sarah eve kelly

Yes, I’ve been away for a bit. Doing school stuff. Yes, work-related work, who knew. I had this great post in mind called ‘WHY BRITISH WOMEN ARE UGLY’ (Reason 1: the tyranny of the season; Reason 2: the tyranny of trend; Reason 3: the tyranny of the cut, specifically the cap sleeve - and yes, it’s more true here than it is elsewhere), but I thought maybe that wouldn’t make me any friends. And I need friends: good God, how I need friends.

I also let my domain expire. As embarrassing as this little patch of e-real estate has been to me over the years, I’m sure I’d be lost without it. Was very relieved to find that it had survived my perfidy intact.

Husband and I were having a conversation earlier this evening about age. Cambridge is eyeballs-deep in little critters. People who have never once folded a pair of their own trousers. Nice people, yes - very nice - but pipsqueaks. Make me run home and check for crow’s feet like. (I don’t have any. I am blessed. So far.)

We’ve reached our thirties, you see, far from home. We’re lucky fuckers, Mike and I. We’ve had remarkable opportunities and wonderful supportive families. We have our health. We have each other. We have amazing bone structure. Well, he does. What we don’t have is a home.

This isn’t because we’re renting, and it isn’t because we’re foreigners. We know many renting foreigners who have a home. It’s because we’re leaving. We’ll be vamoosing from Cambridge in a few months, back to London - for the moment - and we’re walking around this flat on tiptoe. See, I almost bought a coffee maker this afternoon, marked down to fifteen quid, which even my poor ass can afford. But no - it’d just be another thing to move. Back to instant for Sarah.

We used to have books to mask our lack of taste. In fact, books are my taste - walls and walls of them, and that’s what we had. But they’re all in storage now, or nearly all of them, waiting for the moment when we know we’re home. And knowing us, we’re never going to be sure of that.

So today I make a positive resolution. Cambridge is never going to be home; that much I know. Too many critters. We’re leaving anyway. And I know that at some medium-term point, we’re going to leave London too. But the next place - wherever we live after we’ve left this tyrannically blue flat with its awful thin walls and emo house music - wherever we live next is going to be home. We are going to make it our own. Not by spending buckets of money - that’s not what this is about.

Home begins with a proper coffee maker. And I shall get one.

Till next time &c &c.

Related posts:

1. another summer, another folkfest far from my home