California Rhythmns
And so we’re back in the land of sunshine and dysfunction. We flew home last weekend on a plane ride so bumpy in places that Mr Dylan himself might have had a thing or two to say about it!
I had forgotten the peculiar nature of this particular journey. When the flight begins it seems that one is facing a Herculean task; the feat of hurtling backwards into the light. Expansion must be forcibly embraced in order to meet the challenge.
We landed eventually, weary travellers happy to be back despite the current state of LAX and our city in general. Hurrying home, we were reunited with a hound who had also enjoyed his own vacation; from any sort of discipline whatsoever! Needless to say, a ruthless program to re-establish pack order is well underway.
We’ve returned with so many plans and projects to put into motion that the jet lag hasn’t really been able to sink its dreamy claws into us this time around, save for the 2am wakefulness that has haunted us every night except the past couple. Finally, we woke up at 5am with an overwhelming sense of relief.
Our daughter is back into the swing of her activities with that glorious adaptability of the very young. I have spent my days flitting between clearing the school room of last year’s news, reorganizing seemingly endless piles of books and wandering among castles lost in the air all the while.
It’s a truism that one can return to a familiar place, no matter how much time has lapsed and swiftly become part of the furniture; as if one had never left. Nonetheless, I’m always amazed at the effortlessness with which we step into the beat of London’s streets and her streams of walkers. So too this week, I smiled behind the wheel of my car as we flew into the slipstream of the freeway and became one with the traffic, that most undeniable Californian rhythm of all, bar one.
We’ve sat beside the ocean, on our first morning back in fact, watching and listening to his fluid chant. At ease amidst the blue, I inhaled that pigment so perfect I will forever wish I could bottle it, knowing, even as the thought arises, that doing so would destroy its colour for evermore.
Of oceans, palm trees and mountains are our lives once again. The scope of man seems very tiny here next to nature’s unabashed display of glory.
