It’s the people not the things…

This is my husband, Steve, standing in front of the Tower Bridge in East London . . .

Living in London is amazing.   Having moved from a small rural town in North Carolina, I have to admit that city life is all I had hoped and not much of what I had feared.  The restaurants, museums, monuments, ethnic markets, public transport and all the all other accoutrements of modern urban planning, design, and development layers over centuries of rich history are amazing.  In addition, I feel safe and relatively healthier and happier than spending hours every day in my car trying to get work or wherever I needed to go – leaving a huge fossil footprint and traveling the same roads, over and over again.  But there is a down-side.

I came here to accompany him: the guy in the picture.  I love him and after all things considered, living apart was not really worth the toll, especially on him.  Plus, an opportunity to live in this amazing city with all its history and art and architecture, not to mention proximity to other amazing places, just could not be passed up.  But I came without a plan, without a mission and without an anchor except him.  Weeks into it, I have not made much progress with finding a “raison d’etre.”  Everyone keeps telling me I will.  I am keeping an open-mind.

A close friend recently sent me a note and asked if there was anything from home I missed that she could send in a care package. Such a sweet offer, but the answer is simple: I miss my friends and family terribly.  I don’t really miss any of the stuff or even the places of home.  It’s the people not the things, I miss.  What fun is all this if I can’t share it?  Being the super-extravert I am, I find little joy in doing things alone.  I thought Facebook would be a great venue to quip back and forth with people about the experience, but its not really turning out that way.  A picture does not allow for that moment of pushing your elbow into someone’s ribs and saying “Did you see that?”  Many of things I want to share — like the way people dress (women who wear leggings, boots, coats and not much more, men who have obviously attended scarf-tying school, and these beautiful children all dressed up in school uniforms riding scooters everywhere) well, it would be strange and inappropriate to be snapping pictures of them.

The guys who hang out on the Common and drink beer all day did ask me to take their picture.  These two posed and even invited me to join them.  I am not at that point, yet — though they do seem to be having a lot of fun.

So much of my day really is a “you had to be there” kind of thing.  Facebook especially can’t convey the absurdity and hilarity of the moment when I realize someone is speaking English but I can’t understand a word of it.  I guess I am too old and self-conscious to just burst out laughing alone. So, I am saving it all up, hoping lots of you get your passports and make a plan.  I am right here waiting to share it all.