Here will be a list of books I want to read or am in the process of reading. For now it's 3 because I'm very tired and ready to get on the damn airplane.
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JFK International Airport is not the ideal location to write anything thoughtful. I'm going to try, but there's a really strong barbecue smell and CNN is doing its best to distract me.
I'm about to leave New York. I'll visit again, sure, but as long as all goes to plan I won't be living here after today. It's been mostly pretty good to me. I've grown independent, though probably a little too much. I met some extraordinary people and been lucky enough to live in all parts of the city, from 48th St and Lex to deep, deep Brooklyn. I saw some things I wish I hadn't (i.e. you, man taking a dump in between two parked cars on Parkside Ave). I graduated from university IN Yankee Stadium. I met some of my idols and liked almost all of them. I cried in public. A lot. Especially in the Williamsburg Duane Reade. I took too many subway rides to count and took a liking to it. I let my anxiety get the better of me on occasion but also learned how to manage it for the first time. I kayaked in the Hudson. I moved to New York almost exactly five years ago to the day. If anyone would have told me I'd be leaving by choice, I would have laughed. Hard. This was my city and no one was kicking me out. Now I want different things than what I wanted when I was 18. I'm glad. How shit would it be not to grow up a bit from when you're 18? Life was highly influenced by teenage television shows and a band known for their Cape Cod aesthetic. So, not very different from now, just not the same TV shows and not the same band. Change. How refreshing. I wish I could say I'm having a tough time writing this or that I had a tinge of sadness when I drove through my neighborhood one last time on the way to the airport, but neither would be true. Maybe that will change; I'm confident at some point I'll question it all, leaving behind a job and great friends and a fantastic city. Or maybe not. Maybe I'll feel forever how I feel now - that I'm leaving behind something great with something better in the horizon. Better may be the wrong word. Perhaps I should try "right." This feels right. Goodbye, New York. It's not you, it's me. "Do you go to the country? It isn't very far." -"Coffee & TV", Blur Graham Coxon is a liar.
The country is very far. At least, the country of the country I've longed to inhabit for years. Since studying abroad in London I've known I would have to go back, this time for good. It's the place I make the most sense to myself, where I feel naturally right. I am not moving to London. I'm moving to the country. I am moving to a town of roughly 7,000 people, a town six hours outside of London, a town I've never visited. I am moving there alone, to this town where I know no one, to this town that is, in fact, very far. Far from London, far from the US, far from the expectation I've had of my life for as long as I can remember. I could say it all started when I applied to graduate programs last winter, but that would be wrong. I could say it started last fall when I visited England for the first time since studying there in 2014, but that's not right either. It started in a classroom at NYU in December of 2015. I watched a video of a Britpop band singing an anthem I'd never heard. Hours later I heard Graham Coxon sing those words that seem like such a lie now (though maybe he was always teasing). Months later I booked a trip to camp by myself on a farm in the English countryside because a member of that Britpop band owned the farm. In August on that farm I slept outside for the first time in my life but I had trouble sleeping because I could hear festival go-ers in the distance singing that anthem I'd never heard until December. I returned to America, to New York, but I didn't feel like I was going home. I knew I wanted to get back to England and stay for good. A presidential election happened and suddenly that wanting turned to a needing. So I applied to two graduate school programs. One application to Goldsmiths College (where Graham Coxon met that farmer) in London and, because on that farmer's farm I found a part of me that was drawn towards a simpler country life, one application to Falmouth University in Cornwall. I got into both. I picked the country life. It isn't all that far. Now I will move. On Wednesday, August 23rd I will get on a plane and return to that farm and sing that anthem and sleep in a tent and know that when it's over this time I get to stay. I'll get on a train and head west, almost as far west as you can go in England before drowning in the Celtic Sea, and I will move into a country house and start a degree. After a year's time the program will be over and I'll start my life there - maybe in countryside, maybe in London, definitely in England - and I'll stay. For good. |
AuthorMadeleine Saaf is an expat in Cornwall and is pursuing a masters in Professional Writing at Falmouth University. ArchivesCategories |