Wherever I lay my hat and all that jazz. I'm in Spain.
Like I said a couple of posts ago (read here: Change) , change was on the way. It´s here right now. Change always happens, every day we live and breathe, all around us. It's just that it's slapping me in the face right now (my mind drifts on a train of thought to the Monty Python sketch of the fish slapping dance...)
So, what´s on your mind? asks Facebook each time you log in. Well, there has been little else on my mind but moving to Spain. How will it be? How similar will it be to Italy? How different? How different to Tenerife where I have also lived briefly but is a Spanish island?
Excitement prevails, with a pinch of fear. I mean, I´m not scared of making moves like this. I kinda thrive on it actually coming to think of it. Just a touch of fear is always healthy in my mind, it keeps you on your toes, it keeps you aware. It tells you to keep your eyes wide open. It´s always a gamble but I´m aware of the stakes. My chips are stacked but they won't fall. Hopefully.
I remember moving to Italy. The car ride most of the length of England, across the Channel tunnel, through France, Germany and Switzerland. A great road trip. A long journey and we only stopped to sleep for a few hours in a German motorway service station, but it was fun. We should have taken longer. The destination where I have lived for 13 years is great. I fell in love with it almost at first sight.
But the journey is always to be savoured. Keep building the Lego set, not just playing with the finished model. There is always more to build.
At this point, the Penny For Your Thoughts production team in my mind brings to our attention their Motorway of My Mind soundtrack: The Best of Chicane. ( http://andrewgranville.blogspot.com/2009/10/motorways-of-my-mind-soundtrack.html )
As I sat in the airport waiting to board I religously plugged my ears in to my Ipod and slid my thumb around the dial, choosing this Chicane album. It just seemed so appropriate. Balearic beats for a similar destination. My journey started as soon as I pressed play. There seemed to be not one track that didn't count.
There is the track "Leaving town". From the title it would seen to be a jigsaw fit. But even though I think it is a tune for travelling, it didn't exactly fit the mood. It comes across as almost melancholic or drifty, but me leaving town was not that. I was focused, excited, not sad. "Sunstroke" seemed to be the best tune for this mood I was in, as I gazed out the huge panes of the glass terminal. The title might suggest otherwise but this track made me sit back, relax and smile. Smile. Keep smiling. It is a sweet, uplifting track. It makes you shuffle and want to make your next move.
Then, as I got my boarding card checked and ripped, I walked down the grey tunnel out on to the sprawling tarmac and to my awaiting plane, and "Poppiholla" kicked in. Like when I pull on to the motorway in my car and move in to cruise, this track was the signal for boarding, for smiling at the lovely air hostess upon entering the plane, for taking my seat and for sitting back and waiting for the plane to take off and cruise at 37 000 feet.
Once there, I fell asleep, like I often do as the rest of the album faded out. My mind drifts, not on a plane but on one of it's trains of thought. No slaps, just cruising. It was a nice smooth journey. Upon landing and getting picked up to drive the coast road from the airport I ask myself if things will continue like this. I doubt things will ever be that smooth, life never is. Lego pieces break off and get put back on again, maybe differently maybe more pieces are added. But there are no smooth bricks in Legoland.
P.S I had the usual meaningful or relevant photo to put on here to accompany the text like usual, but the Monty python sketch seems so much more fun :-)
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