Today I was reminded of that rare moment when you feel free, sophisticated and beautiful somewhere, in a foreign country, and then just with one cutting statement, your insecurities rise to the surface and you realise that you do not belong completely, and that people see you as different. You can choose to embrace this and work it and re-assert your confidence and power or, fall into the shame of your insecurity.
When you put down roots in a city, it is like beginning a love affair. It’s deep, raw and messy, it’s troublesome and fulfilling. You lose yourself in it. You become it. It compliments you. It blesses you with a lifetime of memories to savour. It envelopes you with familiarity. It awakens that giddy desire to love and be loved.
And if you decide to move on before you end your love affair, you will have to deal with a broken heart and a rebound new-city relationship.
You will need closure, or you will keep running back, yearning, wondering what could have been.
I haven’t had closure on my old city yet. And I’m feeling compelled not to reveal the name of this city quite yet. Here are my top memories:
- Sunrises – I haven’t had a repetition in any other city, of that feeling of exhilaration and liberation of a new dawn, as if the entire place is celebrating this moment: the consistency of clear blue skies, the freshness of healthy morning air, the bird song, children’s voices and a sense of pure ecstasy to begin a new day.
- Sunsets – when everyone’s energy drops a few levels, signalling the end of another special period of time, drawing your efforts to a close, resting you for your second breath which usually happens a few hours later after sundowner drinks
- The way Jasmine perfumes the air at the start of spring and the summer nights that smell of the crispness of trees in blossom
- Vast open spaces
- Time – standing still, I think this has something to do with the lack of crowds and fresher air than you would expect in big cities
- That moment on an early Sunday morning when the entire city sleeps in late, and you’re driving home from the night before, and everything is calm and the sun cocoons you and you feel as if this natural beauty belongs entirely to you
- The kindness of strangers, which hints at the caring and protective nature, of the humanity at the core of this great nation
- The unique pulsating heartbeat of this metropolis energy – constantly spontaneous and consuming. It flows like urban lifeblood to connect and em-passion you
- The skyline vistas from the hilltops
- The raw, pure, dark, warm, electrifying, comforting, tangible and intangible memories of life, intensified
Ten Random Things 