Here I Am

We have been painting.

It is quite physical and at the same time meditative.  Also hugely satisfying to paint over the stains left from a time that went before.

We are re-decorating our house, yet it also feels in some way like we are re-decorating our life.  The scars and stains we know exist, we have lived through the mess.  Now we are starting out fresh.  On a clean page.  An exciting new chapter.

The colour palate is, quite unsurprisingly, white.  Who would have thought white would come in so many shades.  That light from different angles can make the same shade change so dramatically from room to room.  Surely there is something metaphorical in that?

I want it bright and cool with a splash of colour here and there.  A happy space.  A haven from the urban chaos and long winters to come.  A welcoming family home.

The repetitive up and down of the roller on the wall provides a space to think, and of course, in covering over what went before, my mind comes to pass over what has been and gone.  Back and forth.  Up and down.  Covered now in a thick layer of paint.  Not without a little sweat and pain and irritation.

Will we even remember what it looked like before?  With time it will become harder to recall the details.  New life and memories will be breathed into the space, upon the clean slate.

When you leave a place for a long enough period and have the opportunity to return and see things through different eyes, with a fresh perspective, it is not necessarily going to be a more favourable outlook, but fresh all the same.

For me this time round, returning to London, it is like coming home.  I could never have imagined I would say that about London.  Yet its noise and dirt are surprisingly soothing.

It is nice to leave a place and come back to find it has improved, evolved.  We tend to feel that when we travel and return it is us that change, and we grapple with our new relationship with self and place.

I live in an area of London that is gentrifying.  Yet it is doing so in a way that doesn't feel exclusive.  There is a mix of cultures and colour and age to keep it vibrant.  Its new breed of residents fight to maintain and enhance its sense of community. Fighting the multinationals to keep it local, encouraging and supporting the creative force and spirit.  Whilst I have been away attending my own inner battles this place has also kept moving and expanding its outlook.

For us, upon our return, the community welcomed us.  We are a part of the tightly woven fabric upon this small part of the Greater London tapestry.  We felt both warmed and slightly taken aback.  It was proof that time invested is returned.

It is not going to rally around like a small country town, the weak do get left behind.  I was weak and I was broken when I left, and etched into the old paintwork were all those years of toil.

I am grateful to have had the opportunity to heal in the land of plenty, my home land Australia.  This gratitude I will carry always, and I wrote about it recently here.

I did learn that loneliness and depression are not symptoms of place.  We can feel a deep void even in paradise.

Paradise can also become a little tiresome.  A little like retiring from life.

For us, this place has a constant palpable heartbeat.  By choosing to live here we are in someway more alive.  Perhaps via osmosis.  Sucking up and drawing on the collective energy, the transient force of such coming and going.

I feel alive again.  No longer in transit.  I am not waiting to be or to go.  I am here.