Hello, London

Mango trench
Wilfred sweater (similar)
Zara jeans (similar)
Gucci loafers
Chanel handbag (similar)
RayBan sunglasses
Shop Chelsea King hair claw (c/o) (similar)
Mejuri earrings (c/o) (similar)
Location: Barbican – London, England
Photos by Gwen Kortsen (with one obvious exception)

What exactly was I thinking when I booked a three-and-a-half-day trip to London last November? I wondered that myself as I was going through the process of buying what turned out to be several seats on the same plane (totally unintentionally – miscommunications between credit card companies and websites can get very out of hand very quickly. Luckily, the whole fiasco was relatively easy to resolve.) Mostly, I think, it was the simple fact that I could. I wanted to do something a bit impulsive, something that I would have taken for granted that I had the freedom to do back in 2019, and thus never actually done. A trip to London for an almost comically short time fit the bill.

And honestly? I would do it again. Without a moment’s hesitation. It felt crazy, even as I was living it. I got on a plane on one continent on one day, arrived on another continent the next and carried, more or less, as if none of the flight time had passed. It was the only way. I didn’t want to waste a single precious moment, and whether my decisions were questionable didn’t matter. I got off the plane with my carry-on suitcase, tidied up in an airport restroom and rushed headlong from Heathrow into London. In Clerkenwell, I dropped off my bag and met my friend Gwen. By that point, I’d been awake for about twenty hours, and in England for less than two. We laughed, hugged and, almost without pause, got straight to the business of enjoying the city.

How does one enjoy the first of just three days in London? We started with treats at Philippe Conticini’s pastry shop, visited bookstores, took a big red bus and ultimately wound up at Barbican in the late afternoon. I was a bit dazed by the time we arrived, but absolutely thrilled by it all.

…for those wondering, I did pause for an hour-long nap at about 4 pm, just to recharge. But I was up and out again by 5:30 pm, on my way to Oxford Street and then to Maison Assouline for cocktails at the Swan Bar. I can’t explain why jet lag doesn’t really affect me, but there isn’t a holiday that goes by when I’m not grateful for that.

“To exist is to dare to throw yourself into the world.”
– Simone de Beauvoir

In my pre-pandemic life, I travelled alone a lot, because it was part of my job. I ping-ponged back and forth across the country several times a month. It was exhausting, but, in a way, also exhilarating. There’s a wonderful independence in solitary travel. Even if you’re working to a schedule (and when I flew to meet clients, I always was), you’re the master of your own time and, therefore, your own destiny. You get to know places without every being known by the people in them. That level of anonymity is unparalleled in any other type of existence – and it’s wildly freeing, even if you don’t feel constrained by everyday life.

There are parts of that era that I still miss – although the constant cycle unpacking, doing laundry and repacking isn’t one of them. I got a little of taste of the parts I did love when I went to London last fall, which I think was part of why I loved it so much. It was a mad, chaotic rush, but a rush of doing exactly what I wanted when I wanted to do it… which, one evening, included wandering to Sainsbury’s at 9 pm for a microwavable bowl of cauliflower mac and cheese with a half-bottle of rose, both of which I enjoyed in my hotel bed while watching a Netflix Christmas special. Was it silly? Absolutely. Was it exactly what I wanted to do in that moment, a whim I indulged simply because I could? Yes, that, too.

Travelling without Ian meant that I could indulge my every silly whim, but it also meant getting very creative about capturing photos. I took some hotel room self-portraits, found mirrors where I could and Gwen kindly offered to snap outfit shots, too. What I wound up with is a fair bit less polished than the content that I normally create, but I admit, I don’t really mind. I have no particular desire to return to the days of snapping outfit shots next to the dumpster in our Vancouver back lane, but nothing needs to be polished all the time. Good enough is good enough. This is what my time in London really looked like. It was quite unplanned, a bit all over the place, and a lot of fun. I think that comes through in the photos. And to me, that’s what matters.

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