spontaneous meet-up

Well it’s officially one week since we landed in London and I hit a real low of new reality sinking in. Nothing terrible, nothing unexpected, just the exhaustion of so many transitions and so many things to juggle all combining into one big puddle of Overwhelm. The normal pace of my SF life is so naturally full of the social/community energy and I run on that so, in retrospect, it would have been smart for me to plan at least one local “me time” social thing per day for my first week in London. Instead I’d only gone on one walk and done one trapeze class, and that simply hasn’t been enough to make me feel engaged as an individual here yet and to fill my tank.

So, I’ve been running on reserves and last night I just completely ran out of positivity and optimism. I don’t blame myself for not having known what to expect, this is all so new and I thought that maybe week one would be a mix of normal vacation energy interspersed with getting settled in. But there really hasn’t been that feeling of vacation energy at all for me. Yes there’s been lots of fun things to see and plenty of individual moments I’ve enjoyed, but my days don’t feel centered around exploration and adventure, they’re really pretty much grounded in IKEA trips and cabinet organization and unjustifiable amounts of time gardening my front yard (neither a garden or a yard actually).

Fortunately I know who to turn to for help when I’m crashing, and that’s my beloved California girl friends, some of whom I managed to catch by phone between last night and this afternoon. One particularly memorable call involved me pacing the Chiswick High Road at close to midnight and yelling my complaints into the street (and phone) in a mocking British accent. Fortunately I had a sense of humor enough to snap a selfie of myself in the corner store mirror, complete with tie dye tank top and tear-streaked face. But that’s what I needed! It’s so crucial to just let the real feelings wash over you and let them carry you for a bit so that you can be deposited back on dry land (and lifted up by friends). Letting the floodgates open was such a relief.

One friend made me look for social events last night while on the phone with her, and I did find sort of a perfect “international friends meet up” happening . . . but it was completely booked. I added myself to the waitlist and saw that I was number 38 and realized, hey, that’s enough people for an entire additional event. So with some help from Bill and some good luck, I managed to create the “international friends overflow” meet-up for the same time, but with mine hosted at The Roebuck. I apologized to the attendees for picking a location far afield from central London but watched the RSVPs roll in as Bill led us on an outing to Notting Hill.

We strolled the main street which was fun to recognize from the movie (which we also made the kids watch last month) and took in all of the cute shops and beautiful rows of colorful houses. There’s something tidy and nice about the row houses but really I much prefer San Francisco’s eclectic mix of styles and colors. People do very little to personalize their houses here, not even posting things in the windows, so I’m curious if I ever get to know my neighbor’s reactions to my tree butterflies, ledge ladybugs, window butterflies, plastic flower hedge, and today’s addition: a fake hanging topiary ball.

We also meandered to Holland Park where we saw some impressive mansions, including one that had a rare underground garage which I researched and turns out to have a basement space (not common here!) with a swimming pool, sauna, steam room, gym, and parking for 6 cars. The security around the place was conspicuous and from what I’ve read it seems like a foreign investment banker lives there. We walked a ways more, I snuck in another much-needed phone call, then caught the bus back home to prep for my event and eat the lemon poppyseed scone I had snagged at a cute shop called Cheeky Scone.

I got to the Roebuck twenty minutes early for my 8pm event, armed with my SF tote bag, bouquets of artificial flowers leftover from my “gardening,” and some notecards I had prepped with get-to-know-you questions for getting things started. I had 12 RSVPs but by 8:30pm only 2 had shown up, then 2 more showed up a little later, and by 9pm we were five fast friends. Hilariously one of the guys had come from the “original” meet-up event and said that only 4 people showed up there so he came over to ours which meant that my “overflow” secondary event ended up the bigger (better?!) one.

It was a group of such different people with contrasting stories: a bloke from right down the road in Shepherd’s Bush who just likes to meet travelers, a guy from Aleppo, a recent college graduate from China, and a Japanese woman who’s on a long-term indefinite trip around the world. Everyone had tales to tell and we even roped our server into some of the revelry which helped bond us all the more.

We started a whatsapp group to share info with each other about some upcoming events, and took a bunch of selfies. I handed off our half-full jug of Pimms Cup to a nearby table that seemed a bit raucous, only to learn that it was a group of locals who had been overtaken by a single drunk crazy American, so it felt fitting that I could engage her directly and set them free, an Americans-in-Chiswick standoff that I won. Got some of that group’s contact info as well and left amidst a fantastic hug-fest and promises of another get-together soon.

Honestly my soul felt soothed in the deepest of ways: 7 days in and I’ve run a successful event at my regular pub and met people I can see again soon. And I know I can do it again because I’ve already done it. I’m just going to keep getting out amongst new people as much as possible and exchanging contact info a ton, knowing that it will be a numbers game to find some real connections and people I can get into a regular rhythm with of some kind. And I also want to savor the one-time moments as well, crossing paths with strangers in a new place and being present without future attachment. Onwards!