Today was a day of two Emilys. First off, Bill and I caught the bus to Shepherd’s Bush to meet his former colleague Emily for brunch. She worked with him at Quilt because of her passion for climate tech, but then left to pursue her passion for magic. Yes, magic. She’s a professional magician. But then she got offered a leadership role at You Me Bum Bum Train (the absurd immersive theater experience I had last month – henceforth YMBBT) and left San Francisco for London to be head of communications with their team.
Fortunately Bill tolerated me joining their brunch catch-up to pepper her with dozens of questions about YMBBT. She had first learned about it years ago and stayed in touch with the organizers, doing occasional freelance volunteering until they could use her in a serious role and then, boom, it happened. I was elated to find out more about what I had experienced, like how the hell did that crazy transition happen? Before I explained which one I meant she already knew exactly what I was talking about and laughed, “it’s a magic trick!” She said that when David Blaine came through he proclaimed that the whole thing is really a magic show.
Her role sounds absolutely wild: she’s there for each show working from morning until late at night, jumping in to help with any kind of challenges that arise. She knows the ins and outs of every aspect of the show, and has fascinating stories to tell about how different types of “Passengers” (attendees) affect the action. The timing is spectacular because I had already signed up to do my first volunteer shift a week from tomorrow, and now I have the inside scoop of what type of role I want to request. Even better, Bill is game to join me so we’re going to experience it together from the inside!
I could have sat there all day asking her more questions, especially since I didn’t get to any about her career in magic. But we’ll get to see her again next week at the show, and hopefully not long after that we’ll all be back in SF. Amidst all of the engaging conversation I managed to have my second plate of avocado toast in two days, along with a side of porridge with berries. After we left I thanked Bill profusely for including me, and then he headed home while I went off to meet my second Emily of the day, Punk Rock Emily.
I don’t get to cross paths with Punk Rock Emily as much as I’d like because she lives on the clear other side of London and is always juggling punk rock shows and bicycle tours and hopping all over town with her little chihuahua. But the stars aligned and so did the sunny weather, so she insisted that it was time I finally check out Hampstead Heath, the huge public park in north London. Calling it a “park” feels like a misnomer because it’s really a wild space full of meadows, woodlands, and ponds. I had heard that the “swimming ponds” are popular and wore a swimsuit even though I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.


When I got off the Mildmay Overground train line at Gospel Oak, there was Emily waiting in the sunshine, wearing her bleach-blond hair in braided pigtails and carrying a plastic bag full of fabulously junky snacks. Her outfit was epic as usual: a ripped dress held together by safety pins, turquoise Converse high-tops, a pink Hello Kitty backpack, and a baseball cap that she said she had just colored with vegetable dye. Meeting up with her always feels both like getting sucked into a whirlwind and coming home. She led us into the park and excitedly promised me “a hill.”
Before we even made it up the hill, Emily plopped down in a grassy field and insisted that we take a moment for snacks because she had thrown a popsicle into her bag. I was telling her a story and used “bollocks” incorrectly and she gave me a brief lesson on British slang, and advised me to use “the dog’s bollocks” when I meant something good. After a while she suddenly hopped up (transitions are always abrupt) and said it was time to go up the hill, and I found it incredibly endearing that she so clearly wanted me to be impressed with the hill. I took the piss by teasing her about her shortness of breath as I easily surmounted the “hill.” At the top she insisted on taking my photo as proof of the hill. And to be honest it was an excellent view, really the dog’s bollocks.


Emily has one of the worst senses of direction I’ve ever witnessed in a human, which she’ll be the first to tell you, so I navigated leading us towards the “Kenwood Ladies’ Pond.” We crossed big green grassy meadows and then I could just make out the pond behind a large grove of trees, so we circled around to the entrance and I was honestly stunned. I’ve never seen a place quite like this before, let alone in the midst of a huge city. There’s a little rustic booth where you purchase your entry and then to your right is a small meadow surrounded by trees and filled with women laid out on picnic blankets soaking in the sunshine. There are smaller meadows tucked away in other directions, and then there’s the pond, also surrounded by trees and occupied by a few dozen women swimming.
Emily and I set up in the larger meadow, laying out our blankets and stripping down to our bikinis. But since it’s a women-only space a significant portion of the women go topless to sunbathe, so we figured we’d do the same. There was something surreal about the whole scene, with huge fluffy seeds blowing through the air, the big trees creating areas of dappled shade, and everyone clearly sharing in the joy of the gorgeous weather and quiet peace of the park. Emily surprised me both with an array of drinks including my favorite Tiny Rebel beer, and a magic trick using cards, which was particularly funny on a day when I had met another magician named Emily. I ate Reese’s Pieces I had packed up from my Michal-gifted stash.
We decided to go for a swim and I watched multiple women ahead of us slowly climb down the ladder into the water and contort their faces from the cold. I started jokingly heckling the women in front of us to pretend it was warm, and to their credit they did their best. I figured I had no hope of easing my way in and instead decided to jump off the platform. It was so exhilarating to jump and then crash into the cool water, submerging myself completely. I was doggy paddling to stay warm as I swam towards the middle of the pond, but the lifeguards begged me to swim a slower stroke because my frantic paddling was stressing them out about my swimming skills.
I could only last a few minutes in the cold water but genuinely savored it, which had the bonus of impressing Emily who lasted all of 10 seconds. Then we wandered back to our beautiful patch of sunshine and laid out some more, with a little more snacking and lots more plotting of other London things to explore. She told me that she has an inflatable canoe and would like to take me on a ride on it in the canals, to which I responded with uncontainable excitement. I’m really hoping that the timing and the weather will work in our favor for it.


Eventually we had to pack up and head back towards the train station, with one more random stop in a field along the way. At some point I figured I should check the train schedule, not realizing that the Overground runs less frequently, so I was 6 minutes from one departure and then 25 minutes from another. The walk to the train station was also 6 minutes so we decided to “trot” and laughed our way while running through the park, Emily teasing me for my slow running and then us having a quick but boisterous goodbye with me loudly calling her a “slag,” another slang term she taught me today.
It was a relaxing ride home, with a change to the District line at Gunnersbury, and then I ran into my friend Fabio who weirdly just moments earlier had texted our group thread about some graffiti art Bill and I should see. We rode one stop together and then I hopped off to walk home, bursting in with tales of my English pond swim and then heading directly for a long shower. Then Bill headed out for a dinner event and the boys and I enjoyed a delicious dinner of M&S Indian food.
After that we talked to my mom on her birthday and caught a glimpse of Steven Gottlieb there in NYC visiting her, and then James and I baked up a batch of banana bread. The evening ended with warm delicious banana bread, a little bit of reading time, and then a Giants game versus the Padres in San Diego. Nothing like watching a sunny day in California and knowing that it was actually warmer and sunnier here today in London. Ben took a selfie of himself sneezing to close out the day.
Of course you would find a place, and a day, in London to be topless :-)