Penelope's Grey Space

London Adventures Part One:  First Loves Never Die

Twenty eight days away from everything familiar and normal in one of the most fabulous cities in the world.  Twenty eight days to wake up and ask, “What sounds good today?” or “Where do I feel like going today?”   Close your eyes and imagine that for just a moment.  As an American, that concept is nearly impossible to contemplate.  We aren’t a nation of holiday seekers.  The average American takes less than two weeks of non-consecutive holiday time a year.  I, myself, had taken a grand total of two ten-day vacations in fifteen years prior to this sojourn to London. 

After fifteen years of owning my own business, I’ve been working for six months to close it down and transition existing clients and projects to other contractors in my field.  I had lived a life of being on call  twenty four hours, seven days a week.  The buck always stopped with me.  I was the one always in charge of putting out the fires and seeing things through.  The last few clients were proving difficult to transition.  I knew that in order to truly cut the cord and step out of that life, a drastic move would be required.  I would need to be unreachable and not just for them but for me as well (yes, just a little co-dependency had developed over the years).  So on February 18^th, I transferred my last client file to the replacement firm and changed the voicemail on my office phone saying I was no longer in business.   The next day I paid my bills, cleaned my house, emptied my refrigerator, packed my bag, kissed my cat (who would be looked after by her other mom, my ex) and boarded the overnight flight to Heathrow. 

Why London?  Well... Hello?  It’s London!  But I did pick London specifically. I have been a rural island girl for the last fifteen years.  Since this year is all about change, exploration and rediscovery for me, it seemed like it was time to go back to my first great love. London was the first city I actually fell in love with back in the days when I was a student in the U.K.  Oh, sure, I grew up in Southern California and hung out in Hollywood, but I had never loved it.  With London, it was love at first sight twenty five years ago and, except for landing in Heathrow and boarding a train to other locations in the U.K., I hadn’t seen it properly since my days as a student.

 

The first days were fraught with a tummy bug but after that passed, my friend and hostess began by reintroducing me to London’s amazing Tube system.  Much had changed in the twenty five years since my last visit to London.  Out with coins and tickets and in with Oyster Cards, but the system itself is just as efficient as I remembered.  It took me several reminders to stand on the right of escalators and pass on the left.  The British are an orderly sort, which I appreciate very much.  We wandered down to the British Museum and down to Soho over to Trafalgar Square.  Square after square, corner after corner, the beauty of London never gets old for me.  The majesty of the architecture, the layers of history, the city whispers stories at every turn.  I found myself just watching Londoners thinking, “Do they see this?”  “Do they hear this?”  “Do they know how precious this is?”  I hope so. 

 

I’ll admit that the size and scale of it all was daunting.  I had forgotten how big London is physically.  West Coast cities like Portland and Seattle don’t compare to cities like London.  There were as many people in the neighborhood I stayed in than in all of Portland.  I’m fairly positive that there were as many, if not more, people shopping in the local Sainsbury than reside in my whole town of Langley!  The sounds, the movement, the life, the pulse.  It all took a little getting used to in the first days, but it all felt like reconnecting with my first love.  I felt a world was opening to me and inside of me.  I got the distinct impression that my weeks ahead would be like nothing I’d experienced in a very long time.  It was becoming apparent that coming to London was a ‘coming home’ for me, in more ways than I could have ever imagined.