Shine On October Moon

There is something deliciously exhilarating about being completely impulsive. It makes one realise that there is still life in an old girl and that there is a world out there waiting to be witnessed; photographed and written about, if only you JFDI!

Midnight and the household were about to go to bed. It had been an abnormally sunny and hot day; a surprising word to use for the 1^st October, but hot is certainly the only one that could be used for this incredible day. Earlier, there were people walking the streets in shorts and t-shirts, and why shouldn’t they in temperatures of 29 degrees? There was no wind present. It was almost stifling. Fancy saying that in Britain on the first day of an autumnal month!

I felt like escaping.

And so I did.

My friends were taking part in the Shine Walk, raising money for cancer sufferers – in this particular case for two dear friends who are currently enduring treatment and pain from this debilitating and ultimately terminal illness. They were also walking in memory of all the people lost to their friends and family.

So it seemed an appropriate thing to do – to go and meet them and break their walk in the darkened morning by giving them a little company, and to let them know that they were being thought about.

I asked my family members if they would like to come and support my friends, but it was nearly midnight and they didn’t really fancy the trip around London at that time of night. I really must emphasise the joys of spontaneity to them.

I grabbed a bottle of water, got in the car and headed towards Greenwich. The streets of this little enclave of the capital were still relatively full as I parked my car in the road that leads to the Trafalgar, and as I emerged from my vehicle I could already see a line of mainly women, walking towards to old buildings that are now part of the University, with their black t-shirts emblazoned with the “Shine” emblem, adorned with various extras like glow sticks, pink tutus and face paints.

A few late night drinkers applauded them on their way, and a handful of people were sitting at the side of the road, with drinks and other refreshments waiting for their friends to emerge from the crowd to give them an encouraging boost of support.

As for me, I wandered along Trafalgar Road, quietly minding my own business and looking down the linear pathway to see hundreds of people reminding us that there are actually still people in this world who give a damn.

After about half an hour of walking towards the Blackwall Tunnel approach road, I met up with my friends and they were so delighted that I had gone to the alleged trouble of popping out to see them. We walked along the road, passing their two miles completed poster and then I left them to wander into the old nautical buildings area for their first official refreshment stop.

It was nearly one o’clock. What was I to do?

I wasn’t ready to go home so I drove up to Tower Bridge and parked the car in familiar surroundings next to the railway arches by the London Mission.

Was I insane? Was it appropriate for a woman with an expensive camera around her neck to be walking the streets alone at this time of night? We are led to believe that this is probably not the most sensible thing to do, particularly in a place with such a dodgy reputation, but this used to be “my manor” and I didn’t feel particularly perturbed.

It really shouldn’t be a problem and whilst I would not advocate risky behaviour, I honestly felt total calm and a sense that this should be a perfectly acceptable and safe thing to do.

I walked up to the river, took a few photos from Tower Bridge and then headed down towards City Hall where the walkers were beginning to amass for their refreshments. The walk was in two sections. The first walkers set off in the middle of the evening – these were the ones doing the marathon distance, but walking. My friends had opted for the half marathon distance and the turning point was through Potter’s Fields.

And although the majority of human traffic was relative to the money raising, there were still plenty of other people taking full advantage of the balmy night, wandering or even sitting in the park to reflect on the city in front of them.

Mad folk dancing through the water sprinklers, groups of American visitors with their friends who lived locally, two people cuddling up together, legs gathered by the knee, folding into one another, and the odd singleton with a can in hand not looking as though they had anywhere particular to go.

I returned to the car and headed towards Bermondsey, where I phoned my friends who were approaching. I decided that I would leave the car there and walk back to Tower Bridge with them, just for a brief while and they soon made the distance from Surrey Quay station to the next one.

We had a good chat about the world, about friends, about what they have been doing in the month or so since I saw them and by the time we got to the river, we talked quietly about our friends who were riddled with the big C, reflecting together as we looked across the river.

I spoke to S last week. Her most recent visit to the consultant had been a mixed bag of news; no new spread, but the mass of cells in her lungs were no longer responding to the particular type of chemotherapy she had been on. She needed to start a new and more sinister form of treatment this Monday.

C said that it had completely wiped her out this week. She had been totally incapacitated, such was the strength of the dosage she had received. We know that the chemo is not going to remove the little bastards but it could diminish them, thus prolonging her life by a small amount.

Of course, we all hope for the miracle.

It could happen.

Our other friend has returned to work, not because she is fit enough to do so but because she has been unable to work for a year and has no money left. No insurance, no nothing, so she is trying to do a couple of days a week. Unfortunately, she has had an excruciating pain in her neck that meant two days back at school and she was ready for a week off. I spoke to her last week too. Her resilience and determination is impressive. Why do we use such words for people who are coping with this illness? Because there is nothing else to do; either you are resilient or you let the disease overwhelm you. There is no other choice, I suppose but I am still in awe of people who live with this disease, knowing that it is destroying the workings of your body, knowing that sooner rather than later, it’s going to get you.

We all know that we are going to die but living with its immediacy is something quite different. Stoicism seems the wrong word sometimes.

We walked a little more quietly after that, and then I said my goodbyes at the station, returned to my car and made my way back through the streets.

London was still awake. London is always awake. Shops open, restocking a big independent supermarket in the middle of Peckham; boxes galore, a whole family seemed to be working together to get the shop ready for the morning business, but the morning was already alive. Business never shuts.

More people walking through the streets, more drinking, more sloping against the shuttered and graffiti laden shop fronts, smoking, eating, not really going anywhere; just being.

And still it was 18 degrees.

And meanwhile, the many walkers traipse their steps back towards the Millennium Dome; their final destination once their walk is completed.

It is good to witness camaraderie. It is good to see people enjoying one another. It is good to see values being so blatantly demonstrated.
But to think how many people were out there, knowing that each of them had their story of one, two, three, more people who had been lost.

I wandered back to suburbia. Curtains closed, lights off, lifeless.

This part of the city closes its eyes, shuts its ears and the silence endures uncomfortably. 

...........................................

Next year, I think I will do the walk. Why didn't I get organised to do it this year? Why is everything next year, later, maybe, hopefully?

But at least there is a next year.

A real huge well done to those who did the walk tonight/this morning.

If nothing else, it makes us all a little better for doing something together.