A country you can never visit

I've been thinking about the nature of regret. I think it's pretty clear that regret is most often about something that happened in the past. It could be something you did, or didn't do. It could be something someone else did or didn't do, that had an effect on you. It can be generalized or localized. But a key element of regret is its focus on the past.
Can we change the past? What effect does regret have on the past? Or, is regret really about the present, even though it seems to be focused on the past? Our feelings about the past are always happening now, after all.
We can never visit the past, not in a real sense. That is the nature of humanity. We live life in a linear fashion, ever moving forward. It is only our minds that visit the past. Our minds can do amazing things, using memory to relive, alter, glorify, condemn, excoriate, justify, exonerate...regret...
But it's all in our minds. We don't ever go back to the past in reality. What if we could? Would we be able to release regret if we could?
This weekend, I heard someone say, "The past is a country you can never visit." It was a timely reminder to bring myself to the present. Regret is a trick of the mind to try to visit the past. Staying in the present is a way of letting go of regret. It is a continual process, for some reason, because we, or at least I, tend to relive past moments.
What would it be like to never have any regrets? What would it be like to always live in the present? It's how I imagine heaven to be.....talk about a country you can never visit! :-)

I met Colin Firth!

We went to the Bedford Park Green Days Festival today, at Acton Green Common (10 minutes walk from our house). There were the usual craft booths, musical performances, food, games, and carnival rides.
DH and I were watching the kids on the bumper car rides, when I noticed Colin Firth standing ten feet away from me! He was waiting for his boy on another ride. He was just standing there by himself, just a regular fellow. He was so unassuming that at first I couldn't believe it was him!
Now, I knew when I moved here that he lives in this neighborhood. It was my most fervent wish that one day I would chance to see him around town. I imagined him, dashing and debonair, striding down the street, perhaps with a small entourage. And I would catch a quick glimpse of his wonderful self, but wouldn't dream of actually approaching him, or being able to for that matter!
So, here he was, just a dad out with his kid. He looked older and considerably less polished than his Hollywood persona, but the calm intensity in his manner was still there.
I looked his way a few times, but didn't want to stare, so I pretended to be looking at the ride. Then he walked away to another ride. I told DH that I had seen Colin Firth, and wasn't that wonderful? When the kids came off their ride, we walked down the path in the same direction.
Suddenly, there he was, and DH stopped, and said to him, "Excuse me, would you please say hello to my wife, and shake her hand?" Colin Firth was, in true British fashion, calm and expressionless. He stuck his hand out, said "Hello." And I took his hand, and it was...dry...and a bit cold and rough. Not what I expected! I managed to say "Nice to see you," and gave his hand a quick squeeze before turning away.
It happened so very quickly, and I was so amazed that DH did that for me! I would never have done it. But now I can die a happy woman because I have touched Colin Firth, one of my favorite actors.
I never thought of myself as star struck. But it was thrilling.
As we left the area, he was there, watching his boy on the bumper cars.

Glub, glub

I'm moving from the "fish out of water" phase, into the "sink or swim" phase. I knew this would be a big adjustment, but the reality is more....real....than the imagining of it.
There are physical, emotional, mental and spiritual challenges each and every day. And each one of these vies for my attention, often at the same time. And that's just me. Then there are the three others I live with.
It's enough to keep me busy, that's for sure. I wonder sometimes how I get as much done as I do. Yet it never seems like enough.
Most of all, it never seems like enough fun is in my life. That's a comment, not a complaint. I'm sure once I get the house settled and unpacked, and we have been here a while longer, that more fun will come. I hope. Until then: glub, glub.

You say pommes de terre, I say potato

Part of the process of assimilation into a new culture is comparing it to the culture you have just left behind. Differences and similarities abound, to be sure. The similarities tend to be comforting. But they are always closely followed by the disparities. For example, there are many, many American shows on our telly. There are quite a few American shows that I never even watched in the US! Be that as it may, when I am watching an American show, I tend to be lulled by the familiarity of it, in particular by the American accents and words. Suddenly, a commercial (er, advert) comes on, and blasts me back to reality. Generally, I can understand what is said, although not always. Again, the accents are clearly different. And, usually, the products are, too.
Maybe that discrepancy will always be apparent. Maybe in time, I won't even notice such things. After all, there are plenty of American accents in the adverts, and plenty of British actors on American shows.
It's like when I am walking down the street here. Just in my neighborhood, when I pass people who are conversing, easily half the time they are not speaking English of any kind! Most often, I hear French or German.
All of this reminds me, throughout the day, that I am in a foreign country. And I am guest here. I wonder when I will feel at home here? When I stop comparing?

Stuff and Nonsense

I'd spent the last several weeks, our first days in London, living with only what I'd packed into a suitcase. We have had little else but the bare household necessities that were rented for us via the relocation package. It's been one step above camping.
The air shipment, of about 12 cartons of our belongings, was supposed to have been delivered in 1 to 2 weeks of its leaving our home. The ash cloud, after delaying our own arrival, also delayed the shipment of our things. Three weeks after we left our US home, our boxes arrived on our doorstep.
I had been eagerly anticipating their delivery. I was not really sure, or maybe only sure in a general sense, of what was in the boxes. The craziness of those final days left my brain in such a bewildered state. I tried to stay focused and organized, tried to think ahead to what we might truly need and want after the first week or two. How did I think that I'd want 5 kitchen towels but no oven mitts? Or a six month's supply of toothpaste and Advil, but not a trash can? Or all the hanging clothes in my closet, but not one of daughter's stuffed animals?
Truthfully, I did spend a great deal of time in those expectant days before the boxes came, thinking about "stuff." I thought about its meaning and importance. I thought about its relative unimportance, actually, when compared with, say, our health or happiness. Do we really, truly need all this stuff, in order to be happy? I am telling myself that, no, we don't need any of it. But the truth remains, we want it. It was incredibly comforting to unpack my cooking utensils, the familiar old forks and knives,my yoga mat, the duster, my sneakers (sorry, trainers), even the toilet plunger! I obviously thought that was vital!!
I could live another long time without any of it. But in these days of newness, when everything is strange and unfamiliar, it is nice to see these little bits of home.
Now I can turn my attention to the next big event: the sea shipment. More STUFF. Remind me of this when I am wondering where I am going to put all of it.

Home Thoughts from Abroad

Home Thoughts from Abroad

Oh, to be in England
Now that April's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England - now!

And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops - at the bent spray's edge -
That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower
- Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

~ Robert Browning

I thought this was a fitting title for my first post in my new home. Apparently, Browning was feeling nostalgic for his homeland when he wrote this. I think he lived in Italy after his wife died.
Now, here I am, on the last day of April, living in England. I'm sure I must have lived here in another life. Even though it is strange and different, it also feels familiar somehow. As I walk down the street, tiny pink and white petals are shaken from the trees by the breeze, and it looks like it is snowing flowers. Absolutely poetic. It feels like I am in a dream, but I am awake.

Olden days

One nice thing about aging is that you don't have to lose all the other ages you have been. Each new era or phase in your life brings its own challenges and rewards. You can always retain your younger selves, in the form of memories, experience, life lessons learned or yet to be learned.
The outer shell, your body, of course, will inevitably show the signs of wear and tear. Taking care of your body is essential. But accepting the aging of the shell is just as important. To deny that is to deny an authentic part of who you are at any given point in your life!