I cannot return to my home on Hammersmith Terrace until early May next year, so this is a half-time report as I wrap up my recent stay in the UK.

Flying into Toronto last evening felt apocalyptic with the setting sun creating a swirling orange glow out the plane's right hand windows, while on the left, the distinct skyline was masked by smoky fog from the widespread forest fires that were already raging when I left seven weeks ago.

Morning view from my mother's balcony. There's a lake in the distance...?

The fires break my heart a little, as do all the extreme weather events that are happening around the globe. Justine is in Rome as I write, where at least the old churches she loves will still be cool(ish).

Always I feel a fierce pride when flying back to Canada, knowing there are vast tracts of forest and lake and rock below. Such space! Such wilderness! There are those that get overwhelmed at this enormity of unpeopled land but it makes my soul sing.

And yet, and yet, I will return to live in the UK next spring. Threads of curiosity have been pulled, there are paths still unexplored, and I am excited at this conclusion, although I loved my time in Montreal. If I do return to Canada, and never say never but could the wildfires please be brought under control first, Montreal is where I would live. But for now, I have unfinished business in London.

In 1927, Gandhi wrote a letter to a British woman who had become like a daughter to him. Or perhaps more like an intimate assistant as she helped him with his teachings, prepared his food and monitored his bowel movements. He always recorded this basic function, seeing it as an accurate way of measuring the health of his whole body. How ahead of his time he was, as more and more people today learn about the role the gut plays in our well-being, from the nervous system and our propensity to obesity, to how well we sleep and any immune system modulation.

In the letter, he wrote, "... the pendulum has swung back and you are again perturbed. This does not surprise me. If our lucid moments were lasting, nothing further will remain to be done (my italics). Unfortunately or fortunately, we have to pass through many an ebb and flow before we settle down to real peace." 

I find this a positive presentation of the ups and downs of life, different from the Catholic or Protestant attitude that 90% of life and work is drudgery and it's best to just get on with it. Gandhi suggests a more gentle undulation of thoughts and ideas, sprinkled with realisations, regrets to learn from and joy in the small things, the connections, our engagements.

Self-awareness creates a more growth-fueled attitude, and I have gained that in spades over the past eleven months of travel. The sidebar in my blog starts with, "I can't be the woman I was in 2019 no matter how hard I try...," and it's true. Like the 'Ship of Theseus Paradox' that questions whether a ship that has had each of its ageing wooden planks replaced as it crosses a body of water is the same ship upon arrival as it was when it left, I am not the same person I was when I began my travels last August. Not only have many of the very cells of my body changed (and even more so if I compare my physiological make-up to what it was in 2019) but my mind, my outlook, my achievements and my relationships have also shifted.

"Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they're finished," says psychologist Dan Gilbert.

I am not the person I was a year ago. When I set up this blog, the pandemic had undermined my confidence and those post-divorce struggles had reared their existential heads. But I'm glad they did, as it made me kick myself out of my comfortable nest. I challenged myself, and I see this resulting shift as an achievement, something to be celebrated.

But not yet. This is only a half-time report.

My next few months, after a spell at my cottage on an island, in a lake, in a patch of hopefully unburned wilderness of Ontario, will be much more peripatetic than this past year. Not that I didn't travel then - I managed to get around Québec, the US, Costa Rica and Mexico - but that was an experiment in creating community, exploring possibilities of stability. Focusing perhaps too hard on my where.

In mid-September I fly on a one-way ticket to Europe and begin a period of wandering, of testing my ability to leave things unplanned, of turning up at a train station and choosing a journey at random. It's definitely out of my comfort zone. So to ease into it, I'll start with an (organised) Camino from Porto to Santiago de Compostela. Two weeks of pilgrimage along the Portuguese coast, walking on average 20 kms each day, with five women I met at my Baja workshop last March. What a life-shifting week that turned out to be.

Here's a photo that I rather like from the wedding 💜

P.S. The top photo in the blog below is not of dried branches sticking out of long grass but rather the antlers of the roe deer that roam Richmond Park. Clicking on the picture will enlarge it. 

I have half a dozen drafts of blog posts scattered across my desktop. Perhaps I want to create too neat of a package, my experiences and feelings all laid out in an interesting narrative with funny anecdotes and a satisfactory ending. An ending that explains how this year of discovery will end.

How ridiculous is that? And what kind of pressure am I putting on myself? 

I don’t have any conclusions, I’m just having fun.

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I have to say that it’s easy being back here in the UK. I’m not staying in my beautiful home on the river – that has lovely tenants in it paying a hefty rent which funds this year of exploration - but nearby, in the guest room of an amazing artist friend who is mostly away settling into an historic flat she’s bought that overlooks the sea. 

I love the more permissive libertarian culture here – dogs are well-behaved and off-lead, people park their cars in either direction, you can ride a bike through the greens and along the riverside, drink in parks and outside the pubs. It’s almost expected you’ll jay-walk. 

I have enjoyed a full and fabulous social schedule which is only calming down now, exactly a month since my arrival back on these shores. My novelty factor is likely wearing off, plus it’s summer so people go away. I’ve seen films and shared coffees, enjoyed dinners both out and at friends’ houses, I’ve been to yoga classes, cathedrals, museums and medical appointments, as well as the more mundane meetings with the various tax and financial people necessary to keep my world turning.

Reconnecting with my friends has been soul-warming. Many of them are not English, unsurprising for London, and I find them intelligent, mildly eccentric, and fun.

Being out every evening is the extreme opposite to my life in Montreal, where I had much more time for reading and writing. This doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy Montreal. In fact, I loved it, but likely I wouldn’t have the awareness I have now without that time for introspection and consideration. Maybe that’s why I’m so enjoying the connection I have with people here, and understand better how the concentric circles of friendships work together rather than in competition. Absence and awareness create growth. 

To resolve my analogy from a few posts ago, it’s been a comfortable sweater rather than an outgrown blazer.

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Every weekend I’ve been somewhere. That curiosity that I developed over the last ten months is better established, and it’s enjoyable to apply this growth mindset to my home turf. Somehow it feels more robust. Like finding hidden drawers in old pieces of furniture that have sat in the corner of the room for years. This exploration feel quite personal, with less uncertainty and more satisfaction.

I’ve been west (Wiltshire to the wedding), east (Ramsgate), south (Brighton) and north twice (first to the Midlands to spend a weekend with my cousin, and then farther north to Yorkshire to hike on my own and with Justine). The highlight has been the public footpaths that crisscross England. I explored some in the Yorkshire Dales: two decent hikes on my own, then a long 20-km one with Justine. We weaved through sheep-filled fields, over stiles of stone or wood, walked on stepping stones across becks, and followed almost unseeable paths through ferns growing at chin height. It was glorious. If we’d attempted anything like this in the US we would have been shot at dozens of times as we skirted farm buildings, crossed people’s driveways and even went through the back garden of one house. 

I was so happy that I started to whistle, only to find I couldn’t. I kept trying for ages while Justine continued to show me how well she could do it. Perhaps she hoped her expertise would jump start my ability, likely she was just showing off. Weirdly, once back in London I could whistle just fine, although my cheeks get tired. 

My time in Yorkshire was a reminder of how important nature is to me. I need solitude. I crave green fields, trees and space. I hadn’t realised how edgy so much urban time had made me until I wandered out amongst the sheep and felt such joy sweep over me. Just as I had done in Santa Ana back in the winter months, I spun in a circle, arms outstretched, not wanting to be anywhere else, content in myself.

This happiness that I feel in both urban and rural or wild settings make me realise that I am quite at ease being nomadic. Perhaps kicking myself out of my nest, out of my comfort zone, to figure out where my home was, taught me that home is sometimes a concept and not a place. And maybe I will always be on a quest, albeit one without a grail, holy or otherwise. Life isn’t a matter of finding answers but asking the right questions. 

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I stood halfway across a bridge in central London one recent evening. The sun had set although the sky was still glowing in the west, and I stared downriver, towards London Bridge, St. Paul’s Cathedral and the crazy hodgepodge of oddly-named buildings like the Shard and the Cheese-grater and the Gherkin. It felt timeless and sobering. A reminder that we are here for only a blink of time, and that life will continue much the same once we are gone, with throngs of tourists taking selfies, the homeless begging for change. A man stares at his phone as he walks, his leather shoes pointy and worn, there is the chatter of young women heading to their trains after post-work drinks, a couple next to me embrace unselfconsciously. The very stones of this city have experienced the passage of generations.

That feeling reminds me of words written in a post-wedding email I received recently. “The faded patches of grass where the marquee once stood.” There’s a poignancy to that image. Sadness that such a beautiful event, the culmination of months of work, a well-enjoyed celebration and a milestone in the timeline of the bride and groom, is over and relegated to memories now. Yet to have lived and enjoyed such a momentous occasion – one would never wish that away. The grass may be faded, time may be passing, but oh, how glorious it was!

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