Notes from the Underground.

You are in a hole in the ground.  The demonic rumbling of trains overhead or underfoot or somewhere close by hints at the massive network of this underworld; it is a magnificent technological advancement in public transportation, to be sure.  But there is nothing for it: you are in a hole in the ground.

Sometimes there are only a few of you waiting, clustered together beneath the readerboard that asserts "Edgeware 1 min."  The emptiness is filled with the buzzing of the fluorescent lights and the glare from the white, white tiles.  Most substantially extant, though, is the gaping mouth of the tunnel: the dark, hellish tunnel that curves around, out of sight, to the center of the earth. 

Suddenly, with a gust of wind and a rumbling from the belly of the netherworld, the Northern line heading north is ejected from the abyss, bursting onto the scene flushed with the energies of effectual transport. 

This is my love letter to the Tube.

It is difficult for me to express in words what the London Underground means to me.  We are soulmates; it's as though it had been made for me.  As the girl who can hardly navigate her tiny hometown, the Tube is a godsend in this massive and confusing city.  The beauty of this system lies in the simplicity of the map.  It's genius designer Harry Beck recognized that the Tube map need not be geographically accurate.  All it needed to do was tell people how to get from Point A to Point B.  (He was paid only 5 guineas for this iconic design, which was adapted for use in every other major underground system in the world.)  All you have to do is say "I am here, and I want to be here, which color connects them?"
 

    

A thing of beauty.

It is the definition of efficient.  In fact, everything about the Tube is efficient.  People line up in two columns on the escalators, right for standing, left for passing; Oyster cards let you through in seconds; and the trains are always running one after the other, so if you miss one, all you have to do is wait a minute or two for the next.  And there is something meditative about the motion of a fast-moving vehicle on rails, the way it gently sways back and forth as it rushes you to your destination.  And the people watching... everyone here tries to be in their own little world in their own little way.  It is fascinating.
Now, as pointed out by Bill Bryson in Notes From a Small Island, the map's geographical solecism could potentially be misleading: "A stranger to London would get from Bank to Mansion House using Beck's map. He would take the Central Line to Liverpool Street, and then change to the Circle Line for another five stops to Mansion House. He would then emerge to find himself just 200 yards down the street where he had started from!"

Rey, Luke and Ani demonstrate how to ride the Tube in style.

But I have since learned that no one would actually make this error, because if my direction-disoriented self can figure it out, anyone can figure it out. 

I suppose I should bring this missive to a close, before I run away with my romantic feelings.  The best way I can describe my fondness for the Underground is to borrow from a phone message a friend once left me: I love you with my heart, and my soul, and my being, and my person.     

Yours always,

Meredith

  

P.S. I feel that this title's allusion to Dostoevsky neutralizes any past allusions that may have been made to Katy Perry.