{a peek at my old neighborhood}

When we lived on Lyndoch Crescent, on any given day we were treated o Rolls Royces and fancy town cars and pink and white taxis classing up the joint every once in awhile. Brides, running uphill in the rain, trailing veils; queues of taxis and gents in spectacular dress, women in saris, Muslims in hijabs, folks lugging backpacks, in jeans – all walking up to 22 Park Circus for a civil service wedding.

Alas, all good things must come to an end. The venue is being handed off to developers and moneyfolk and the council, and the windows in my neighborhood won’t be filled with wee girls with their noses pressed against the glass, eying the wedding gowns and wondering how much they’ve cost. The end of an era; the new civil office looks like an impersonal hotel lobby, as opposed to the glorious Victorian opulence of these gorgeous old buildings.

Take a peek at what glory lived just down the street from me. Sometimes Glasgow – and cities like Dundee and Edinburgh would just shock me – having a Starbucks or a dentist’s office in the midst of all of this gorgeous architecture. I don’t know how people get used to living a life amidst the spoils of such a grand and opulent era, how it didn’t just gut them and turn them inside out with gaping jaws and gasps, being fully undone at the poetry of worn glass tiles embedded in cement, outside of the apothecary on Cresswell Lane. Just going to the post office in downtown – Charing Cross – or going to pay a bill in the City Chambers on John Street, or going to the library, or popping down a flight of stairs to find the loo – and you find sometimes the most beautiful things.

Thing is, in Scotland, I looked. I made a point of paying attention for those little slivers of specialness in the architecture, the bit of stained glass in the cloakroom of the pub; the gryphons in the floor tiles. I LOOKED for the fairytale. After all, if you don’t believe in the magic, you never find it.

“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.” – Roald Dahl

Goodbye, 22 Park Circus. Onward, with open eyes.

And, as for the fairytale, as for the magic, keep looking.