Love surely is an evolving animal: opening the palazzo tap from a low wall in South West London
Well jeez. Suffice to say it’s been a bloody minute, and my grovelling apologies for my abandonment of my so called daily blogs on The Aviation Club will never carry the sincerity that you deserve. Partly because they may be insincere. I guess I felt unsure about whether this blog would still contain value, as is it a startup blog, and I am no longer the CEO of my startup. This is a topic far too massive to delve into in this blog, as I’m seeing this blog post as a turning-on-of-the-tap that has been closed for a while and is clogged up. You know those old crumbly Italian palazzos that have been derelict for decades and then are bought up to be restored and renovated and some hapless couple are trying to fix it, and then turn on some huge wrought iron old tap and about 100 litres of gunk comes pouring out before te water runs clean? That is what I need to do now. Start pouring out the half-formed thoughts that have been cycling around like juggling circus bears on unicycles in my mind for the last couple weeks unable to fall into a happy formation and actually head somewhere somewhat useful.
You find now sitting on the low, white wall outside my South West London home. Which I’m about to lose too, by the way, come August. I’m trying to buy an apartment in Clapham but the timelines are tight so come August I may be sans abode though will probably nip over Tulum to wait out the storm (i.e. solicitors processing paperwork). More on this later. Laptop is balancing precariously on the a little wrought iron post, about 10cm x 10cm in surface area. It needs to be on the post so that it’s elevated enough so I can type on it. My blue front door is somewhat ajar because I left my key upstairs and not a fuck am I going up to get it now that I’m finally actually in the flow of blogging and my coffee is still piping hot. That first cup of coffee is balancing even more precariously on the wall next to me. Whole situation is possibly seconds from disaster, but I must insert some danger into my life lest I perish of boredom.
It’s a very London sort of spring day. Muggy grey skies, my quiet Parson’s Green street. Me sitting outside crossed legged in my little silk kimono and barefeet on like some sort of psycho, typing on my laptop and waving at the occasional person walking outside dressed in clothes as one should be in Zone 2 of London. But I was born for the wild and clearly have no shame. But must say, I love the neighbourly bliss of this street. They’ve all seen me running about in my sports bra countless time and since I don’t believe in closing my curtains, I’m certainly they’ve all seen me starkers too. It’s a bonding experience for all of us.
It’s a bank holiday and it’s quiet except for my linen in the washing machine inside and the occasional plane ahead. We’re on the route to Heathrow and these 747s love flying ahead. Often I lie in bed and watch them go from my skylight.
Morning’s been off to a weird start. Clearly auspicious as I’m writing again, even if it is unreadable bollocks. Woke up feeling that strange lonely forlorn sort of feeling I always get before a big trip. As I wrote about on Instagram yesterday, that’s just the other side of love though. I have these two lives. One in South Africa and one in England, and though it was difficult adjusting here, I’ve come to love it and, for now at least, it is home. London is home. It’s exactly where I need to be for most of the time. But the tug on my arm from my birth country is always there. Louder sometimes than other times. Maybe it’s just my fear of being forgotten about by the people I’ve come to love in each place every time I leave.
I used to love leaving. Back when I travelled as a way of life, when I knew nothing else. I loved leaving more than arriving, which certainly says a hell of a lot. But everything was more extreme then. I think I didn’t have anything to pour all of my excess into back then like I do now (work and projects and lovers and sports). And I certainly hadn’t found the right people back then. Thing is, I think finding the right people is a combination of the lightening bolt of soul-recognition, and then the cultivation of that germinating seed. By exposing and broading the surface area of new human interaction, the number of lightening-strike-omg-you’re-super-cool moments increased but before I could tend that garden I hopped on the next train/ bus / motorbike / plane / rickshaw / yacht and dashed off with a wave and a wink searching for absolution or peace or a feeling of being enough or something. As if I’d find it in the hands of a monkey sitting on the wall in Rishikesh or at the bottom of a soup bowl in Tibet. It wasn’t in any of those places. And personally I’ve never really liked soup. I need a bit of substance you know. A carbohydrate for god’s sake.
Speaking of foodstuffs, very impressed with myself after putting a sourdough baguette in the air fryer this morning and adding avo to it for a smashing brekkie. Michelin star I tell you. I need to start cooking more and eating out less, partly because I’m unemployed (formally, the part time consulting stuff doesn’t really count and being an author fucking certainly doesn’t count when it comes to paying London rent) and partly because grocery shopping certainly is sublime. What a glorious activity. Putting on the grocery shopping clothes, airpods in, music on, wandering the aisles of excess, the triumph of capitalism with stocks and stocks of food, trying to come to terms with the complete insanity of how half the planet is feeding the obesity epidemic and then watching the starvation of the other half of the planet. What a situation, what a situation. Perhaps one should never come to terms with it, or try to understand it because it is beyond understanding and simply the result of mediocrity of leadership. I guess the benefit of getting older and understanding more about the world through geopolitics and business is that I think I’m coming to grasp human nature and incentive models deeply and it makes me feel like I can design solutions for these sorts of problems that always make one feel sick and somewhat ashamed, solve them in ways that actually work. Solve problems and create solutions that make people feel proud to be human.
Cause that’s surely top of mind lately. What comes next. I know obviously I need to finish what’s on my plate. The book, the government work. Might be joining another board but we’ll see, we’ll see. But instead of starting with an actual project, I think I want to focus on a vision. A theme, an end feeling, a…. methods of productivity of creating, an alignment with ikigai and then from there see how the chips fall.
Starting raining outside and laptop is getting scratched to shit but the wrought iron post so may need to hop back inside. There’s a cat that’s settled on the wall next to me and I feel hesitant to leave because it’s a comforting presence and the perfect companion this morning. Silent, easy camaraderie. No pressure. Just gazing curious acceptance of our London street. The birds are also chirping away beautifully in the spring-blooming trees along the street and it’s so lovely I can only just barely stand it without flinging myself on my back in the middle of the road to soak up the gloriousness of it.
I probably ned to get a move on anyways. Have a 12 hour flight to catch tonight, haven’t packed yet, need to finish washing stuff, go for a run, get cleaned up and still have four meetings today and a whack of work to get through, of course I did absolutely nothing this weekend like the silly sod I am (work is mostly prepping for an MBA class I’m teaching and a bunch of talks I’m giving in the next couple days) plus finishing off my visa application for my appointment tomorrow, hah. Could also do with a second cup of coffee and then call my estate agent because once again there’s delays with processing the deal for the Clapham apartment I’m trying to purchase at the moment.
Niggling reality calls but I also don’t want to leave this moment. It’s whimsical and perfect.
I imagine this blog has been painful to read. A bunch of half finished thoughts with no conclusion. Reminds me a it of the book On Chisel Beach. A frustrating longing created by the very words and storyline which is so crucial to the actual story itself, which is about frustrated longing.
A final thought: I guess a large part of my life lately has been about love. It feels different though. I used to wage a war with love. It was prickly awfulness always, and there are countless posts on this blog (that was supposedly about startups haha) about various dark forms of love. But lately it’s felt like blooming fields of wildflowers. Fresh and curious and pure and clean and brave. In it’s all forms, and with all the people as I explore the growing attachments I feel to them. Here's something I wrote to a friend about love, and I’ll finish with that:
Love surely is an evolving animal. Or perhaps a tree that goes through all the seasons in a couple hours. The way my feelings fluctuate is jarring. Am I deeply inconsistent human? I would at times offer them my lungs and soul and then, it seems, just as easily need desperately to be as far away as possible.
Sometimes I think the love has turned to indifference. And while perhaps the sharp edge of my obsessive love and desire isn’t as prominent anymore, I remember straight away why I love. “Why” is the wrong word here, cause you don’t love for a “why”. It’s more that I remembered how obvious it is that I do love. And what of right and wrong? Maybe what we call wrong is only in society’s perception? At the end of the day we’re on a rock spinning in a void with a couple years of consciousness to experience existence. So what’s right and wrong anyways?
I guess causing pain to others is wrong. So that does draw a shrap contrast.
We cannot choose who we love. Or when it will strike, or when it leave, or how it will remain. Perhaps loving means giving up control. Perhaps we have to do it unconditionally to really know it’s hugeness?
I think life goes by too quickly to be afraid of making mistakes.