Walking down Brompton Road past the Brompton Oratory towards Harrods yesterday I experience one of those moments where the past associations of a place are stronger than the present experience. This is a phenomenon I have previously experienced in relation to places where I have lived when they are revisited. I go back to Paris to the areas I once lived in and find it difficult to be there due to the weight of the ghosts of the past. I find this to be true about Berlin also, even though I only lived there for a few weeks in my youth. Here I surmise that the weight of the pre-fall of the wall lived life just submerges the present, making it trivial in comparison. Experiencing this ghost feeling on Brompton Road was odd. After all, I still live in London and am still accumulating experiences here. My conclusion is that the older you get the more difficult it is to give weight to the present. The monster of the past becomes ever more voracious. The challenge to keep the present alive becomes ever more demanding.

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