Life is starting to make sense again. I feel creativity flowing, and for the first time, settled. I never ever thought I could be happy living in a suburb in a house. This single thought used to haunt my sleep in my late teens and early twenties – made me feel squeemish, trapped, and like life would be ended if this were to happen. I thought that city folk were the most cavalier and sophisticated. Now, I’m wondering if country folk were the ones that had it right after all – a simple life filled with friends, land, family and lots of love. Perhaps the suburbians are half way closer to country folk.
I’m starting to feel that happiness and simplicity I felt in 1990 when Courtney, Lindsey, Amanda and I would bake cakes for the elderly on their birthdays, and cart it to the nursing homes with our wheel barrel and their dog Rosie at our feet; we’d go back home and play chinese jump rope til the sun went down over Piccadilly Road; and then we’d teach each other dances to the tune of New Kids on the Block and Paula Abdul to show our parents on New Year’s Eve under our Spice pseudonyms. We were the first Spice Girls with names like Cinnamon, Sugar Baby, Pepper, and Ginger, only our group name was the Flamoochies. In hind sight, perhaps The Spice Girls would have been better suited. Who knew we were so ahead of our time?
I woke up this morning with the Los Angeles sun only a finite memory, and England clouds my new best friend. There is something that becomes so clear when clouds are on the horizon, just breaking the sun splashes up with the smell of rain. When the sun is always imminent, you have the thought that there’s always tomorrow and why do what you said you were going to do today when you could do it the next day? When there are clouds following your every step, it keeps you on your toes that you never know when you will see the next ray of sunlight and have to appreciate what you have today. At least this is how I feel right now. Someone said this weekend – Happiness is not having what you want, but wanting what you have – this makes so much sense because I feel like I can finally understand.
We went to the quintessential English wedding this weekend. It was in a castle – the Clearwell Castle to be exact. It was in the country side, and yes, women wore big unseemly hats. It had been raining all week, but luckily she got the one day where the sun shown all day. I even got little rosy cheeks! There is something being in the country that just makes me alive. The air was so fresh and crisp. Every wedding after this will be spoiled because of my very first English wedding in a castle. It’s the stuff American little girls dreams are made of!
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