Felix Felicis

Some could say (and by some, I am referring to myself) that this trip was very long overdue and also important in some quite deep and, dare I say it, spiritual way that goes beyond just getting a break from the daily drudge of domesticity.
It also seems to have something to do with reconnecting with an essential part of myself that got left behind when Husband and I stepped on the plane to go to America six years ago with Five nestling, embryonic,within me. I think I might even be looking further back to find part of me that left the building when I made room for Husband who – dear though he is – takes up quite a lot of psychic space.

I don’t know if you ever notice this about your own life, but when I am not in tune with myself everything goes wrong and I am constantly tripping myself up or my plans are being thwarted. People seem awkward and unpleasant (not me, of course! the very suggestion!), nothing goes according to plan, I am frustrated and angry.  The car breaks down, the washing machine explodes,  the children have meltdowns in the supermarket, the cat throws up just as we are expecting guests, One develops a temperature on the day I have set aside to write, my iPod malfunctions, I lose my phone – you know the type of thing. And they all add up to making one feel hopeless and miserable because they sit on top of a general sense that life is not quite as one planned it, and the real action is happening elsewhere, just out of reach. There is a party going on in the world and everyone got invited except me. Or, in the case of my life in Stepford, the party was so fucking dire that I just couldn’t bear to go so I stayed at home and wrote my blog instead.

But when one shifts one’s perspective and reaches out to the Universe, it’s quite astonishing how swift the response is.

If you have been following this blog, you will know that a couple of weeks ago I decided, on a whim, to come to London in order to have my hair done and meet fellow bloggers Mrs. Trefusis, LibertyLondonGirl, BelgianWaffle and IndiaKnight for lunch. I do have some other reasons to be here, but mainly it was the sense of naughty glee I derived from booking a plane ticket and leaving my responsibilities in order to go on an impromptu trip for such a random reason that propelled me into action.

Interestingly there was a mixed reaction back in Stepford. Husband was supportive and urged me to go – he has been witnessing the slow descent of the caged wife-beast  - the rolling of the eyes and  frothing of the mouth followed by the hypnotic pacing back and forth in a fixed pattern and finally the disinterested slump in a corner without even a flicker towards chocolate. Some friends asked pointed questions about who would look after the children and also Husband,  as if he were not a 41 year old man, able to wipe his own bottom and patronise shops and restaurants. Others cheered me on and confided their own desire to reclaim themselves as independent people. A couple of misguided but well meaning people offered their own rather unworldly interpretations of my predicament and prescribed chrysanthemums, but I did not hold this against them.

The main thing was that I knew deep in my heart that I needed to go alone and be at home with my tribe on the soil of my birth and I would find here something I had been missing.

I last posted from the airport lounge at LAX, and since then the trip has revealed one extraordinary and serendipitous event after another. It has been as if I drank the Felix Felicis potion from the Harry Potter book and I am skipping along, completely happy and at ease and things just delightfully fall into place:

Leaving the lounge I wandered along to the gate feeling deliciously unencumbered. I stood slightly back from the crowd, waiting for them to call my seating row and idly looking at other passengers when my eye alighted on a man who was peering up at the departure board. He looked..familiar. It took me about five seconds to compute that not only did I know him but he was, in fact, my oldest friend, someone I have known since I was born, our mothers have been friends since birth and our grandparents were friends. I haven’t seen him for two years, even though he lives in LA due to busy lives, work, families etc. I ran over to him and we hugged, exclaimed, etc. It turned out that he was on my flight, in my row, and would be in London on his own at the same time as me and on the one night I was not busy he was going to the birthday party of a woman I also know and invited me to come along. Perfect! We chatted on the flight for a bit, both got some rest, exchanged numbers and I’ll see him and his brother who lives here on Saturday.

As the plane descended over London I saw my house from the window which gave me an unexpected emotional jolt, and as I waited for my baggage at Heathrow I had the strangest sensation that it would be entirely possible to walk out, get into my old car, drive home and find my cats (now dead) and go about my life as it was before I met Husband and had children. I drove to my aunt’s house in leafy Wandsworth and it was so sweet and familiar to be let in and see her and my uncle, sit in their kitchen drinking tea and eating heavily buttered brown toast and listen to the birdsong. She said to me that she also had a feeling that it was as if I had never left. So odd.

Later, I left the house and went off to take care of various errands like sort out a mobile phone and get some money, all of which proved to be astonishingly easy and hassle free, and made my way up to Chancery Lane to meet The Hair God. I was ecstatic to be walking around the city again and hopping off trains and tubes. I know that I would tire of this if I had to do it too often, but as I smelled the hot winds that mysteriously blow through the tunnels of the northern line,  I could remember as far back as aged two, clinging to my mother’s legs when the train came hurtling along the platform or running after my grandmother who would jump on to a carriage first and ask where it was going afterwards.
The sounds and smells of the underground are still the same as they ever were.

It is quite hard to believe how grotesque I looked when I walked in to Graham’s studio, and how fabulous I looked and felt when I left, but the man is an absolute genius and a total sweetie to boot.
I have rarely enjoyed a six hour visit to the hairdresser so much – didn’t have to look at a magazine once beyond establishing the right shade of blonde, we just chatted away and got on like a house on fire. He recommended a type of straightening tongs  GHD which come in dual voltage and said that I’d have to buy them at a salon. I’d probably just pass one. I thought, wistfully, that as I was leaving his place at 6.45pm I was unlikely to just ‘pass one’ on my way back to Wandsworth, but amazingly, as I walked past a little parade of shops in Clapham Junction, I did walk past a salon which was still open and had one in the window in a leopard print case.
I think that pretty much had my name on it, don’t you?

Ah, the synchronicity of it all.

So, only 12 hours on the ground and everything was pretty much perfect.

I’m off today to have lunch with the ladies and then for a fabulous evening with friends at Madam JoJo’s to see my old friend Jo King (aged 50!) perform a burlesque show. It just doesn’t get any better than this.

Will report back soon.

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