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  "description": "On why I don’t get to London often enough. Fish and chips on Notting Hill. Noodles and dumplings steaming in Chinatown. And the correct Brasier.",
  "path": "/london/",
  "publishedAt": "2025-11-16T10:51:28.000Z",
  "site": "https://laiyin.org",
  "tags": [
    "date",
    "first baby",
    "phở",
    "full",
    "birth"
  ],
  "textContent": "I don’t get to London often enough.\n\nMy first time it was with him,\nthe man I had moved in with from the night of our first date.\nThe night turned early by the time I went home with him.\n\nI said I would not sleep with him,\nI slept with him,\nI married him,\nI hated him,\nI built a life with him,\nI’ve never stopped loving him.\n\nFish and chips on Notting Hill,\nin dark pubs smelling old,\nof beer stained leather.\n\nWe discovered Lush and Sex Bombs at Covent Garden.\nWe made love on a bed of red rose petals\nat the Paddington Hilton.\n\nFrom the London Eye we mapped the city we explored.\n\nWhen we left the Tate Modern,\nhe found his wallet missing.\n\nAn hour later the cabbie who had dropped us off,\ncame back from north London,\nto return my boyfriend’s wallet,\nnot wanting anything in return.\n\nBy the next time I got back to London\nour first baby was fifteen.\nIt’s the minimum age for the Landmark Forum.\n\nIn the mornings we bicycled to the forum.\n\nI’d leave her there,\nwandering the streets,\nthinking of her,\nthe work,\nterrified she would not get it.\n\nIn Chinatown I filled up on noodles, phở, and dumplings steaming.\nI kept sending him photos,\neven though we share the same cloud\nand my pictures appear on his phone instantly.\n\nWhile shopping for underwear,\na woman who looked like Mary Poppins aged with grace,\npulled me into a fitting room.\n\nShe tut-tutted and scolded me with mother’s eyes,\nstudying my bare frame and chest.\n\n“Your bra is too small,” she said.\n“You’re spilling out. Your posture is poor.”\n\nBy the time I left the department store I was standing tall and full.\n\nI had felt a mother’s hands\nholding my torso,\nmy chest,\nmy shoulders.\nBringing me bras and comfort.\n\nBy the time I got back to London, one year later,\nour second baby was 14.\n\nForged by ballet, taekwondo, and showjumping,\nshe now stands tall and straight beside me after we fought during her birth.\nShe did not want to leave my womb.\n\nI showed her the London I got to love.\nWe binged on noodles and steaming dumplings in Chinatown.\nShe tried gourmet insects and caviar at Covent Garden.\nAt Wembley, she was scouted.\n\nBy the time we got back home to Porto,\nI had watched my baby sing, scream, jump and dance with Blackpink.\n\nI knew every verse and every chorus.\n\nWere it not for the young woman beside me,\nI might never have seen Lisa, Rosé, Jisoo and Jennie live.\n\nShe returned with a Paddington bear that now sits on the piano in her room,\nthe name her father has called her since she was small;\na name she allows no one else to use.",
  "title": "London",
  "updatedAt": "2026-05-05T06:56:18.910Z"
}