16: Magnificent

I'm writing this at 37,000ft somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. The fancy map says we're about to reach Canada with 5 1/2 hours left to fly. I'm starting to feel the pull of Austin in my head and heart. Remembering things I didn't get done before I left, thinking of things that need to happen when I get back, but coming and going like the thick fog in London today. I hope it all stays foggy, TBH. It's going to be HOT when I land today, somewhere in the 90's with a perfectly ridiculous heat index of 100-something. The warmest I've been in weeks was about 82F. Several nights I even had to wear a coat.

I've been in England a long time this time. I've done a lot of crazy fun things and made some really good friends that were very hard to say goodbye to. I came over to shake up my life and get perspective. To do some accounting of myself and my life choices up until now. To hear excellent music and make new friends. To get lost a little and found a little. We shall see, I suppose, how all of it starts to shake out.

Thanks for following along with me on this trip. I’m going to be posting photos and links retroactively as I dig back through my trip records.

Of course I'm gonna end this with more Elbow lyrics, because, OMG the lyrics.

This is where the bottle lands
Where all the biggest questions meet
With little feet stood in the sand

This is where the echoes slow to nothing on the tide
And where a tiny pair of hands
Find a sea-worn piece of glass

And set it as a sapphire in her mind
There she stands
Throwing both her arms around the world
A world that doesn't even know
How much it needs this little girl

It's all gonna be magnificent, she says.
It's all gonna be magnificent.
There she stands.

"Magnificent (she says}" -- Elbow