At work.
From where I sit and wait for the video files to render, I look out the window and see the Cashmere hills draped lightly in late morning mist, half lit by sunlight. Cars sigh by under the blanket of mist on the street hemmed by brown autumn trees. The street sign says Beckenham - Cashmere and Waltham - Lyttelton and then Addington and Timaru. Places.
Places.
Places become more than places to me. Places I have been to and I will never ever go to again haunt me - in good ways. Places I live in and places I see everyday have a way of haunting me, inciting me that one day I will not see them anymore, because there will be other places to see and be.
How places fill me with nostalgia, even before I have left.
In the morning, I read mail about my friends and family from other places, places I used to be, and I’m reminded- how fickle now really is. Our life as we know it now. Two years down the line, life can be totally different. Where I live can be somewhere across the globe. My worries could have doubled or it could be different things that worry me. People I know could have changed.
How do you think and live when you know this?
One day Beckenham will only be a faint memory. Just a footnote. One day Lyttelton could just be a thought, a slight recollection and nothing else.
It was a weaning process when I moved affection from where I used to be to where I am now. Years ago, it used to be Police Bazaar, Lachaumeire, Glory's Plaza, Bamfylde Road, Bishop Cotton Road, Tyrannus Hall, Ward's Lake, Lamphelpat, Bazaar, TML HQ., Shillong Peak....
Now they sound like stories to me. Like they have passed on and evaded that area of distant affection reserved for places where good memories play out. But not real.
Now what sounds real to me is Bealey Avenue, Manchester Street, Cashmere, Hagley Park, Riccarton, Milton Street, Hanmer....
I don't want to imagine having to go through another weaning process of being removed from a place I am in and being forced to relocate my affections to another new place.
Sometimes a part of me wants it, sometimes it fears it.