i've adopted some strange new modes of behavior in the last few months. creating a new life from scratch is a great method for reassessing whether you're doing what you do because it works in the here and now, or if you've just been doing for so long that it's ingrained. like pronouncing the 't' in '"often". or always having a diet coke with your meal. calling your girlfriend Jemima at the point of orgasm. some of it's completely inexplicable - for example, i've found that i tend to wake up at around the same time as Louise does most mornings. when she was working and getting up early i'd wake up either just before or after she headed to the bathroom to get dressed and say good morning, or make sure she was awake, then roll over and go to sleep. last week i did it again... except she didn't wake up until 12:30 in the afternoon. it was never a conscious thing, just something i'd fuzzily rembember having done when i woke up properly some time later. what's really odd is that she's been doing the same thing while i've been working - yelling at me to get up while i lie there looking at the numbers tick away on my mobile, then snoring away again by the time i'm out of the shower.
in the evenings when we eat together (we usually do), i'll usually do the cooking or preparation or oven-wrangling while she sits and keeps me company, then afterwards she'll wash up while i return the favour. i've taken to blogging down in the kitchen so that i can sit up typing late into the night while she goes to sleep, usually with a cup of tea, and i've become so used to it that i have difficulty collecting my thoughts to write when i'm up in the room even when she's up and about.
on the way to work i pick up a copy of the Metro and read it to save me from going through my book too quickly. on the way back to base-camp i sit and blog on the tube from Heathrow to Leicester Square while the people around me pretend not to stare at the stickers covering the lid of my Eee. in the mornings i always stand at the bus stop staring at the radar dish as it spins, wondering how much it weighs and time the spins in my head (~15RPM). in the afternoons i watch the planes take off and try to project how many must be leaving each hour (between 60 and 90).
i usually catch the bus into town in the interests of saving money, and even now i'm using an unlimited travelcard that makes the cost of the service irrelevant i still factor in the time it takes to use the bus and walk when i'm working out how to get anywhere. i've taken to hating on tourists who clog up the footpaths (even though i was one only a few months ago. no, i'm not still a tourist. i've got a lease on a place - i live here now), but i still look up at Nelson's statue in Trafalgar Square as i walk by and get slightly surprised that i'm actually here.
that said, when i'm sitting around bored my first instinct is still to call Sandra or Shadow, or Marcia and Rick, or Matt and Tiernan, or Jules. when i want to escape from the world it's always a bike i imagine myself on when i do. when i want a hug the same faces swim to the surface, shadows of my past who are long gone, but somehow still sitting over my shoulder whenever there's nothing else shedding light into my world.
in the first year after i left Perth i still used to think of it as Home. now when i think of Home i'm thinking of Canberra. when i go back to Canberra, will i be thinking of London - doomed to be eternally unfaithful to wherever i actually live? and will there come a day when the thought of freedom will be something other than the feeling of weight on my back and a pair of arms wrapped around my waist while i twist the throttle and point my front tyre at the horizon? now that i've cut myself loose am i ever going to consider the idea of settling down as anything more than a seocnd-best, if-all-else-fails contingency, or will i always be looking through Google Earth for the next destination?
it's odd - these little things. the habits you find you've picked up and the ones you can't leave behind. the thought processes that colour your judgement and you can't seem to shake. the things you catch yourself doing without thinking, or even being conscious of it and wonder why...
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2 comments:
Yes, it does happen when you move around a bit that you start to question exactly where Home is, and whether you now fall into the cringeworthily-named category of the 'Global Citizen'. I've lived in three countries so far, despite not ever changing my legal nationality, and I can attest that it's something you get used to.
:)
I've always liked Robert Frost's logic:
"Home is the place, that when you go there, they have to let you in."
In saying that, I find "home" is what you make of a place, of people, of a time. And it changes and that's ok. And home can be a a feeling, a brief moment when everything just works. And they aren't tied to geography.
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