In Transit...

And the time came when I had to leave. There were places that wanted seeing and things that wanted doing and people whose faces I did not want to fade away... on both sides of my life. It was not my choice though, sometimes external forces lead the way and I could not stay; England would not let me. New adventures were to be had and dreams were to be dropped into different spots across the earth to grow into ideas and places that I would later love. But I loved it there and then. I had started to grow roots and branches. I had built up life lines. I had made a world for myself amongst London's underground tube; this life was gone now.

It cannot be expressed how much I love London. It is in the way that I feel when I walk down the Southbank. It is the changing color of the leaves in Kensington Gardens. It is the the dark and edgy feel of a candle lit cafe at night time where the air radiates the notion that you are in on a secret; music rustles through the air, artists and writers lounge on worn sofas, and you overhear discussions on an unending possibility of subjects. The streets, when you leave, are full of the people that you wish you were, and it is possibility that you are becoming one of them.

Then there is the "Good-bye," the dreaded words that make me suck in my breath with a look of fear. The Good-byes are indefinite. I give a hug and then another and another till my arms feel like they won't let themselves open and then I'm pushed away to not miss a train, to not miss a tube, to not miss a bus, or a plane. Each time I move further away and look back at them and see them waving or watching and my stomach goes cold and tight like a rock that is sinking inside of myself. And I can't help but believe that I'll always be half there and half inside of wherever I am. That after a mere sum-total of a year and a half, it has become my transplant home, that I was finally starting to thrive there and become who I wanted to be.

Now I have to start all over again.

One of my London friends wrote to me:

"London is often described as a sewer, and I suppose the charm of a sewer is that the treasure is hidden in the murk and guile of its mostly voluntary residents. Do you intend to return? I'm sure you can devise a plan if you see fit.

'Going and Staying- Thomas Hardy

The moving sun-shapes on the spray,

The sparkles where the brook was flowing,

Pink faces, plightings, moonlit May, --

These were the things we wished would stay;

But they were going.

Seasons of blankness as of snow,

The silent bleed of world decaying,

The moan of multitudes of woe, --

These were the things we wished would go;

But they were staying.'

I love this, you can begrudge the lack of wind, but you must first sew your sails otherwise you will sound like this miseryguts."

Location: London, England