The Many Faces

4 min read

A discursive recount of my travels whilst studying abroad in Europe thus far

It isn’t always easy, but you breathe in slow. When doing so at times; you notice a difference in the air. The rhythm is always the same. The idea is sparked, the note from your brain to your nostrils, a strong pull, inhale. Draw the air north, the abdomen ascends. You have taken your deep breath.

How does it feel? There’s calm emerging - and why shouldn’t there be? You have summoned the parasympathetic nervous system to stimulate relaxation, you’ve asked your body to return everything to equilibrium, all with one deep breath. You know this because you have had plenty of treatment for your anxiety over the years.

Yes, the rhythm is the same, you are still in that some body, you have breathed in quite a variety of air since you left. Like in Athens when there were strange smells on the streets, the islands of Paros, Ios, Santorini and Mykonos, where the air felt so unadulterated, so salty and sweet. Then came Paris, nicer smells, different sounds, but the air? Not so pure. Coughing quite a lot back in the room at night.

Later, London. Classic air. No nonsense. Stronger feelings. Remembering reality slamming. You’re here now.

So you see, I’ve seen many faces. I have looked into the eyes of many people who are paid to help me, and some are friendly and some are not. Actually, I looked into the eyes of a homeless man tonight, remembering not so many of us truly do. He was on the ground, back leaning on the light pole, we are close to Gloucester Road Station. He’s not in a good way - appearance wise I mean; unclean, crummy hair, shitty clothes, and in my stupid glance he locks eyes with me and he smiles. And I’m thinking,

Oh fuck, Oh fuck, now he’ll ask me for money.

And why would I think otherwise really? Let me at least mention that just the day before, there’s a homeless man on the tube, screaming out for spare change. He was offered an apple, which he rejected, and I shook my head knowing that he’d just lost any possible support from others with his silly refusal to take the apple.

I need not go on, it’s a major global city, you can understand I’ve seen enough homeless people in my time here, we banish them from the regular social community, you know this.

In any case, returning to tonight. We made eye contact, I feared his words, but they never came. Instead just a smile; a nice, big, polite one. I smiled back, why shouldn’t I?

I go into the shop, he’s sitting just outside. And now I’m thinking. I’m in the fruit section, contemplating bananas. 30 pence for one, for God sake I'll just get him one.

How am I not able to? I am and now I want to. Everyday since being here I've worried about money. I’m not too different from him.

I recall a poem, The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost, published in 1915. Maybe we studied it briefly in high school, maybe I once stumbled into it online,

‘Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveller, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could…’

Is there a more perfect way to put forward the feelings I had at the airport? God knows I cried and cried that last morning back home, the whole day and night before it too. In my boyfriend’s arms, then my parents, not believing there could possibly be any tears left inside of me, but they kept on coming.

Five months. Is that nothing? Some would say it is, some would say it will fly by, I don’t dispute that, I’m almost halfway now and recognise how fast it’s all felt. But it is everything, it is stepping away from all you have ever known and loved, on your own.

And I feel Frost’s words in my chest, how tragic to not be able to travel both; you mourn the months you’ll miss back home and the moments that could have been, the fun your friends and family have - it really stings a few weeks in when everyone gets used to life without you.

So it’s in small encounters, human exchanges, like the one with the homeless man near Gloucester Road Station, that I’m reminded of the shared humanity that perhaps does transcend the divides of distance. How vulnerable I realised we both were, just for a second as I looked into his eyes. A resilience that defied the harshness of his circumstances existed, and if in him why not in me? There are pangs of homesickness, but I turn them into strength, they’re just a side effect of the connections I’ve made along the way. And with each breath at a time, each inhale is not just the air of a foreign land but is my own resilience likewise.