London. A damp weekend of clouds and mist. The sun goes down at 5:51pm and the moon is waxing. Yesterday I saw the birthplace of William Blake, now a strip of concrete between an Indian restaurant and an expensive handbag store.
C. and I stepped out of the drizzle into St Paul’s Cathedral, where a choir was preparing to sing the daily evensong, a sunset ritual that “is identical to the canonical hour of vespers.” God, I love the cadence of the church, how it renders everything into hushed and mysterious phenomena. Today’s language feels harsh and overlit, its contrast cranked into a black-and-white binary that echoes our machines: like/dislike, follow/block, save/delete, and so on.
Looking up at the constellation of arches around the dome inspired a sense of vertigo that was almost too much to bear. Perhaps this is how faith is supposed to feel. Most of all, I was struck by Gerry Judah’s memorial for the First World War, a pair of mammoth white crosses with destroyed cities clinging to their beams. Photography was not permitted in the cathedral, and I appreciated how this rule preserved the dignity of the space. Even if I spent much of my time thinking about how badly I wanted to take a picture.
The sun might come out this week. I sent a newsletter a few days ago.
