No eye contact. Fast feet
A whole argument finished before my stop. This city is rude and useful. It lets you disappear while staying public.
I do not light a candle and journal like a woman in an advert. I put my trainers on, even under something that looked like an outfit two hours ago, and I walk. That is the whole method. London does the rest, whether it means to or not.
Nobody asks what you are thinking
That is the gift. On the tube people look, or they pretend not to, which is worse. In the flat someone will clock the face and go, you alright? And I will say yeah, then put the kettle on like that answers it.
On a pavement you can be mid row with a man who is not even there. You can rewrite the message you should have sent. You can tell your supervisor, in your head, exactly how the rota should work. You can want a boyfriend and a raise and a quieter Sunday and none of it has to come out of your mouth.
I keep my eyes forward. Not rude on purpose. Just busy. If you catch my eye I will give you the polite London half smile that means I am not starting a conversation, love. Headphones help. Even when there is nothing playing I leave them in. It is a sign on the door.
The walk after a shift is different to the walk after a night
After work it is practical. Boots in the bag if I have swapped them, badge still in the pocket, that warehouse radio voice stuck in my head. I walk off the beep of the scanners. I walk off the smile I had to keep on for no reason. By the time I hit the overground I have usually decided whether I am going out or going home and pretending I never said I might pop in.
After a night it is messier. Makeup doing its best in shop windows. Feet making their opinion known. I replay the bit I should have left earlier, then call it a good night anyway. The pavement does not argue. It just keeps turning up under me until the front door.
And after a date, or whatever we are calling it this week, the walk is where I sort the story. Not the official one. The true one. Whether he was actually kind or just good at the first hour. Whether I liked him or liked being wanted. Those are not the same thing and I mix them up when I am sitting still.
This city is rude, which is useful
People moan about London like it personally cancelled their plans. Fair. It will block the pavement with a lime bike, charge you for a sandwich that used to be a deal, and make you late because one set of doors stayed shut for no reason anyone bothers explaining.
I still use it. The noise is cover. Buses, roadworks, someone on speakerphone telling their sister she is being dramatic. You can think ugly thoughts in that and nobody hears them. You can think soft ones too, which is more embarrassing if I am honest.
I do my numbers on the move. Rent. What is left after I say yes to a cab I could have skipped. Whether the promotion is actually a promotion or just more responsibility in a nicer email. Maths I can do. It is the wanting that gets loud when I stop walking.
A whole argument, done by the next stop
I am good in my head. Too good. Give me seven minutes of pavement and I will win a conversation that has not happened yet. I will be funny and sharp and I will not go quiet when it matters.
Then I get in and I am just Els with her keys and her face to fix. The speech shrinks. That used to bother me. Now I think the walk is where I get to be the version that does not have to be liked in real time.
If he has gone silent, I do the whole thing between the high street and my road. I start savage. Then I get honest. Then I get bored of myself. By the door I have usually landed on the only useful line, which is: if he wanted to, he would have. Everything after that is decoration.
Same with work. I do not storm into the office and demand the title. I walk it out first. What I want. What I will actually say. What I will swallow because I still need the shift. The pavement gets the unedited version. Management gets the one that keeps me employable.
You can vanish in front of everyone
That is the bit I like most, and I know how that sounds. I do not want to disappear off the map. I want to be in the world without being on duty.
At work I am useful. On a night out I am on. In the flat I am a person with a bathroom queue and opinions about milk. On the street I am just another blonde in a hurry. No performance required. No explanation. If my face looks smug, people assume I am late for something fun. Let them.
I check my reflection in blacked out car windows the same way I check it in the bathroom. Habit. Armour. A bit sad if you stare at it too long, so I do not. I fix the lip and keep moving.
It is not a personality. It is a workaround
I can hear someone calling this self care. Please do not. I am not stretching. I am not grateful for the air. I am walking because sitting still makes my brain pick a fight with the quiet.
Quiet has never been my friend. I will put the telly on, put music on, put a body in the room if it comes to it. The street is the clean version of that. Movement with a destination, even if the destination is just home and a bowl of something from the fridge.
When I was little, the house could go strange and nobody used the right words. I learned to stay busy. I am thirty now and I still do it, just with better shoes and a travel card. I am not going to dress that up as healing. It is just how I keep the lid on.
What I actually solve out there
Not everything. I have walked entire routes and still opened the app I swore I would leave alone. I have finished a row in my head and then sent a voice note that undid the whole thing. The pavement is not magic. It is a pause with weather.
What it does give me is order. One foot, then the other. A start and an end. In a city that wants money, attention, and your Saturday, that is not nothing.
I decide whether I am going in tomorrow and asking about the job. I decide whether last night was a story or a mistake I am going to repeat because it felt like being chosen. I decide if I have the energy for the flat being loud or if I am heading straight for my room and calling it an early one like that has ever been true.
Sometimes I decide nothing and that is fine too. I just arrive with my head a bit less crowded than it was at the last lights.
If you see me, keep walking
I mean that kindly. I will not be offended. I am not lost. I am not waiting to be asked if I am okay. I have somewhere to be, even if it is only the next corner.
London will take your money and your patience and still hand you this one decent trick. Put your head down. Pick up the pace. Let the city be busy enough that you can think without an audience.
I do my best thinking on pavements. Not because I am deep. Because I am moving, and moving is the only time I tell myself the truth without trying to make it sound like a joke.
