It’s quite the distance to Chile from here.
Penistone Hill, West Yorkshire, July 2017.

Very soon I am going to fly a quarter of the way around the world to Chile, where, for the next year I shall be teaching English. I am, if we are being mild with our words, overwhelmed. It’s not going to Chile that’s overwhelming. Nor is it the idea of teaching. Culture shock I’m sure is awaiting me at passport control but I’ve taught English before and this isn’t my first time living abroad. No, what’s got me overwhelmed this time is the haste with which I’ve been living this last two months.

It’s the travel up and down the country and the suddenness at which things seem to happen. Then, add to this, seeing people I haven’t seen in a long while and trying ever so hard to make those moments count, maybe too hard sometimes. How inevitable it is that my brain feels like mashed potato.

I was going to spend this week being calm, writing, reading and painting. That didn’t quite work out because with less than 48 hours of notice I had an appointment in London on the seventh floor of the Chilean Embassy. The lift was broken. They play Classic FM in the lobby where you wait for your documents to be processed. A couple of Americans were also waiting for their documents. At one point, the young man sat upright in his chair with a suddenness that made the rest of the room turn.

The Chilean Embassy.
London, July 2019

“Is that… Is that our national anthem?” he asked.

The woman beside him frowned and shook her head.

I thought no, that’s the music to Indiana Jones.

I walked away with an inky thumb, a visa and a selection of important-looking documents. I crossed the road and lay down on the green grass of St James’ Park with my packed lunch.

There was a black swan with tiny cygnets in the water, which seems a bit late to me, but I’m no swan breeding expert. I thought back to the pheasant who visits us at home, sadly she’s lost all her babies, and to the cygnets that we used to count every time we walked around the lake near the house where I once used to live when I was smaller and more naïve. It’s these wandering, winding thoughts that I feel have been absent from my mind recently. Perhaps I’ve been focused on what needs to get done and lacking in time spent staring, watching the world around me flutter by.

I guess I’m stressed, but saying I’m stressed feels like an excuse. I keep hearing myself implore that I’m tired. I am tired but whenever I hear the words escape my mouth, I find myself thinking back to the predictable conversation in the office kitchen, back in that distant past when I had a desk job.

How are you?

Tired. Yourself?

The same.

I’m not that sort of tired. I’m not tired of my day to day, nor the people in my life. I’m not lacking enthusiasm. No. I guess it’s more like my fans are overheating. Is there a word for that?