Do you feel that you act differently in different places, particularly in cities? Wearing different masks, speaking in varied ways?
For me it’s always London where I ponder the subtle art of self-translation. This time in particular, I long for tools that interpret, or translate, different responses to particular situations depending upon where I am.
Call it Duolingo —or a Rosetta Stone—for the self.
The Rosetta Stone Idea
The Rosetta Stone is on my mind today. I saw flashbacks of myself at age 9, reflected in the gaze of every youthful onlooker in the British Museum. “This is how hieroglyphics were first understood,” say all the parents and teachers.
No matter that one may not fully grasp the power of translation at age 9—especially how it’s more than three simultaneous languages on a tablet, but also a window into cultures and traditions, i.e. the histories of daily life.
Now, I’m in the Member Room, having just done my standard route from the Stone, to the controversial marbles from the Acropolis, the mummies, and the burial masks of Sutton Hoo. And this time the special Roman Legion exhibit guided via the protagonist Claudius Terentianus, with many onlookers in the way.
For me, visits here are now more about gauging others’ responses to exhibits than about the exhibits themselves. Like it or not, the tourists still enjoy colonial plunder.
Observing all this history, and others taking in the same, I see reflections (or perhaps place triggers) of my recent past—a narrative that spanned nearly five years in the United Kingdom, before an unexpected hiatus took me away.
‘Shape-shifting’ Stories
This morning’s very long walk down Bayswater and Oxford Street was a reacquaintance with the city’s evolving persona and my former life. Amid the vernacular of a familiar coffee shop, I felt a shift—a rekindling of long dormant sensations. A living Rosetta Stone at work, perhaps—intangibles bubbling up for those willing to listen.
I walked by a table, and saw a woman peeling a label off of a notebook cover, with pen in hand, and coffee cup strategically to the right . Then, a sudden intervention—a friendly voice said, “your notebook is beautiful” while she unfolded her new, spiffy floral-bound masterpiece, and smiled.
The voice was me, who never does such things.
In 2021, I had the privilege of discussing how cities morph and “shape-shift” with longtime BBC presenter Robert Elms, who interviewed me on BBC Radio London that June about my latest book (click below). We delved into the influences on our urban landscapes, how they change and adapt over time.
Elms’ epic memoir, London Made Us, (highly recommended) explores this sentiment through personal narrative and his family history. In one section, he chronicles London’s transformation within spaces like Oxford Street, once a hub of Elms’ individuality when young, through visits to music and record stores. He explains how this area of Westminster now feels impersonal to him, a corridor of globally-influenced consumerism (and tacky “American candy” stores.)
Through Elms’ reflections, the physical London of his ancestors and family morphs and adapts, entwined with their own personal transformations.
And now, beyond Elms’ story, ongoing change is reflected every year in the celebratory lights of Ramadan.
Tools for Change
Vignettes of the British Museum, Robert Elms’ book, and the festively appointed Oxford Street of Ramadan are not just backdrops for a changing London. They suggest the fluidity of identity, and, for me, harken back to a version of myself that not so long ago freely engaged in this city in a myriad of ways.
My compliment to a stranger over a floral notebook, an act uncharacteristic yet familiar, is new impetus for a personal translator—that Duolingo app or Rosetta Stone. If nothing else, it might help to shed light on the motto from my Seattle high school: “What I am to be, I am now becoming.”
Or better stated, to find coherence in the dissonance of everyday life in different places.
As I prepare to renew my expired MetroBank debit card—which I must do in person at a bank branch in Holborn—it’s one more mundane, poignant reminder of a life suddenly left behind—and where it might go next.