When I lived in London, I walked everywhere. From our flat on Sutherland Avenue to the grocery store blocks away...from Farringdon Station to City University...from Leicester Square to Trafalgar. I did some of my best thinking on those walks. London is a city that's full of life but not in an overwhelming, fast-paced way. It has a pulse but it's beneath the surface--in the walls of the National Gallery, throughout the bricks of the White Tower, under the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral. The streets are busy, the bars have an energy, the restaurants are warm and inviting and there is color everywhere. Neon blue for Pizza Express, red and green lights in Piccadilly, blue and red trim on the Tower Bridge. Orange easyeverything internet cafes. I don't know if it was merely my mind's eye but storefronts sparkled there in a way that they don't here. Westminster Abbey gleamed in the sunlight despite the fact that its facade is dark gray and shadowy. Even Highgate Cemetery looked beautiful with the play of light through the trees. I loved London so much that I still think of it as a second home to this day. I've been there four times and I know that I could live there for a year or two if I ever had the chance.

I never felt rushed or threatened there, and I remember feeling like I fit in almost immediately. In fact, Jeff is convinced that I lived there in a past life (as a writer of course) and that I must have died when a horse-and-buggy ran me down in the middle of the road. (I am horribly afraid of getting into a car accident although in this life I've never been involved in anything more severe than a fender bender.) What I miss the most is the walking. I take many walks here and at work, and while they are relaxing, they don't add up to walking miles and miles each day. My head would feel so clear as I briskly passed the local Pret-a-Manger on the way to class, or as I listened to my Walkman (yes, it was before the invention of iPods believe it or not!) on a Saturday afternoon by the River Thames. I need to find a way to de-stress that's as satisfying as those long, powerful and thought-provoking walks. And I'd like to find it sooooon.