I’ve been rather remiss on posting on this site. I mean, angst is more gripping, a confrontation or a massive misjudgement with consequences simply makes a better story than the rather contented phase I’ve been going through. 

The only thing I can come up with is the reaction from the older, French, agitated man in a red silk bathrobe after I inadvertently rang his doorbell at 4:30 one sunny afternoon. I had mistaken his place on the busy St. Denis road in Montreal for the edgy tattoo parlour where I hoped to get my navel piercing swapped out (see post from later March if this is news). I mean, okay, the sign was obvious when, looking in disbelief at me and his finger shaking in rage, he pointed it out to me. And perhaps I was interrupting something but if so, why answer the door?

Two famous residents of Montreal - one no longer with us, the other very much alive.

In my view, life is like a four-legged stool, with a leg each for health, wealth, community and purpose. Post-pandemic, my stool was a little wobbly, and I wanted to work on purpose and community, my what and where. Then a few weeks ago, after months of pressuring myself to choose my future base, I realised that the “what” is more relevant than the “where”. After all, if What I am doing is fulfilling, then the Where is really not terribly important, whereas if the What is absent, there is no way that the Where is going to be able to fill that hole. 

I’d been training my binoculars on the wrong thing.

Speaking of binoculars, I used a less-magnifying mirror to put on some mascara the other day and guess what? It was so much easier as I wasn’t trying to fine-tune each individual lash. I treated the row of eyelashes as one entity. There’s a metaphor in there – I should not get too stuck into the minutiae of life but be more receptive and curious to a wide range of things. 

So how will I feel as I head back to London this weekend for a couple of months, my gig as a wedding celebrant now less than two weeks away? To continue with the theme: I am quite content with my Who and my Why, and am now interested to see how the neighbourhood feels. Will it settle around me like a well-loved sweater? Or will it feel like an old school blazer – slightly itchy, tight around the shoulders because I’ve grown, and too redolent of the past?

I’ll keep you posted.