Back to the "new"

Although our gym has a host of treadmills on the lower level of its fitness center, I prefer to run on a solitary treadmill on the second floor. There are no other treadmills near it, and it overlooks the entire gym. I feel less confined when I run on it, free almost. It’s a good place to think, and I like to think. And today as I ran I found myself listening to Credence Cleerwater Revival, dreaming of fishing on Jim & Jim’s old pontoon boat in the searing summer heat, cold drink in hand, feeling relieved that I had no concern for fishing success, and missing America in general.

The 6th of March marked our two month point, and I thought a third entry would be a nice touch. I’ve tried not to overwhelm you with post after post. Is it working? Are you feeling underwhelmed? Good. Well I must say, living over here for two months, with another two to go, has been just about everything, including overwhelming at times. Let me give you the skinny:

London is big. It’s huge. Trying to get to know it can actually be tiring. Just when you think you’ve gained a good degree of familiarity, you get off on a new tube stop and realize that there are worlds of London undiscovered by you, with landmarks and museums and restaurants you didn’t know existed. And then you get a little anxious and ask yourself, “am I really seeing everything?” “Am I really taking advantage of this opportunity?” Well maybe you wouldn’t but I did at first. And then I remembered that I came to London to live here, which is something different than just travelling somewhere. It means you try to create a home, even if it is temporary. You begin to fall into routines, which are comforting. You have nights out, and nights at home. You go to the grocery store and look for deals. Some days you wake up and draw back the dirty curtain your landlord provided for you and think, ugghh, do I have to go outside?

I guess I wish it wasn’t so, but it is. Maybe it’d be better if I used every spare minute to admire the rare collections of a new museum, or travel to a new borough, or spend every evening in a new restaurant discovering new cuisine. But that’s more like vacation. This is life. They are not the same. In life, you live a little more with the long haul in mind. You pace yourself, and you begin to cherish downtime as you would if you were home (really home) and faced with a list of daily obligations. And it’s weird, because your mind sometimes tries to pretend like you’re on vacation, and makes you feel guilty when you take a minute (or a weekend) to relax. But your body and spirit know better. They need a minute. There is such a thing as too much “new”. Occasionally you need old.

Speaking of old, I said earlier that I was missing America. That’s unusual for me. When I was in America, I typically harbored at least a general feeling of disgust for some of the cliché American sentiments that I believed much of the population to hold. After being here for two months, I owe America an apology. I was attributing to America what America isn’t really about. People over here aren’t generally more enlightened. They aren’t more patriotic, and they aren’t more selfless or more concerned about the world. They are…the same. They vary proportionally from person to person just like Americans do. To generalize about either would be wrong.

That said, I miss America for what it represents in my memories, for the comforting familiarity that it brings to mind. America has everything. It has flatlands and mountains and beaches and deserts and almost every type of climate, something almost no other country in the world can boast. It has great cities and rural counties, great homogeny and great diversity. It has great food, and it has my family and friends, and the boat I mentioned earlier, and once upon a time it had Credence Clearwater Revival, which really it will always have. For me, now, I have realized that it cannot be replaced.

Now that I’ve gotten some rest, back to the “new”.


-Nathan