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Published: September 16th 2010
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It is Monday, I look over the bridge to see the unusually deep brownish river swirling below Vauxhall Bridge and realise that after living almost one year in the same place, I still feel surprised that I am not in Asia. I’m in my home country but not for long because I’m moving again. Since 2006, my heart hasn’t really lived in one place. In my own small world, I feel the details. My world might not be your world but it’s full and round and all singing and dancing.
I’ve been living in close proximity to Patti for all this time. We have been through an interesting year and it’s been worth every minute spent knitting more experiences into our lives. When I leave London, I won’t entirely be gone because I am in her and she sure is in me. We are so close now that to move away is not to move away from but to still be alongside understanding more about each other’s temporary places on this earth.
A simple joy is to meet up with friends again even ones I haven’t seen for years. We’ve talked as if it was yesterday that we were
at art school together or pushed our kids in pushchairs or went out to bars and lived above a chip shop. Real friends are still here, whatever happens, wherever we live and I’m grateful for that. And I’ve become closer to my ma and pa, him doing the one and only simple act of kinship that I’ve witnessed where he drove me to the bus station and then stood by the bus and waved me off. As the bus circled the town and drove past him, he walked away slowly, left foot pointing slightly inward, intuitively he knew the bus was passing and raised his hand to me. When did that ever happen in all these years?
The tables turn in time. We’ve been able to turn time in cycles. They visit me now.
I’ll miss some people at work and the music that I hear floating up from studio 8 every morning or hearing the notes from a lonesome cello player in the corridor. And then there’s the really rare opportune moments like when I hear the piano being tuned in the theatre bar and I follow the sound to be elated to see the blind piano
tuner with his head bent down, both hands somewhere in the piano holding tools, moving on to test the keys. I watched him last week with such awe, for an entire 40minutes, without him knowing whilst he tuned the theatre piano. He knows me but I wanted to just watch his skilled hands and movements when all along he couldn’t see a thing. I didn’t want to talk.
And today, whilst watching the new first years who got through the endless auditions performing their audition solos to the whole school who were all crammed into one studio welcoming them, watching them, appreciating their enthusiasm and skill. These details and times I will miss and of course, the touring and the dance and the sense of being part of a team and, being proud of Edge when they turn out some really impressive work because this year, I won’t administrate the new work.
I’ll miss the fact that I can at any time go to readings and lectures by people like A S Byatt, Hanif Kereshi, watch theTibetan film festival with Demain singing the opening song, visit the V&A, British Museum, British Library, National Portrait Gallery, TATE or see
work at the obscure galleries that can hold really amazing work by artists like Arbus, Avedon and Twombly. And Stephen Petronio’s in town in October and Patti and I will go to see that performance as well as see if he remembers us. I’ll miss simply being able to look at 4od, BBC iplayer and all the bits I’ve probably missed on tele especially ‘strictly’.
I’ll miss the endless blue skies.
Most every day since February, London has been blue skied.
I see the long shadows cast by the setting summer evening sun,
the bobbley clouds with flat bottoms,
the rainbows,
the shadow of the lamp imprinted on the house wall
and
I often feel
the light over the Thames before I’m in it
as if it is a holiday light blown in by the breeze
And every day now I’m noticing the changing season’s light and the temperature’s change towards a new autumn.
The nights are drawing in as I walk home down the south bank and the Thames is lit up with boats, the Eye, the globe lanterns and the fair ride.
Along the Thames are some really funny buskers. I have favourites - Ziggy the
dog who runs around with a blown up balloon in her teeth, the man dancing with the mannequin on his feet, the cello player, Charlie Chaplin and my favourite IS the cat man in the box where you can only see the man’s face-painted head like a cat with a round furry hat and with stuffed furry arms sticking out. He purrs, meows, hisses and then surprisingly growls when a kid is annoyingly stroking and belting his head with him hissing warnings and everyone is laughing to the point of him reaching his hand out under the cloth covering the table he’s sitting under and pinching the kid’s leg. It is hilarious and very British.
There’s something I forget then remembered this year - British beaches. Come rain or sun, I’ll miss the chance of being able to nip to English beaches like the Norfolk coast with its long endless sands and dunes with the little wooden beach huts and the happy dogs running carefree.
Everyday, I either cycle or walk the four miles to work and then I go swimming at Russel Square where I skim along the bottom of the pool like a skate fish only
to surface and part the water with the back of both hands together, fingers stiff. Swimming away the trivia and figuring out the next moves is a beautiful way to start each day. And I’ve learnt how to time it so that I’m the only person there or one of two or three people.
I’ll miss the flat we didn’t buy in Kennington. We saw so many of them in the Pullen’s buildings until we got the right one with a view of the Thames and the Eye to the right and into the old workshop courtyard on the left from the roof terrace bearing chimney’s like Mary Poppins had. The beautiful working sash windows, the late Victorian fireplaces and wide bare polished floor boards, and the well cared for railinged stair wells with tiles dating over a 100 years all held charm and history. But I didn’t buy because I realized that my life isn’t in London.
But all these things won’t really be missed because they’ve been lived properly and deeply and now it’s soon time to move again. They feature in the many layers of my make up and I believe it’s best to live
courageously rather than superficially. So the next step will be a challenge but add still another layer and maybe one day, I’ll stop roaming this earth but I don’t think so now. Not really ever, not entirely.
After all, I’ve still got the camper van to buy.
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carolyn
non-member comment
camper van
hey babe love your blog tom wants a camper van too