The Price of Relocation

We’re preparing to move again, and I CANNOT WAIT!

Currently, there are 8 of us living in a 5 bedroom house. It’s like a dorm or a hostel, and we’re not even Antipodean! I can’t even talk about it!

How did we end up in that ludicrous situation you may ask? Well, simply because when it comes to standards of living, Mr. Haggis and my opinions differ greatly.

In London, nothing comes cheap, especially property. And even if you do find a lease that doesn’t leave eating tinned baked beans for every meal, the council tax and the repair costs certainly will. Not to mention the agents fee for granting you the privilege.

For me, it’s all about location, location, location. Small house? Fine, as long as its in Chelsea!

For Mr. Haggis, it’s less about location and more about space. Granted he’s a tall man, but I’m not living in Brixton in order to accommodate his handicap.

And so, after 3 months of looking on gumtree.com, findaproperty.com and viewing houses every night, we took the easy way out and moved into a shared house with no lease, no keys, no fridge space, and a growing list of roommates.

The time has come though, for Mr. Haggis and I to find a little nest of our own. And we (mostly I) have a very humble list of requirements for the new abode:

* lots of windows
* large closet space
* new fittings
* safe neighborhood
* not on the ground floor
* not in the basement
* newly built
* big bath
* a breadmaker
* a food processor
* a flat screen TV
* near the Tube
* near the supermarket
* near more working professionals
* not near a (current or ex) council flat
* big rooms
* spare bedroom?
* not too far from friends
* not too far from work
* did i mention the breadmaker?
* oh and we need to find a replacement for our current house

We’ll be out of the 8 person dormitory in no time!

Mr. Haggis back then

“Hey dude” I squinted into the low sun.

“Hey dayoood!” Our conversations always started like that.

“Where y’at?” Tourists eyed me up in my big, gold aviators and tailored yellow jacket. He was at a pub. “Bummer I was going to ask if you wanted to come out for a drink but youre already out.” 10 minutes later he had ditched his workmate at the pub and was heading my direction.

“Im at the statue of..”

“Eros,” he filled in the blank.

When I first moved to London, my tour guide said that a good man would ask a lady to meet him under the statue of love. Circumstances were slightly different but I was meeting a good man, and Id like to think of myself as a lady. He strolled up in his pinstripe suit just as the Hari Krishnas broke into another chorus of wailing and drum beating.

We had an hour to kill before meeting Cathy and Laura so he suggested a bar on St. James St, with Prince Charles Palace sitting like a road block at the end. We strolled along Jermyn St., past the posh gentlemens stores, the swanky shaving shop, the tie shop, the stiff dining rooms, and onto St. James. He pointed down the street to where he worked and I thanked him for walking all the way to Picadilly to fetch me, just to end up right back where he works. In the basement bar he bought me a glass of wine and we sat by the door talking.

We liased with Laura and Cathy at Picadilly and carried on to a bar just off Carnaby Street where Cathy’s workmates were all squished into a massive booth. We pulled some foot stools around the opposite side and Laura and I started on a bottle of white wine, then had another, before Laura called it a night and Cathy skipped off to Wimbledon where the tennis players were allegedly boozing in a local bar. It was just me and him again. On the street I wrapped my arm under his and he carried my shopping bags.

Somehow we made it to the tube, with me begging to go to the Dogstar in Brixton. “Some of us have to work in the morning, you know?” he said and I pouted.

At the front door, he already had the keys out and ushered me in. We scaled the stairs and at my bedroom door he handed me my shopping bags. Goodnight Mr. Haggis. He scaled the last set of stairs to his attic room and the light in the hallway went out.

Right words wrong night

I picked absent mindedly at the skin peeling off my chest. My tan, the only souvenir I brought home with me from Marbella, Spain, rapidly shedding to reveal smooth white skin. “The next station is Clapham South” said the soothing voice of London underground’s Big Brother. Anthony and I stepped out of the tube station and were immediately hit by a wall of humid night air. I suddenly wished I was back in the Absolut Ice Bar, wearing a silver cape and clutching a cocktail glass made of ice with a gloved hand, it was more tolerable than this hot summer weather we were having!

I said my final goodbye to Anthony next to The George pub. It was where I had first met him and his other Aussie friends some months ago, and it was where I would have my leaving drinks the next evening. He couldnt attend and so I gave him a kiss on the cheek and said wed be in email contact, might even see him in Oz this coming winter.

“I think youre gorgeous, I thought that the moment I walked into the kitchen the day you and Emma interviewed me for the room, and saw you sitting there on the counter top” he confided in his Scottish brogue. Im sitting on Mr. Haggis’ bed in my blue and gold striped dress, me having just returned from the Ice Bar and him from a work party on a boat in Chelsea. Despite the heat, he’s wrapped in his duvet.

I remember that day we met, I was still wearing my fancy dress costume from a party the night before, terribly hungover, and I remember thinking he was good looking but a bit serious. That was just about 2 months ago that we met for the first time and now he admits this to me?! If I only knew then what I know now that its too late. I leave for California in 5 days.

Sandy feet

Tack! Tack! Tack! Go the ropes of the sail as they bang against the mast of the catamarans. I lean against the body of a little boat, seeking shelter from the wind.

It howls between the catamarans resting on shore, whipping my hair into my eyes and goosepimpling my skin, sweeping me back to childhood summers on my parents’ yacht in Spain.

I’m floating in a rubber ring on the Med, the boat with its anchor dropped off the coast. It’s my earliest memory of life. Then the little seahorse I find in the sand, it’s been drying in the sun for days, a little dried out snake as well. I keep these little treasures on the boat for years.

In South Africa we take long walks along the seashore, my hungarian vizsla yelping and jumping as the thunderous waves crash at his dancing feet. I find exotic shells, dig for sand dollars, chase seagulls from their meal scavenge.

At University I surfed between classes. When I was upset or needed to think, I sat on a cliff overlooking Sands Beach. I would sit there until sunset watching the waves roll lazily into shore. It was comforting.

I love finding sand in the bottom of my purse, smile at the sound of the fog horn on overcast mornings, love my hair tangled with salt, can’t imagine living away from the sea. It’s part of me.

Miss Fix it

“You’re always looking to fix the next problem, why don’t you stop and appreciate what you have.”

I pick at the dry skin on my lip, staring at the instant messenger box. My foot is numb because I always fold it under and sit on it when I work.

And my head feels numb and my finger tips swollen and I my tongue missing and my heart heavy and I wonder when I’ll ever be content. The rain comes down in sheets and I wish it were 5pm.

He’s the one thing I don’t have to fix, it’s just me that always needs repair. My need for new, change, something to occupy time. Why are my lips so dry?

“Your visa came through, we should be rejoicing.” Yes but there are still things that need fixing, always fixing, where’s my lip balm?

It rains like in London and I wonder how I wake up and leave the house there every day. I want to keep my car and my comforts.

I have to fix those things.

And so he emailed over the following words of biblical wisdom:

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
26:55(my mum had this up in our downstairs loo when i was growing up )
27:57

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream–and not make dreams your master,
If you can think–and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
28:09

And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings–nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And–which is more–you’ll be a Man, my son!

I’ll break it first

I looked in the mirror, taking a final swig from a bottle of Sainsbury’s brand red wine. A gulp of courage as I wiped some stray mascara from under my eye. The Suitor and I were due to end our 9 month relationship in 10 minutes time. The time bomb couldn’t be defused. I put on my favorite trench coat from Anthropologie, checked my perfectly painted face again, gave my hair one more spritz of Boots hairspray and walked out the door.

I named the time. I named the place. Starbucks, Clapham Common. 7pm. He might be laying our relationship to rest but I was going to make the funeral arrangements.

There he sat, I made sure I was 10 minutes late, with a big mug of coffee, reading the Metro. I assumed he was reading the science section, he always read that bit first. I looked at him and felt numb, who was this man? But I smiled and sat down. We talked about the coffee, I know he hates it so why was he drinking it, and about how he had to study, always had to study. He said he thought I was probably upset about the text message last week. The text message where he told me I couldn’t come over. He said that he had needed time to himself. I said it was upsetting, that I could take a hint.
I paused….

I said “It’s not working is it?” Shaking my head. And he said no.
“I think we should break up,” he said.
I agree, “We’ve been trying to revive a dead horse huh?”
He responded with “Ya I guess.”
I told him lets not point figures, we’ve had some good times and its time to part ways. Cliches I know, but I couldn’t think of anything better.
Honestly I couldn’t bear to hear the reason why he would reject me. I smiled even though my eyes were a little misty.

He said he hoped we could remain in contact, he hoped things wouldn’t be awkward if we saw each other at a party. He was trying to ease his conscience. I assured him that they wouldn’t, but that it might take a few weeks.

I talked about the birthday party I was going to on Old Street. A lie because I wanted to look gorgeous when we broke up. I said he could come pick up his TV and VCR when he wanted. He said he was going to give it to charity anyway. We made a bit more small talk.
“Is this a bit awkward?” I asked.
“Yes it is” he said. The most honest thing he’s ever told me.
I said I should go anyway, I’m expected at the party. I smiled again and said I’d see him around. I hoped I wouldn’t, not for a while at least. And when I did see him, I’d be thinner and happier, and hanging on the arm of someone who I was genuinely in love with, and he would love me too.

I got up from the table, was everyone in Starbucks watching me? Out the door quickly.

I rounded the corner at Clapham Common tube station, just out of his sight. But instead of going into the station I walked on, past through the Common in the direction of home. I bit my lip and choked back the tears until I found a bench overlooking the grassy fields. Big tears, like the rains of Hawaii rolled down my cheeks and I stared blankly at the sunset. The light was exactly as Claude Monet depicted it in his painting of the houses of parliament. In the dusk of evening the sun glowed a rosy polluted pink. A swan and some ducks waddled past and beyond a football matched carried on despite the quickly diminishing light. The world cant be this beautiful when my life seems so ugly.

My janky mobile phone buzzed, my housemate, Emma. I tried again to hold back the tears as she talked about meeting up for the weekly pub quiz tomorrow.

Eventually I got up from the bench and continued walking slow like gum was stuck to the bottom of each shoe. Walked past men in suits just getting home from work in the city, past couples jogging, past the usual beggar by the ATM, feeling more horrifically alone than I ever had before.

I made it home, up the 2 flights of stairs, into my room, I collapsed to the floor and wept with my head in my hands.

Going back

there’s a valley by the sea where life moves slower than slow.

where carriages drawn by horses still ride down the dusty roads and cowboys tether their ponies outside the local saloon.

it’s a place where you make reservations for dinner when you pass the restaurant owner on your morning walk, where your mother’s best friend is your hairdresser and your hairdresser is your best friend’s mother.

it hasn’t changed since i was last here, it never really does. it’s my valley by the sea, it’s my home.

May you always be there

i wait til she’s distracted and dig my mini spoon into the melting cake batter ice cream because hers is better than mine, i always get the boring one, the sugar free vanilla graham cracker one that’s almost tolerable but not enjoyable. calories are the enemy but i still don’t loose much weight probably because i eat both my ice cream and hers.

we run home as the chill of the evening makes our arm hairs stand on end and pour big glasses of wine for ourselves and she makes phone calls because she likes people and i wrap my skirt around my barefeet to keep them warm.

when i get married she’ll be there and i’ll wear vintage lace and she’ll keep me sane and we’ll still pour big glasses of wine for ourselves and i’ll think back to when i first met her and she was wearing a fleece jacket and we bonded over Sex & the City.

Are you listening?

Sometimes I feel like I can’t breathe in London. Literally. All the pollution, the narrow streets, the crowds and cars and rubbish all clog up my lungs making it impossible to sigh.

We canceled our winter sun vacation and even though it’s for the best, I’m sad. I want to see sun and sand and feel sunburned and taste local food and step back and see life in perspective again.

He leans over and whispers in my ear “I like you in glasses” and I smile into his kind blue eyes and clutch his hand. We go to the movies in Croydon and I’m cheered up because we eat Mexican food at a big chain restaurant and see a movie in a massive cinema and I keep saying how at home I feel because it’s just like an American restaurant and an American cinema and it makes feel comfortable.

Maybe we can go down to Cornwall, and I could see the sea, and we could explore a new place together because that’s what I love best.

I miss sun dresses and flip flops and feeling healthy. That’s all I wanted for a week.

Intervene

“I’m sorry” I say through great choking tears. I’m sorry I’m being miserable. He guides me through the park with a big warm hand wrapped firmly around mine.

That’s why I love him, because he makes me want to be better.

“There’s just so much pressure this time” I tell him, “I don’t have another chance. If I mess this job up, I won’t get another one here in London, I’ll have to go back.”

Vivid Africa

Collecting caterpillars in jars and making mud soup in red buckets. We’d roll down the little hill in the garden and tease spiders with sticks.When Dinah, the maid, had her grandson visiting, I’d do puzzles with him in Dinah’s cottage, distracted by how her bed was on cinder blocks. It’s to keep the Tokolosh away my mom told me later.

When the African sun sunk a little lower in the sky, we’d walk down to the vegetable garden and check the tomatoes and cucumbers, then scale the garden fence for a walk in the greenbelt. The dogs, Rufus and Rusty, would run ahead of us to root out the guinea fowl and drink from the icy stream.

Sometimes for dinner dad would bring home mussels he picked from the rocks outside the flat on the beach, and mom would steam them and make a lemony sauce to go with.

I remember bowls of custard for dessert.

At night I’d ride my pink bike with the training wheels through the vast tiled expanse of the first floor of the house, careful for the stairs leading to the guest wing. Or I’d sit in my big toy chest and play with my dolls, blond hair and brown skin bobbing in and out of the vintage box.

I remember picking up the red telephone once and hearing a Zulu voice on the other line. It was a prank call and he asked my name and to give him a kiss. I never answered the phone again. I still don’t like to pick it up.

Beyond the thick wooden fence at the front of the house, the mammas clad in their work dresses with scarves on their heads would sit and socialize on the grass by the road. Dinah and her friends would click away at each other in the sun and we’d wave from our red Trooper on our way to Pick n Pay.

Mom and Dad were both retired and spent all their time on me. I’d fall asleep on dad’s chest in the Spanish hammock outside or swim in the pool with my mom. All three of us would sit on the bricks, under the grape vines, and eat cherries until it turned cold and table mountain disappeared in the dusk.

My childhood in Africa is still so vivid in my memory. A beautiful dream I wish I could give my children one day.

One Day

A grand sunny farmhouse in France would be nice. Big weathered beams exposed in the ceiling with white washed walls and a thick wood kitchen table.

“Where are the kids?”

“They’re playing in the vineyard” he’ll reply, and I’ll settle back into a chair with a big cup of coffee.

The doors and windows will all be open and kids and dogs will run in and out as they please. Big lunches in the warm garden and afternoon walks through open fields.

We’ll be happy because of each other, even the dogs will be smiling. Work won’t matter, it won’t even exist, just our little family and our big farmhouse in France.

Slip into the sea

I’d like to slip into dreams of sun and warm sea. The comfort of the mountains that roll into the coast and an azure skyline.

I don’t remember what it feels like to be pretty now, because the necessary narcissism doesn’t seem to exist in me anymore. I admire pretty girls like grandmothers do. They remind me of younger years.

I want to let my head slide under the water until the noise is muffled and the lights are dimmed and I can float like a mermaid with my hair extending out like silk sunny rays curling lightly around my shoulders.

Remember all the ambitions you had when you were little?

I want to bite into fresh mangoes and pineapple and dig my feet into warm sand and let my head slip under the warm water.

I’ve always been the nice and sensible girl. That’s it.

Duvet Day

I need my glasses to read the computer screen these days and I feel old because my glasses aren’t even cool and my work is spread around me on the bed, sick but I’m still on Messenger, talking to the office and feeling guilty for not sitting at my desk. I feel my hip bones jabbing into the laptop and I take it as an invitation to eat more today.

My boys at work are very sympathetic and tell me not to worry, to just lie in bed and get some sleep. I’m lucky to have them and I’m lucky to have my Scotsman who brings me home big boxes of tissues and lets me sputter into his shoulder.

From my bed I look out the window and envy the people walking along the wet sidewalk. I want to go out and enjoy a full day without crowds, without work. I feel useless sitting here so I fold his clothes and rearrange some furniture.

Big shirt

I pull his shirt up over my head, and drop it on the steamy bathroom floor. I wore it today as a dress with my waistcoat. Gingerly stepping into the bath I let it soak my bones because 30 minutes in the tub is such a luxury these days.

I walked up and down the road three times, sniffling and stepping in the big puddle each time and my toes are so cold and my leather flats soaked. He’ll be home to make me soup and give me sympathy soon.

I read celebrity news instead of doing work because in some ways I’m a starfucker. The pages stick together because I keep dipping the corners in the hot water. I told the hair dresser about how Tom Cruise was gay and how Britney shagged Ben. He probably thinks I’m a name dropper but that’s better than bombs, it’s probably why he screwed me on my hair color.

It’s breast cancer awareness month and I think about my mum on her way to Palm Springs. Her skin is so sensitive now, Mr. Haggis and I talked about being cuddled as kids and I burst into tears when I said my mom didn’t cuddle me as much after she got sick. I should be a better daughter.

Hairline crack

I hold the tea cup with both hands, examining the little crack like my heart. When I’m with him, the cup brims but a bit leaks through. It’s chilly so I wriggle into my toggled thick knit from the charity shop in Covent Garden.

When you live in a foreign place you find yourself groping for your own culture, something familiar that makes things easier. I cried because I wasn’t with my family for Rosh Hashanah. He went to Selfridges and bought me kosher foods and told me all about what he’d learned about my holiday. He makes me happy.

I shake my wrist to make my new bangles clatter and jangle. Retail therapy weighs heavily on my basic bank account. Sometimes it’s the only distraction. I put too much pressure on myself at work.

He has let me buy and watched me cry a lot over stupid things but it’s because of the little crack that family can repair. He cuddles me close and lets my mascara tears smear on his shirt. He lets me show off my new purchases.

My cup brims with a sweet combination of all things good: the man, the job, the house so I’ll have to learn to live in spite of the leak.

Bribe me

When I was little girl, the best part of the Jewish holidays, after the challah, was the dress.

My dad would treat me to a new dress so that I could look forward to showing it off at synagogue that night. It was the best bribery in the world.

This Rosh Hashanah, I went out on my lunch break to find myself a new dress, even though I would not be going to services that night. I came back to the office empty handed, missing my dad.

Cold September

Sometimes it’s quite lonely. Fighting for a seat on the tube, reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad while a little girl with a big handbag sits basically in my lap to avoid touching the sweaty man in front of her.

Walking to the station, brown leaves lie in big clumps signifying that summer never came and now never will. Fall coats and brollys instead.

The veins in the leaves remind me of the veins in his hand, I study when I hold it. I can see them in my own hands too, now that I’m pale.

I don’t think I’m in love with London the way that I once was. I used to have to love the city because I had no one else. Now I have him and I don’t need London the same way anymore. It’s just a familiar friend I struggle to make conversation with.

Golightly

Today we’re going to Windsor Castle. It’s Sunday before 8am and I’m lying in the sea of white with Roses chocolate wrappers nestled in the folds of the warm duvet.

Only football highlights on TV and I wish I had a Londonpaper so that I could read Guilty Pleasures celebrity dirt and the other girly columns.

Last night I watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s and ached to be Audry Hepburn, with clothes tailored perfectly to my lean body. Tempting it is to start talking in an effected British accent, perch a cigarette in dainty long fingers. I’m dying to go shopping but scared to spend money and then gain the weight back.

Saturday Already

Lying in a sea of white linens, I pick absent mindedly while watching the sunny walls, same color as Michaeltorena but without Elle’s laugh reverberating.

My plant is still alive and its little gold buds reach out like fireworks. If we settle long enough I want a big leafy palm. to put on the big, austere wall that currently props up my mirror and his golf clubs. Most of our things have found a home, our clothes sharing closet space, my candles next to his picture frames and enough floor space for a tango lesson.

I like the big windows, even if they do overlook the main road, and the sun is out today casting warm light on the red brick turrets on the opposite side. I like peering into peoples’ houses to gauge their design taste.

Painting over the imperfections in my finger nails seems like too much effort so I continue to pick while I contemplate a nap. Mr. Haggis let me buy the king sized white duvet and I love how it makes me feel tan even though I’m fading.