issue seventeen: on london and the future

you knew this one was coming

Mia Novakova

nostalgia in reverse, the longing for yet another strange land, grew especially strong in spring. — vladimir nabokov

there’s a dead mouse on the driveway, or at least there was: i haven’t been outside long enough today to find out whether someone moved it. it’s early august and canada gives itself over to muggy heat and sweating sundays, so i’m in my room with the fan on high and my electric heating blanket settled over my cramping stomach. it’s ten at night, the house is quiet, and the only lights on my street are the orange lamp outside and my shiny laptop screen. i half expect my neighbour to start smoking, expelling a terrible stench over to our house, but then i remember the windows are closed because the air conditioning is on and i feel at peace. the quality of my wakefulness on such a pleasant, undisturbed night can be attributed to an accidental three hour nap in the afternoon, but it’s more romantic to suggest that i want to spend my time in a waking dream.

namely: london.

anyone who has met me since the ninth grade (and perhaps before then) is well acquainted with my deep desire to run for the hills, get the hell out of dodge, pack up my life and move to the united kingdom as soon as i turn eighteen. a classmate with wide eyes once informed me on the subway that if anyone could do it, i could. (turns out the only people who can do it right away have more family money than i can dream of, but i still appreciate her confidence.) all my memories are underscored by the burning desire to escape, to be on my own, a life of solitude and crickets in the night. i remind myself there’s no money for it, then search for pictures of the university college london campus. i tell myself we’re not millionaires, then star my favourite apartments for rent. i say i’ll get a scholarship for my master’s degree, then disregard all the ones with the stipulation of returning to your home country within two years. (chevening, i’m looking at you.) i am caught between the dream and the stark, unforgiving reality, putting up and taking down a framed map of london on my wall.

i don’t know why it’s london. it could have been anywhere. (inherent to that statement: i could have been anyone.) but i’ve had my lockscreen set to a tourist’s photo of big ben and a red telephone box for the last five years, and i cried when i first set foot in the city, and whenever i feel like the world is crashing around my shoulders i think, at least there’s london. i may not be there, i may not have a shot in hell at getting there as soon as i’d like, but it exists. there are people waking up in the apartment i’ll live in one day, the coffee shop i’ll frequent has just opened its doors, and the british library remains the implacable, benevolent giant it’s been since i saw it at fourteen. when i was younger, london was born from harry potter—now it’s conjured by charles dickens, but the dream is still there. the dream will always be there, i think, and even if i end up moving to a cramped flat where i have to skip breakfast twice a week and walk twenty minutes to the nearest grocery store… well, it’ll be london, and it’s hard to explain that to someone who hasn’t been dreaming of going there all their lives. my parents don’t understand it. my sisters despise it. and yet, and yet.

even though i know i can’t afford it i have my top five university selections filled out on ucas, which i made an account on the second 2023 entry opened up. even though i know i can’t afford it i’ll show up to guidance in the first week of senior year, asking for a reference, pride overcome. even though i know i can’t afford it i read emails about international scholarships every week—through the hurricane of politicians asking for money, goodreads and letterboxd updates, and physiotherapy reminders, i click london scholarships open now. studying in london is the dead mouse on the driveway, schrödinger's university: until september of 2023, i could get there for my undergraduate degree. and i could get there for my master’s degree, and i could get there for my phd, and i could spend my whole life getting there, grasping fingers fluttering at the edge of the dream.

i’ve always dreamed of cities. big, bright, beautiful things, teeming with people and life and activity, golden pools of light thrown down from skyscrapers during the longest nights of the year. my whole life has been spent in the suburbs, painfully close to all that noise, a wrenching cacophony of people. once we went to my grandparents’ cottage and it was so dark at night you couldn’t see three feet in front of you—and it was my birthday—and my heart blaring in my chest, i thought: never again. never again do i want to be so far removed from other people. despite my introverted tendencies, my dream days of coffee, novels, and chinese takeout with no more company than my future pet cat, i don’t want to be lonely. i want to be alone.

and i want to be in london, no matter the barriers. when you’ve dreamt of something so long it’s altered the colour of your mind, you owe it to yourself to give achieving it your best shot.