Keats meets the Beatles

We were on our way to Keats's House in Hampstead Heath stuck in a line of traffic. On our bus, the kids, having been still for an hour of travel, had fallen into a stillness, the hum of hushed voices accompanied the motor's reverb. It was drizziling, as usual, and our dream of picnicking on the Heath  for lunch and going on a nature walk  (in search of Keats's elusive voice, naturally) was soaked to the bone, and we only hoped the day would be worth it - the speaker somewhat animated, the house, at least, warm.

It was in this silent moodiness that we weaved our way through the London burroughs, expecting to once again be delayed by the choked London traffic that always makes everything irritable. We had been tracking our progress via satellite on our phones. Only 26 minutes until we arrive. No. Make it 28. Will we be late? Should we call?

Suddenly, my colleague turned to me and said, "Hey. This is Abbey Road." As the understanding was realized, she stood up and addressed the bus. "We're crossing Abbey Road right now! This is it! The famous Beatles album cover!" And the hubub got louder. Exclamations of "Cool!"  and "We're on Abbey Road!" and "take a Facebook photo" mingled into liveliness  as we passed.  And all of a sudden we were smiling. Because how cool is that?  

Of course there was no marker on the road. We didn't see the ghost of John Lennon and Paul McCartney was nowhere to be found. In fact, if we had zoomed out from our own experience, we would've had to acknowledge that we were among thousands who would cross the intersection that day without a second thought. But in the moment, and zoomed in tightly to our own little existences, we were happy and joined together in shared experience. 

The rest of the day was amazing.