Kind & Kind

In less than 48 hours in London, in this balmy October weather, more suited to summer than autumn, surrounded by trees still holding their green leaves, breathing this English air, aware that my bones are made of the very same stuff as the chalk I'm walking on, I have realized one thing: that there is no need to rush anything.

I have strolled through London at midnight with an old friend with no place to be but where we were, just walking and looking at old churches illuminated by street light, observing young men smoking cigarettes outside of bars, the way that the connected brick buildings on Knightsbridge light up in purple and white as if in Vegas, the darkened shop windows, the new Queen Elizabeth gate with its strange golden-bearded lion like something from Narnia. He put his arm through mine and we kept walking.

Queen Elizabeth Gate

And then at dinner last night in Shepherd Market, eating hummus and fatoush and a salad of sliced artichoke with lemon, drinking Lebanese wine and listening to stories from other people's lives, stories that involve doubt, sadness, walking, dogs, betrayal, and realizing, again, for the first time, again, that we are fragile, we are human, we are all so connected.

I believe that there are angels everywhere making sure that the path is clear. Angels in the form of a girlfriend only a text message away, a man who shows me a picture of trees and mist in the Chiltern Hills, that makes me cry, the wicked delight in the discovery that karma is a bitch, a defense of Joan Didion's "we tell ourselves stories in order to live," the delicious time it takes to drink a whole pot of tea at breakfast with a woman who was my friend at 15, and who now knows that the heart chakra is the one that's important in its green-ness.

It has taken me only 48 hours to realize that love isn't a numbers game. It's not a cup of coffee you don't like with a man who's looking at his watch, or a desperate attempt to find commonality with someone you have nothing to say to. It's not scientific. It's not ticking the boxes. It's not faking who you are. Or wearing heels. Or getting the shit slapped out of you. Or defending bad behaviour. Or living in a box of entitled  close-minded, liberalism. Or games played badly. None of that matters a lick.

I know what matters now. Only connection. Only kindness. Only being where you are {in the moment} and loving who you're with for the time they're with you.

"I used to be shallow" said my friend. And it broke my heart. Because people transform. People strive to be better, to understand more, to embrace their higher selves. And she did it. In one lifetime.

Such ridiculous amounts of gratitude today, for all those angels in my life, for the big comfortable bed I'm lying in, for London outside my window, for this country that nurtured me and brought me home, even fleetingly.

And for good men, because when you spot one, the light is blinding.