maybe it's interesting to think of these places as being no-places, suspended between museum and church. Maybe it's interesting too that we name bridges. To the right is Tower bridge, to the left, Blackfriars and this is the Millennium Bridge which, unlike the others, tells you nothing about where you are going or where you have just been. Perhaps it should have been named after St Paul. It is in these middle-places that time slows and magic sometimes happens. Sunsets are middle places and so are sunrises. In a way they are little commutes between ideas of what is definite.
Bridges have something of the magical commute about them and though St Paul watches over this one there is no 'Saul on the road to Damascus' stuff here. The surface of the bridge glints and shimmers in the sun without requiring an epiphany. Standing in the middle with the little gum paintings and trying not to get in the way of people’s photos, it's enough that St Paul's, beautiful with its white dome and little flourishes of gold, is here as the back drop to a journey home....
... Sunlight catches a gold statue on the roof of St Paul’s... A breeze blows steam from the peanut vendor’s cart... I’d meant to say something about spires, about the shard being unfinished at the top, about St Paul's and other buildings including intricate designs and sculptures so high up that only a god would be able to see them: this seems important somehow... but as I wander down onto the opposite bank, with St Paul's school, the breeze, and little mirror ball sculptures in front of me, I try to remember a poem by Wallace Stevens instead. How does it go? What does it mean? I'm not sure but it ends something like:
...The boots of the men clump
On the boards of the bridge.
The first white wall of the village
Rises through fruit-trees.
Of what was it I was thinking?
So the meaning escapes.
The first white wall of the village . . .
The fruit-trees . . .
Metaphors of a Magnifico- Wallace Stevens
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ReplyDeleteI like the observing mode, the wondering pace, your flaneur soul.
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