Coming Home to London

After the quiet and calm of our little hill in Gumusluk, it’s been quite a jolt to find ourselves in the middle of the hustle and bustle of London again.

The capital is my old stomping ground, and I always get a sense of “coming home” each time I throw myself head-long into the mix and mangle of London.

I often wonder who’s living in the first ground floor flat I ever owned in West Kensington (and what the list price is now!)

Our little Victorian terrace was nestled between Earls Court and Olympia in western London, and it was only a short walk to Kensington High Street for entertainment and shopping (and Diana and Charles in Kensington Palace). And a short bus ride to my PR job at the central English Tourist Board office in Hammersmith.

That was all a few decades ago now, and all that lingers are warm distant memories of a different life, at a different time. And .. a different me.

Each city I’ve visited and lived in over the years has brought a new facet of who I am, to the surface. They each exposed me to new experiences and people that altered the direction of where I was heading.

London, New York, Los Angeles. That’s quite a trio of cities to call home.

I was lucky to have tried each one of them on for size, and at the time they were a perfect fit for where I was in my life and what I needed out of it. A true voyage of discovery happened in each location.

So, my holy trinity, “Thanks for the memories. No regrets.” You shaped me, but the rough edges of who I evolved into has been smoothed out by my strong rural roots.

Now that I’ve found a new home on my quiet Turkish hillside, I feel I’ve come full-circle.

But this isn’t the end .. it’s a new beginning,