Predictability

So I go and see a film of a book of a blog of a book, about women finding their loves of words and men and food... a brilliantly written screenplay to boot... and come home inspired to write.

"I am a writer" says Amy Adams/Julie at the end of the film.

I feel like I've wasted this year, in terms of writing. Yes I've done bits - a few things for magazines and studies, but I've lost the art of just putting my thoughts into words. And, when I go back and read old blogs - as I did when I opened the laptop this evening - I realise that I AM good at it.

I am a writer.

I need to throw off the fear. Throw off the procrastination. Throw of the inertial caused by the many and heavy stresses life seems to throw me, and write.

So I promise myself. This blog will live. The other, my older and more public one, may morph a little, but this will be my home. And on it will grow my words.

New Year

So one of the main byproducts of moving to a foreign land was the complete desertion of my muse.  It just upped and left without so much as a by or leave.  Rude, frankly.

Well the new year has seen it creeping back slowly.  My heart seems to be less restless and my mind waking me with thoughts of writing.

Who knows... this blog might yet become something worthwhile.

Here/One Month In

Today marks the one month mark since I arrived in the USA. All my good intentions of blogging daily in the run up to leaving, and in my first days here went the way of all things.

But here I am in my new home, in my new city. And it's good. And it's strange. It's what I thought it would be, but also totally different... if that makes any sense. Maybe I didn't know what to expect.

I am now determined to be a good blogger. I'm feeling the absence of my time spent with my therapist, safely back in the Old Country, and the ability to spend a block of time concentrating on how I'm feeling. Here's a just a couple of the things that have made me think 'I want to blog this' over the last few weeks.

12 days in, I had left my first visitor at the airport after her wonderful stay. I was driving away from the airport in the muggy dark of early morning, when it hit me: I live here. It's not me who leaves anymore, it's other people. I was overcome with emotion and cried all the way back to town.

The house I'm living in is at the top of a hill. The area is wonderfully green, covered with tall, beautiful trees. Below us, on one of the main street out of the city, is a large commercial bakery. As I walk up to my back door (pictured above) I am wooed by the smell of freshly made bread. And as I lie in bed, or sit at my desk I can hear the mournful sound of the trains that trundle through the city with their heavy freight. It's an achingly beautiful sound that fills me with joy and longing in equal measure.

As Tears Roll By

The crying part of leaving has started.

To be honest I'm surprised that it took this long to really kick in, but it's now here in full effect and I don't think it's in any danger of going away for these last 17 days.

As I say, though, it took a while to come. There's been a few goodbyes at work with people going on holiday and missing my final days, and on Friday I took the opportunity of a quiet moment to clear out my desk. Not a tear shed.

Saturday afternoon I also said goodbye to one of the teams I've been working with for the last couple of years, and nary shed a drop. On Saturday night my two best friends from university came to stay. We went out for dinner and then danced into the wee-small hours, followed by a chilled morning of brunch and watching (bizarrely) High School Musical. When they said goodbye there was a sniff and a small tear, but nothing major...

Then last night at dinner mum finally crumbled. Having prided herself on keeping it all in for months, she was cross at being the first one to crack, but crack she did and she took me with her.

With the tears have come some real revelations. I know that in trying not to be in a state of grief for the entire last three months I've actively suppressed any big 'leaving' feelings for a long time. Just last week I described feeling somewhat numb - like I'd stepped into the boat along time ago and was now simply along for the ride - but now every sinew has woken up and joined the chorus - I'm really really going to miss my family.

This is something I've had to explain to mum. I'm not choosing to leave them - I'd take them all with me if I could - but in the same way as mum knows she can't choose my life, I can't choose theirs. I see that life is easier if your family is near - particularly for those with children. I see what I'm going to miss living apart from them, and not even a long drive away, an ocean away. It's a big big thing.

I also realise that, as much as I've wanted to move to my new city for a long time, I know now for certain that if it were not for my love I wouldn't have the strength to leave my family.

Singing My Heart

If you're the type to get icky with the slushy love stuff, then look away now.

This afternoon, listening through to some new CDs I discovered a song that sang my heart to me in a way that had me almost instantly in tears.

Randy Newman, songwriter extraordinaire, has a new album of wonderfully bluesy songs... but at the very end, he's slipped on his own version of an unabashedly slushy love song he wrote for a movie, and that was originally sung by a lovely Canadian called Chantal.

It took me out. Maybe more-so because of his half singing/half speaking style (which at times reminds me of Kermit the Frog, but somehow still works) seems to add weight to it. Anyway. Here it is: My heart in lyric form.

There's something in your eyes
Makes me want to lose myself
Makes me want to lose myself
In your arms

There's something in your voice
Makes my heart beat fast
Hope this feeling lasts
The rest of my life

If you knew how lonely my life has been
And how low I've felt for so long
If you knew how I wanted someone
To come along
And change my world the way you've done

Feels like home to me
Feels like home to me
Feels like I'm all the way back where I come from
Feels like home to me
Feels like home to me
Feels like I'm all the way back where I belong

A window breaks
Down a long, dark street
And a siren wails in the night
But that's alright, 'cause I have you here with me
And I can almost see
Through the dark there's a light

If you knew
How much this moment
Means to me
And how long I've waited for your touch
If you knew
How happy you are making me
I never thought I'd love anyone so much

Feels like home to me
Feels like home to me
Feels like I'm all the way back where I come from
Feels like home to me
Feels like home to me
Feels like I'm all the way back where I belong
Feels like I'm all the way back where I belong

To Do

23 days from today I'll have said my goodbyes and be waiting to board. Today this doesn't fill me with excitement, but with the kind of fear that freezes me into a little tub of pure procrastination.

Whilst I know that doing even one of the things that's nagging in my mind would totally knock the fear on its ass, I sit here and blog; check emails; drink coffee; think about watching an episode of Heroes; and pretend that it might just go away.

Maybe I should make a list... that always whiles away the hours.

• Check I have travel insurance that covers me for health till December
• Pack the boxes
• Find out if any of my US friends coming over soon can take anything back for me
• Transfer household bills into Sis's name
• Cancel standing orders/direct debits etc
  
• Invoice magazines I've been writing for for nearly a year and who have yet to pay me
• Make appointment with financial fella

You know what, I could actually do most of that today. In fact... I think I will. After I've had a really good look at Facebook.

one step closer, getting brighter

When I first made the decision to move to another city in another country it was about change and community in almost equal measure.

I've needed change for a while, felt in a constant holding pattern with work, life, and in the absence of love. With the aspect of community, while I have some incredible friends here in London, my new city has had a strange feeling of home for a long time. The people there are my people and in their company I somehow become... more.

In recent months there's been another reason to feel it my home, in that my love and I found each other - and he is there. To call it a burgeoning romance would be only partly true in that it feels more like an explosion. The outcomes are sometimes similar too, in that is has been far from easy, but these are stories for other times. Today I post this, a home made video that a nice stranger on YouTube made for this song, which my love sent me this morning.

He marked the email "a song for the 4 weeks":

Wandering through starry skies
And when tomorrow's day arrives
I'll be a morning closer to the
Brightest hour here with you