Since we moved into a house I’ve been feeling uneasy about
the town that we moved to. Is it because it’s the town I grew up in: The place
I escaped from when I headed off as an adventurous 18 year old, into the world?
It’s partly because it is a town. I’ve come from an idyllic little village
where the school-run was a short walk up a country lane that had wild flowers
tumbling from the banks either side of us, as the girls raced past on their
scooters.
Is it because there are no familiar faces? The school gate mums, the
kind headmistress, the school secretary who lives opposite the school and knows
all the parents by our first names? What about my friends? After school there
would be coffee at the kitchen table with Feisty German Mum, or gin and tonic
in the garden with Internet Tycoon Dad; while our daughters leapt about on the
trampoline. I miss the evenings soaked in red wine with Jenny From the Lock;
relaxing on her candle-lit boat while her cats commandeered half the sofa and
eyed me suspiciously.
This morning I took the girls up the road to the childcare
centre. This little corner of this little town is not unlike a village. The
main street is lined with old cottages and glimpses of woodland and fields are
visible in the gaps between the houses. We’re on the very edge of town, the sun shines
onto an uneven cobbled pavement and the church bells are chiming nine o’clock.
After I had dropped the girls off I realised what I was
afraid of. The house doesn’t move. It seems obvious, but it has been a subconscious
fear. What if I don’t like it here? I cannot untie my ropes, I can’t just move
up the Cut. The view from the window will always be the same. What if I’ve made
the wrong decision and need to change or move?
But this decision is not a final choice. It’s an experiment.
“A bigger-picture perspective helps here. Experiments might
take months, or a year. That’s a tiny amount of time in the space of a
lifetime, and those bigger experiments are worth learning about.”
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