The 28 July 2007 represents a turning point of my life as I decide to move beyond the Channel to start my Life and learn to become an island, just to use an expression that my uncle from Perth (Australia) told me several times. The first place I lived was in a wonderful flat in London Bridge; this is an area in the South-East I came across with more than once because of my work and also because my Master course at the LCC is nearby, might these be events karmically related?
It took me a while to get used to the British/English manners, more formal when asking, stating or assuming concepts. I can still recall an episode as bartender in a Borough High Street Café when a customer reckoned I was quite impolite by replying “You may wish to be more polite sir!”, after I told him with my Italian/Aussie accent: “You still got some froth on your mouth mate! “ Well…what could I say then? I was too cheecky for him..
We live in such big and dispersive city, at the same time so little to a point where you are able to meet people or friends you had not been in touch with for ages!! One day for example, during an office-break stroll in Borough High Street I heard a voice calling me and had just realized surprisingly that he was an old fellow I had met during the high school; furthermore our respective fathers used to play in a music band in the 60s…since that day we met a strong friendship was born and never ended.
If it is true that time and space are relative principles, this concept may apply much more for this City whereas everybody is so concentrated on their own careers, academic paths, working deadlines that it is not possible realizing the flown of time until you slow down for a moment and think: “I have been living here for three years and it seems yesterday when I first came!”; when this stage comes you may get panic and decide whether it is time to rack off or stay, but honestly this is not an easy place to live all your life, raise a family and enjoy your superannuation (if you get it) and your basic state pension.
Here is London, a tremendously glamorous city where you can enjoy your life without having the actual time to contemplate about it, meeting new persons all the times with the awareness that one day they will leave, a place where people say to you “How are you today?” just for the sake of doing it, or (for some people at least) where you may extremely want to enjoy the sense of freedom as an expedient to postpone the time you will wonder who you are, what you want and where you are going to.
