Thank you

It felt oddly good to write that last, sad post. I needed to say it. Having said it, I feel better. I suppose it is important to remember that this is going to take some time. Ten weeks have passed. Which isn’t that long for any of us.

I really, really appreciate people dropping in to read the blog, and your comments. People have asked what they can do to help and support. The fact that you are reading, commenting, listening, caring – that’s a brilliant source of support for me. I finally worked out how to install sitemeter and that went in yesterday lunchtime, so now I know if people have visited, even if they don’t comment.

I was scared when I wrote here about how things were getting dark, that people would be driven away.That I always had to write upbeat stuff. There was a tension developing between what I wanted it to be like, what people expect and hope it to be like in the weeks after the explosions for the people involved – and the actual experience. The truth is, there are good days and bad days. And now I have written about both, and I feel better for having done so.

To put your feelings into words and to set them loose feels like a risk, but something in me needs to do it. It feels like a hopeful, trusting thing to do. It seems to help me and it seems to help others. I know why I do it.

People – people like you who are reading - are the reason why. On the train, in the darkness, strangers’ voices spoke to me and I spoke to them and we heard each other, we kept each other from despairing and panicking. Coming out of the tunnel, hands reached down and pulled us out. Strangers ran to get us water. People I don’t know. People I will never meet again. Most terribly, strangers on my carriage took the full force of the bomb. I have cried and cried thinking of all these people. They do not feel like strangers to me, though I know little or nothing about them.


I never felt as intra-connected with other humans as I did in that tunnel, in that darkness. And in the week after, I fell passionately in love with London; my heart felt like it was opening up instead of closing down. It was very painful. But I felt alive: raw, bloody but alive. I wrote down what it was like so I could capture the extraordinary feelings in the strangest of times.

I still write, because it touches the same place. Even if feelings are painful, I’d rather acknowledge them. And I’m grateful to you for reading this; dear friend, or stranger, by writing for you I am helping myself.

Thank you.
Rachel