Straddling the Atlantic

Where do you see yourself in five year’s time? I never get that question right.

In 2009 I was offered the chance to move from London to work in the U.S. for a couple of years. I should have been thrilled at the prospect of living in a cool city in another country, and I was, but my mind was projecting itself even further into the future, to 2012. I had followed every moment of my home town’s progress to host the Olympic games. I even have five tatty pieces of confetti – one for each of the Olympic rings – which cannons had blasted into the crowd at Trafalgar Square the moment we heard London had won the bid. The whole prospect was all the more exciting after I had come so agonizingly close to attending the Games years before.

My work in America began well but then slowed, significantly. The time of my expected reunion with the U.K. in 2011 came and went, and as the summer of 2012 approached I found myself stuck fast in Chicago next to a stalled project. What I hadn’t appreciated at the time was the extent to which my mind had already moved back to England. I got to experience the deleterious effects of trying to live in two countries at once.

The resulting tension played out through increasing resentment, and increasing sensitivity to the differences between the two places. “England is amazing,” I would say to myself. “Why am I not there? America is rubbish.” (America, is NOT rubbish, by the way.) I was also a hostage to confirmation bias as I actively sought evidence to reinforce the notion that things in America were just plain wrong. “No price I see is the price I pay! In stores tax is added AFTER you’ve seen the price and decided to buy. In a restaurant tips are added AFTER you have eaten and receive the bill. Just tell me the price of everything up front! Why are you always deceiving me?!”

When you’re emotionally immersed in your version of reality it’s hard to step back and see the truth of your situation. My Damascene moment came when a friend, who was also a colonial transplant, asked me what I loved about living in the America. I had spent so long convincing myself there was no redeeming quality that I wouldn’t have seen one even if it had smacked me in the face with a wet fish. My friend offered me a lifeline, but not before pausing, as if in two minds over whether to divulge a most precious secret. Her eventual confiding was almost conspiratorial. “What about… ‘the ability to complain‘?”

“Huh?”

There followed a healthy dose of the kind of comfortable silence found in all good friendships. I cast my mind back to a short trip I’d made to the U.K. the year before. I had been out for a meal with my family and we were served something we hadn’t ordered. Without even thinking I pointed this out to the person serving us, and they swiftly and politely addressed the problem. No drama. Yet before moving to America I would have avoided any confrontation with the server for fear that behind the scenes they’d spit in my food. Far better, and easier – I would have said to myself – to opt for the cunning, passive-aggressive ploy of defiantly refusing to eat there again.

My friend’s question was the catalyst for swell of reflection. Over the ensuing weeks my mind vacillated between the two countries until I slowly reclaimed a more honest perspective of each. England has grey skies, but its benign climate means you can go for a walk on any day of the year. Chicago has the glory of clearly defined seasons, but the cold! The quietude of jogging on the towpath along the Grand Union canal is almost meditative; the sunrises and city views on Chicago’s lakefront trail are majestic. Litter and cleanliness, health and obesity, genial people on both sides… As my perception began to align with reality I found myself becoming more present in the U.S.

I realize now that the longer I spent in the U.S. the more trapped I felt. I was fearful of losing my ‘Britishness.’ Acceptance of my situation was easier when I realized that wherever you go you take yourself with you, and being present in one place at a particular time does not cut you off from the chance to be present somewhere else at another time. 

I wish I could say I’ve become proficient at mindfulness, or being present. Unfortunately my deep-rooted instincts remain to strain for it, and then cling tightly. It can feel like grabbing a bar of soap in the shower but when I stop straining, when I simply turn my palm up and allow the soap to rest in my hand, then mindfulness feels like the most natural thing in the world. 

I did make it to the Games in London – my  kindly boss took a sympathetic and pragmatic view of the situation. Now, when someone asks me where I see myself several years into the future, I should remind myself that sometimes get the answer right, even if it can feel like a genie’s wish – not necessarily manifesting in the way I expect. My vision back in 2009 had included me busking my way through my favourite haunts while my home town got high on Olympic fever. Mercifully the world was spared the ordeal of my musical ineptitude; it seems a good genie is protecting the world from me. And perhaps when dreams are not realized that is how it should be as well. Perhaps goals and visions are not there to be realized but rather to provide a focal point for the journey? Or maybe that’s just how they play out for me. Usually.