Village Life, Big City (Part 1)
After seven and a half years of meeting San Francisco on its own terms, that old Aries restlessness, my oldest companion, has come back. Which is strange because the young and the restless move TOWARDS San Francisco but the fact is I'm not that young anymore.
This news of my move may come as a shock to those who know me, for running my own pet care business has been the best gig I've ever had. San Francisco, likewise, has been the best fit on so many levels: physical, emotional, spiritual, and culinary. The thing is though I suffer from what the Germans call fernweh, the longing for unknown lands. So just last Saturday, with my married sweetheart in tow, I moved to London. I'm now in that grey space, that concrete twilight between two iconic cities. San Francisco: light, airy, casual and hedonic and London: ancient, driven, established, and scheming.
A friend of mine once told me that whenever you move somewhere new, you have to believe that you are going to live there permanently, that you are fully committed. Nobody takes seriously the idea of an international student. That person may be having the time of his life, but in the community's eyes, he is a snowflake. An international student is even worse than what the Irish call "a blow-in," or someone who is new to an area and without local roots. A blow-in could make a commitment to his new digs. But an international student is likely to return to wherever he came from, diploma held high.
Which brings me moseying to my point: I've enrolled in a post-graduate program at City, University London in the field of Library and Information Science. The traditional aim of the course is to become a librarian but there are any number of creative career offshoots. London, not surprisingly, is THE place for any type of work in libraries, museums, or cultural centers. The UK system has a typical graduate school calendar of just one year versus two or three for the USA. Additionally, with my Irish citizenship and passport, I didn't need a VISA (more on this in a later post). And I wanted to live and observe British history at its most critical moment in the last 75 years, within the arms of its vibrant capital and the most diverse city on the planet.
Truth is I've always wanted to live in London - in fact I'm sure I had a former life back here. With my Irish background, I'm hesitant to praise the capital of capitals but so far it's been a magnificent adventure. I could see myself living here and making a go of it.
And anyways, after London, where next? New York is too aggressive, Paris too precious, and in Tokyo I would stick out like an exotic mushroom. London, the literary, London, the teeming, is for me.
All major cities, of course, have as their starting line the fact of anonymity. This is only a benefit if you are a psychopath or an advocate of making a spot-on first impression. Now, being a bit older, what I treasure is community and I'll get there eventually. In Boston I had my large family, my hometown crew, my civil rights activist circle, my self-help tribe, and the faces around Jamaica Plain. In San Francisco, my village life was 90% dog-care community, 5% Lower Haight neighbors, and 5% shamanic circle/self-help groups. Who will be my community in London?
This news of my move may come as a shock to those who know me, for running my own pet care business has been the best gig I've ever had. San Francisco, likewise, has been the best fit on so many levels: physical, emotional, spiritual, and culinary. The thing is though I suffer from what the Germans call fernweh, the longing for unknown lands. So just last Saturday, with my married sweetheart in tow, I moved to London. I'm now in that grey space, that concrete twilight between two iconic cities. San Francisco: light, airy, casual and hedonic and London: ancient, driven, established, and scheming.
A friend of mine once told me that whenever you move somewhere new, you have to believe that you are going to live there permanently, that you are fully committed. Nobody takes seriously the idea of an international student. That person may be having the time of his life, but in the community's eyes, he is a snowflake. An international student is even worse than what the Irish call "a blow-in," or someone who is new to an area and without local roots. A blow-in could make a commitment to his new digs. But an international student is likely to return to wherever he came from, diploma held high.
Which brings me moseying to my point: I've enrolled in a post-graduate program at City, University London in the field of Library and Information Science. The traditional aim of the course is to become a librarian but there are any number of creative career offshoots. London, not surprisingly, is THE place for any type of work in libraries, museums, or cultural centers. The UK system has a typical graduate school calendar of just one year versus two or three for the USA. Additionally, with my Irish citizenship and passport, I didn't need a VISA (more on this in a later post). And I wanted to live and observe British history at its most critical moment in the last 75 years, within the arms of its vibrant capital and the most diverse city on the planet.
Truth is I've always wanted to live in London - in fact I'm sure I had a former life back here. With my Irish background, I'm hesitant to praise the capital of capitals but so far it's been a magnificent adventure. I could see myself living here and making a go of it.
And anyways, after London, where next? New York is too aggressive, Paris too precious, and in Tokyo I would stick out like an exotic mushroom. London, the literary, London, the teeming, is for me.
All major cities, of course, have as their starting line the fact of anonymity. This is only a benefit if you are a psychopath or an advocate of making a spot-on first impression. Now, being a bit older, what I treasure is community and I'll get there eventually. In Boston I had my large family, my hometown crew, my civil rights activist circle, my self-help tribe, and the faces around Jamaica Plain. In San Francisco, my village life was 90% dog-care community, 5% Lower Haight neighbors, and 5% shamanic circle/self-help groups. Who will be my community in London?
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