it's interesting
"being proud of where you're from";
i have never really felt a sense of
"identity"
associated with being british or english
it's nobody's fault and i suppose it wasn't
"a conscious decision"
it's just that i have never really felt connected to
"the wider picture".
i have always been proud to be from london though
just in the sense that this city
stinks of life.
at times it is putrid
and it's a city that sometimes reeks of
the rotting of human flesh
and sweat
and regretful decisions
but other times it smells like progress
it smells like the melting pot
of over 300 languages
and that's just tottenham alone.
300 languages. imagine it.
every language has words with a smell,
every one has a taste.
and i have only really become proud
to be from london
and specifically, the area of london that i am from
in the last few years
as i have started to see myself as a citizen of the world
of the wider community
and part of this is thanks to the internet.
i suppose i'm proud of local girl amy winehouse
i'm proud that it takes me 36 minutes to get from
the escalators at leicester square
to the bus stop at my home station
and i suppose it's not until you meet people
who have moved here from across the world
to "become londoners" that you really really do
appreciate a city as part of your identity
especially when your identity is so fluid sometimes
