I spent some time at the lake. It was a busy day with a lot of movement of people on both sides of the lake. There are many changes in my mind and I think this deeply affects the way I experience each sensation more abruptly than usual. The smells, the colors, the movements are so strong that the smells and noises can touch my skin and control my mind, but I wish I could let the thoughts pass. The path from the canal to my room is the longest moment of my day, crossing from one end of the campus to the other. But I don’t necessarily speak of distance.
When I leave the edge of the canal, my senses are alert to every movement, laughter, color, and smell I encounter along the way. After passing some dormitories, I pass in front of the Novo cemetery, a historic Jewish cemetery that has been preserved inside the college. I take a moment of silence to pray for these souls and make myself aware, even if passively, of other feet that touched the same drops of rain that today fall mercilessly in London on its wettest days. Or when in June in this same place, Mile End was hit by the first V-1 flying bomb to strike London in the Second World War. And a few years later England’s first Jewish cemetery, the Velho Cemetery, was built on a small plot of land in Mile End in 1657. As the nearby Jewish community grew in size the Velho began to fill up. By 1726, it was nearly full, so land for a second, larger Sephardi cemetery, the Novo Cemetery, was leased, with the first burials taking place in 1733. By 1895 the cemetery was almost full, and it was closed for burials for adults in 1905 and for children in 1918. Historic England added it to the register of listed buildings in 2014, as a Grade II. There is simply so much history and so many stories that they collapse into each other in manners not limited to maps.
This reminds me of home, Brazil. Something I learnt about leaving my parents’ house was that I knew a lot about myself, my priorities and about my goals. Something more strange is that when you go back to your childhood house, it never looks the same as before. This is how I now experience Brazil after living in the USA for 2 years and now in London for 2 months. Culture and practices are mixed and separated at the same time, you can name them but you can only understand their importance once you live them.
As a kid I was afraid of the Sea, of its mysteries, of the stories I have heard about it. Now, I am amazed by the Sea, by its mysteries and by its stories. We cannot love something we don’t know. Now understanding and living by the canal, I became convinced I had to commit myself for that space, it became part of my home.
