Dear New York,
One of the things you may have noticed about living in a big city, is that when things get busy, they can seem to get very very busy.
Even though the number of tasks you need to do isn’t any more, or the time you have any less, just the simple fact of the environment around you can have a profound effect on the mental space you find yourself in.
You may not have noticed it yet, as you have not only just moved to a new country (stressful enough in itself) but are also planning your wedding to happen imminently, and I am guessing you have not had the time to sit down and reflect on the nature of stress and the effect the big city has on it (you are probably too stressed to sit down at at this point). But spending your time in a city where the very nature of the inhabitants is to rush around; it is noisy, often hot, there is just a lot of stuff happening; when you yourself have to rush around things can get a bit overwhelming.
The last few months I had to do a lot (not compared to you obviously, but this isn’t a competition). Work got very busy. I had a lot to deal with at home, and, something we had both planned for for a long time, but seems to have suddenly happened - my amazing girlfriend is leaving the UK for a while to move back home. Being in a place where even just getting to work in the morning can feel like you have just run a particularly aggravating marathon in a suit, stress can compound and you can burn out quickly.
So, one of the best things about living in a big city, is being able to leave the big city.
Last week Marcelina and I took the opportunity to take a break and go on a short holiday to Cornwall - probably the furthest in general way of life that it is possible to get to London without actually leaving the UK, and taking a break from the big city is fantastic. You remember how quiet it is in the countryside. You remember what clean air feels like. You remember what the stars look like. I actually got a good night’s sleep!
I saw the horizon again, and my average walking speed slowed a good 50%. I didn't get jostled and bumped into, and I had time to reflect and decompress.
London life felt further and further away, and I was dreading coming home. But then I got back and remembered how cool it was to be able to get takeaway in half an hour at 11 pm on a Monday night, and that it wasn’t a problem that I had forgot my toothpaste, because I could just pop downstairs to the shop that was still open at midnight.
Basically what all the above is saying in a very roundabout way is that I have been too busy to take the themed photos that we set over the last two weeks and am now justifying my failure with a long blog post about stress, written to someone to someone who is moving house, moving country, and planning a wedding for literally next week. GO team London.
I have two placeholders for now, which I took a few weeks ago when wondering around with my camera and liked, but haven’t yet had the opportunity to share.
I imagine next week with your wedding you may not be uploading a photo either, so I will leave the theme open for now, and if you do manage a photo, you can choose it (see how magnanimous and understanding I am being. Let’s all focus on that, instead of how useless I was the last couple of weeks).
So here are the two photos I took. If they had a theme at all, I would say probably Symmetry would fit nicely.
I will see you very very soon,
London