Monday 19 November 2012

Homing In

All systems are go for 1 December.  Man with a Van who won't do r&p does not think we need r&p.  I bow to his greater experience but have Miracle Friend from Amsterdam on standby.  Not on standby in Amsterdam, but neatly camped out in Brugge on the day, just in case.  This kindness will never be forgotten.  Old whatsername, Blanche Dubois, said that she always depended on the kindness of strangers.  For me it's a new experience and an amazing one.

Slowly, my belongings are finding their way back into boxes, and downstairs is again beginning to resemble a World War I trench, but with less mud.  Sleep is full of anxiety, and I wake certain that I haven't done something.  Well there are lots of things I haven't done, clearly.  I haven't sailed around the Greek islands.  I haven't been married in an unflattering dress and then had a fish and chip dinner (but I'd quite like that).  I haven't climbed every mountain, just a coloured-blob wall in Ladbroke Grove.  I have no idea what stuff it is I'm supposed to have done that the dream tells me I haven't.

When I left London, there was a sense that my spirit had gone ahead, and it was just my body knocking around for those last few weeks, waiting to catch it up by Eurostar.  It's like that now.  I've gone ahead, and my body remains, picking its way around turrets of dogshit, and lethal slithery leaves.

And then when I get there I can stop.  No more running.  This has been a year of constant change: three moves; three jobs; one burglary; and several dates with frankly undateable men.  It's time to be still now, and just live a nice life.



2 comments:

  1. What a lovely piece of writing.

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  2. This captured the spirit of a woman on the edge of a New Life Somwhere Better. It will be that, you know.

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