Life in a Northern Town

It's 10am on Monday morning and I am sitting on the 16th floor of the Hilton Hotel in Marylebone looking outside through the enormous rain dropped window beside my desk at the London landscape - the London Eye and Towers of Westminster are very close - over there sits the Financial District and their own glass version of the Big Pineapple, the neat rows of red and brown houses and apartments lined up through Kensington and Knightsbridge meeting a nice little tree lined gap in the shape of Hyde Park, queues of red double decker buses fill the grey wet streets with colour as the city lights gradually fade in anticipation of dappled sunlight filtering through the dripping heavy clouds.

Missing the boys associating the sights with memories of our time here together yet revelling in the freedom to sit here and postulate on the past few days, I chuckle to myself about the wow factor in spending time here in London. I've always held quite a fantasy that life here would be more exciting, interesting and fabulous than a life spent in Brisbane.

North of the Equator, my ordinary everyday life when not madly scrambling to fit in as much site seeing as possible, is the same as my ordinary everyday life South of the Equator. The colder climate has just as many benefits for my physiology as the stinking heat. Grey skies, late sunrise early sunset, the added 5 minutes to grab cap coat scarf brolly and gloves seriously isnt more time consuming than grabbing insect repellent, Raybans and the obligatory slip slop slapping!

I considered that my life away from my children would be vastly different from suburban life as a working mother running a household - it's not. I'm still doing the same stuff - sleeping, dining out, catching up with friends, working and writing.

Yet life in this northern town (north of Brisbane that is) I do feel intrinsically better. The time and space, discovery, adventure, joy and wonder that a vacation (where you vacate from your life) provides truly has great benefits. Jetlag, distance from loved ones, financial expense, adaptation to new physical environments, currency conversion, adjustment to cultural and language diversity, job replacement and business proxy do balance these benefits however these are evident in everyday life anyway - we are simply acclimatised to their present forms. I wonder how much more I could experience life if I lived it as a tourist when I returned home?

I left Brisbane exhausted, stressed out, in pain, in fear, in resentment, in sadness and in silent resignation that my life was all about work without fun and joy. I figured that it was the PLACE and the CIRCUMSTANCE and the PEOPLE that clogged my arteries and affected my experience.

It was merely my perception - nothing and no one else had anything to do with it. I created all those feelings myself - my life - just as it is - wherever it is - is perfect. It's always going to include all the major archetypical characters - plot lines worthy of any Greek Myth - ups and downs - the yes and the no - the OMG and the Oh Shit - thats the beauty of it.

So I've sat around in my PJs long enough today. I'll do some work, take a bath, go outside as the sun is now beginning to shine, visit Notting Hill and Westminster Abbey, meet some friends, dine in a new restaurant, walk down Edgeware Road and inhale the sweet smell of the hookah pipes featured in the several middle eastern cafes edging the road and live my life in wonder regardless of where I am and who I share each moment with.

I may as well be in Brisbane. And when I return, I may as well be in London. :-)