All in Places
It’s a particularly beautiful time of year in our Los Angeles neighbourhood; the flowers of the Jacaranda tree are blooming everywhere. We were walking the dog yesterday and the fallen purple blossoms which lay strewn upon the sidewalks glowed almost luminescent in the fading evening light
We’ve said goodbye to family for now and once again an ocean separates us. I was coming back from the airport a few days ago and the late afternoon traffic dictated that I avoid the freeway. I drove towards home along one of my favorite stretches of road which takes you through Mar Vista, across Santa Monica and eventually meanders into Brentwood.
We watched the Holiday one evening last week during the strange period that is the hiatus between Christmas and New Year. I’d seen this movie at least twice before but was spurred to watch it again after a conversation with my sister who commented that she had particularly liked the character of Arthur, the octogenarian screenwriter, played by Eli Wallach. So, when I settled down with my husband and teenage son for an evening viewing, it was to Arthur’s story that I paid particular attention.
It’s turned chilly here in Los Angeles with the arrival of December. Jackets and Ugg boots are out in force and everyone is talking of the cold in the rather embarrassed way that we all do here. I took a very brief drive last night to our neighborhood Ralph’s for some essentials rather than walk. In the mood for music, I googled, as I periodically do, the only I line I remember of a song that has haunted me since the time I spent in Sicily during my undergraduate degree at Oxford.
Sitting in the sunshine with a mind finally free of the clinging tendrils of jet lag I hear the far off rumble of an invisible plane high up in the sky and I smile wistfully. I returned a few days ago from a short stay in a London cloaked in an unfamiliarly autumn garb. Having been on this side of the Atlantic during the colder months of the year for several years I’d been eagerly anticipating the chance to rejoin the seasonal flow of England-even if just for a brief moment.
I flew home from a few days in Mexico City this evening. I travelled in solitude and enjoyed the unfamiliar space which that created. Traveling without children is always a surprisingly different experience; there is no one else to look after and thus one gains so much extra time to think and reflect.
I’ve been thinking about neighbourhoods these past few days. We’ve lived in a fair few during our years in America so far; settling into a new one always takes me some time. Once the initial excitement is over I become tortoise-like in my behaviour, withdrawing into my shell and peeking out occasionally as I move around the new environment establishing points of connection.
I write this on the first day of September which always signals the onset of Autumn to me even as I prepare to fly back into the land of endless summer. It has been a wonderful and restorative month. There will be much to digest and act upon over the coming months as we settle back into the routine of home which is already beckoning with the start of school business for the children this coming week.
Today was the first day of the Buddhist summer course which we attend every year. Held at Sakya Changlochen Ling, a retreat centre situated amidst the rural beauty of the Dordogne, it’s a two week period that is one of the highlights of my annual calendar.
We’ve been in London for ten days now….. Manhattan pulls you at once into the vortex of her breakneck pace and Los Angeles will entice your involvement with her sublime indifference and lavender skies. London, by contrast, is a graceful hostess.
And so we travelled this week past. It’s a journey the three of us are accustomed to making; my thirteen year old son, three year old daughter and I.
I happened to be at the Raven Spa last evening. It’s a Thai spa in a cool part of town and I’d been meaning to visit for a while. Exquisitely fashioned, it transports you to a different time and space, one of old and quiet beauty.
