Full Moon

So the solicitor emails yesterday to say that if all goes well we could exchange in about ten days time. And that means completion sometime in January. Can I come in early next week and sign the paperwork?

I must find somewhere to live and soon. At lunchtime I call the main letting agency in Hereford. One flat only on their books which may be available sometime in January. Or not. They will send me a registration form. The flow of properties for rent has dried up because of Christmas.

My stomach does a free fall and the voices start. Why are you selling a perfectly good apartment when you have nowhere to go? You are making the worst mistake of your life. And so on. I begin to believe what they say.

Walking home from the Tube I summon up my defences and recite my mantra. You have had this dream a long time. It has been tested. All you have to do is the next right thing. That is all you have to do. The next right thing. Try not to dramatise. A lot of this anxiety is learned behaviour, habit, nothing more. I consciously slow my breathing which is by now very close to hyperventilation.

Once I get in I phone my sister who confirms that the cat and I can move in with her if we need to. She is instinctively kind and generous and I am grateful for her and for her offer, but she lives on the south coast, even further away than London from where I want to be. Okay then, put the furniture in storage. I can stay in the Hereford area with friends for a few days each week while I look for a new home.

I ring one of those friends. She sounds delighted at the news and says that if her current tenant moves on - a possibility - then I can take his place until I find somewhere to buy. In the meantime she will put the word out and look around for me. And, yes, I can stay at any time.

We hang up and I give the cat his supper, relieved but trying not to focus on the lingering lump of unease in my gut at what is implied here. Overwhelming, major change. Much of it beyond my control. For a period my suitcase may be my home.

When people tell me their worries I have no problem in trusting on their behalf that they are part of a bigger plan, that their road will open up one step at a time. I tell them this. You are in the flow of life I tell them. It will be all right. Just do the footwork and let yourself be carried forward.

When I speak these words to others I know them to be true.

****

The full moon accompanied me home yesterday evening. Infinitely beautiful and clear, framed by thin, transparent wisps of cloud she sailed above the roofs and chimneys, coolly impervious to the grinding roar of the traffic and the glare of headlights far below on the South Circular.

The air was damp and cold, still too mild for frost, but with a chill, wintry, smoky smell. A reminder of past Decembers, of the passage of the years.