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.
There’s a line from The Little Prince that’s often on my mind these days. The book is full of wisdom and beauty and I’ve loved it at various stages of life. I think I first discovered it as a child and was captivated by the drawings of the elephant digesting a boa constrictor. Then, during my later teenage years, it was the Fox and the Rose with whom I became fascinated and I must confess that it is to them that my thoughts usually return.
Walking through the leaves falling from the trees,
Feeling like a stranger nobody sees (Bob Dylan, Mississippi)
I’ve been thinking about crossroads, both literal and metaphorical recently. Whether it’s because we are about to enter the high school process with my son and the elementary one with my daughter, or due to my own position now that I no longer have a child at home full time, or simply because the Blues have been on my mind since I started watching Under the Influence and the long shadow of Robert Johnson is hard to ignore I don’t know. Nonetheless the crossroads are there, lurking.
We went running this evening around the Brentwood Country Club. As the sun drew low behind the tall palm trees the air filled with that Los Angeles twilight to which no picture can ever do justice. It is not just the quality of the light but the feel of it that’s important; as if one had stepped for a moment into a strange, transcendent realm where bathing in light itself was all of a sudden a real possibility and for that brief magical time everything is transfigured.
We had a lovely afternoon today. It was our first opportunity to gather with our closest friends here for Sunday lunch since coming home from Europe at the beginning of September. It’s a tradition that has developed over the last couple of years as our ties have grown stronger. Everyone usually manages to get together around each month or so.
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.
We’ve been home in Los Angeles for a week now. The whirlwind of our return has just deposited me down to the ground and I can finally take a breath!
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.
