Momentarily lost in London

I'm not sure what it is about large cities, but they always seem to leave me feeling lonely. London was no exception. Stuffed inside a train car on the outskirts of Chiswick, I was headed downtown with the blues, and hundreds of bodies pressed against mine. No one made eye contact, looked or spoke.

When the train doors finally opened, I rose for the streets like a drowning man coming up for air. This brought little relief, for the moment I hit the streets, I was nearly swept away again by a continuous tide of people. I fought my way through the crowds as I struggled to gain my bearings. When I realized I was lost, I scanned my surroundings, and bounced off the others like a disoriented ping pong ball.

I made my way from the madness of Picadilly to Leicester Square, then Buckingham Palace. It was there I had enough space to observe the city's masses as they cursed at traffic, dashed for buses, fought for parking or otherwise accelerated toward a nervous breakdown.

All of this in one of the most competitive cities in the world.

Wishing I'd had a sword and shield instead of a camera, I hoofed the well-trodden tourist trail; past Big Ben, along the River Thames, to Downing Street where I came upon a group of wildly variant protesters.

They were demonstrating against Tony Blair's recent bill that made it illegal for people carry protest signs on the sidewalk directly in front of the Parliament building.

Technically I was no longer a news photographer, but there was something within that scene roused my interest. I reached in my bag, pulled out my camera and got up close and personal.

First I photographed a Christian group, as they protested for their right to prayer under protection of free speech. As I began to photograph, a woman stepped toward me and shouted, "I'm here to protest against the Muslims! They're taking over the world!"

A cute little old woman standing next to her, and wearing a an orange beret stepped forward and smiled with her eyes. Photo:6506428,left;

She said, "I'm here to pray for peace, and protest against the devil!"

I knew which one I wanted to hang out with.

When I turned my attention back toward photography a man in a florescent jumpsuit stepped in front of the crowd. He was wearing the traditional beard and hat of a traditional Hacedic Jew. As the Christian crowd sung hymns, the man raised a staff and began conducting the crowd as if conducting a symphony, while he verbally abused the crowd.

Several minutes later the police came and towed him away.

Next, I walked across the street and set my focus on a group of anti-war protesters.

There, within an entire city block, stood hundreds of signs protesting Bush's and Blair's war in Iraq. As I stood there, I remembered something a relative had said to me regarding the people of Iran and Iraq.

She said, "Rick, the only thing these people understand is brute force."

As I looked at the pictures of dead and dismembered Iraqi children, I certainly recognized our use of brute force. I just wondered what it was the parents of these children were meant to understand now. As I pushed down the anger that rose against those who supported such delusional acts, I took solace in a quote I'd once read by the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He stated simply:

"We will match your capacity to inflict suffering with our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force. We will not hate you, but we cannot, in all good conscience obey your unjust laws. But we will soon wear you down by our capacity to suffer. And in winning our freedom, we will so appeal to your heart and conscience, that we will win your freedom as well."

In this, I realized it was time to leave. As I stepped back across the street feeling a bit ill. As I did, I came under the the glare of a lone protester, standing silently with a patch of red tape over his mouth. I raised my camera and released the shutter. "Forget Picadilly," I thought to myself, this was the real circus. Frayed from being clenched between the jaws of the city, I sought solace in the relative quiet of Hyde Park. Once there I sat beneath a tree and reflected that I had little of what it took to live in this kind of environment.

What I needed, I thought, was release. My London host, Tim Cummins, had just the thing. An avid surfer, snowboarder, mountain-biker and kick-ass human being, Cummins suggested we saddle up our bikes.

When we did, he led me out toward a wooded stretch of dirt just outside his home in Chiswick. Within moments, we were ripping west, through a wooded stretch of greenbelt that insulated us from London's hectic core.

While we rode, Cummins described his life in London as a fairly prominent merchandising manager for the clothing group Arcadia.

Having worked hard to reach his position, Tim informed me, his business required him travel frequently overseas, and at last count he had visited over 31 countries on business. These included Singapore, Kuwait, Dubai, Bahrain, Turkey, India and Hong Kong.

One of his last business journeys of note, he said, was Saudi Arabia, where he was entertained in the lush hospitality of a walled compound by an Arabian franchise partner. Cummins was not the only successful businessman living in the area. As we pedaled through a posh neighborhood in Richmond, Cummins pointed out the homes of two other successful businessmen, Mick Jagger, and Pete Townsend. By the end of ride, Tim had shared shown me a slightly different London. And the chance to spend a day amongst the trees cleared my head like sun on fog.

All that paled in comparison to thoughts I was having about Karen Scott.

I'd met Karen in Aberdeen when she was staying in a house next to my former host Tracey Milne. She'd gotten a glimpse at my Web site, expressed interest, then invited me over.

When we met it was as if someone unhinged the top of my skull and lobbed in a live grenade " Boof! I lost track of everything. This included my ability to think, speak, walk, talk or tell basic time. As I found myself curiously unable to operate my tongue, I listened.

I learned that the 28-year-old actress had once lived in Aberdeen, then moved to London where she'd landed several roles on British television. She said that besides being an actress, she was also a singer, dancer, and the director of theater company.

As I did my best not stare, I noticed something else. This was a type of beauty that could melt solid steel. For the better part of an hour, I responded to it with drooling ineptness saved for the character Sloth from the film "Goonies."

Days later, when I'd emerged from my stupor, I asked her if we could meet for dinner when I arrived in London. She agreed. When we did, we hit it off immediately.

Over the course of an evening, we ate, laughed, joked, and talked late into the night. We shared our accomplishments, failures, obstacles and ambitions. When the night was done, she told me of her dream to make it big as an actress.

And as I stared into her eyes, it was as if I were being pulled over a waterfall.

I told her I wanted to include her story in one of my journals. This seemed to give her pause.

"I've read your journals, Rick," she said reluctantly. "I don't want to be just another one of you case studies."

That night, as she moved her hand to mine, currents of electricity ran through my body. It was as if the universe had shined upon me. This was followed by an acute awareness of just how long it had been since I'd been close to another human being. As a million butterflies hatched and took flight within my stomach.

I spent two days with Karen, painfully apparent of time as I watched it pass like sand though an hourglass. When our last night arrived, Karen spoke, and I listened. This time I heard something different.

Somewhere among the jokes, plans and stories, I heard something deeper, something real. It was pain. It seemed the pain of heartache, of former mistreatment and past conditioning. I knew it because I recognized it within myself.

When the night came to an end, I walked Karen to the train station. As the temperatures plunged toward freezing, we sat for a moment in an awkward silence.

"The day after tomorrow I turn into a pumpkin," I said, trying to lighten the moment.

"You don't have to go," she she said as she put her head in her hands.

"Its something I have to do." I said reluctantly.

She turned and looked me in the eye. "I want to go with you," she said.

"It's not as glamorous as it looks," I said. "In fact, I'm sure you'd hate it."

She looked at me again, then refixed her stare back into the distance.

"Rick, I'm thinking about jacking it all away right now and just moving to Tahoe."

My mind reeled. What was I supposed to say? It all sounded nice, but I reminded her that there was that little detail she forgot. It was called reality.

I informed her that there was nothing for her there. No chance to make films, no television auditions, no chance at stardom, and certainly no chance to realize her dream. And if there was one thing I would not be a part of, it was the death of someone else's dream.

After another long awkward moment, it was Karen who broke the silence.

"I don't want to be alone tonight," she said as she looked at me with questioning eyes.

Now it was my turn to stare into the distance.

"I think I better stay here tonight," I said, not quite believing my own words. Then, just as if on cue, the train pulled up and the doors opened.

"Alright," she said visibly upset, and stepped from the platform onto the train.

As I watched the train carry her away, I instinctively knew that I would never see or hear from Karen Scott again.

Two days passed, and I gathered up my things. After I said my goodbyes to Tim and Julie, I was once again cycling south. As the air was busy turning water into ice, I pedaled from Chiswick, through Richmond, Kingston, and West Sussex until I finally reached shores of Brighton.

A day later I loaded my bike onto a ferry bound for Normandy, France. As the ship set in motion, I fastened my bicycle in the cargo deck and made my way to a platform on the uppermost deck.

As I watched as the white cliffs of the UK dissolve into the sea, I couldn't help but think of Karen.

For a moment, I pondered a life with her in London. Then, a wiser part of me spoke from within. It reminded me that that was impossible. It reminded that I had my own life " my own purpose, my own intentions, and my own dreams. It reminded me to have faith. Faith that things would unfold the way they should.

And then, when the time was right, that special certain someone would arise and step into my life.