Reflections of a marshmallow fluff addict

I'm sitting on my bed that is two feet higher than any bed ought to be, looking at a Marc Chagall poster we rescued from the trash on the way home from classes today. I'm feeling as though life in the city is a bit like this beautiful picture - the wonderful experiences are the most unexpected, but are discarded or missed all too easily. I've realised that all of the girls I'm friends with, the lovely, funny, facinating new people, are all leaving me at Christmas, and it makes me sad. This city will be for me as much the people that I meet and love here as the streets and buildings themselves.

America is confusing and strange. In Washington DC there are memorials that leave me feeling this country is founded almost entirely on military victory and religion, two entities I struggle with. But in the same city are all the beautiful, diverse and unimagined wonders that I love so much. Delicious food in a New Orleans style restaurant, a hidden roof garden, a fantastic art gallery, Getrude Stein recitations by waterfalls at dusk, jazz that makes you feel alive in ways you'd forgotten you could. Even the five hour return bus journey in the dark concluded with New York's commanding skyline lit up against the night, and left me breathless.

Occaisionally homesickness rears it's head, but not in the way I thought it would. For just an instant every now and then, I long for the sound of familiar accents, prices that include tax, proper spellings, even some dismal London rain or a ride on Tube, and of course a hug, some proper tea and a chat at Chandos Ave. I never realised quite how much I loved London until I began to describe it to those who have never imagined anything beyond Big Ben and Buckingham Palace. Even more peculiar, I never expected to feel proud in the way that I do. Proud even, perhaps, of being British, but I'm still not sure about that one - though I'm strangely comforted not to be a native of this fascinating nation.

I've never felt as justified in the decisions I've made in the last 18 months as I do now. I have no doubts I've gotten it wrong, repeatedly, but somehow leaving Oxford, and then London, has landed me in this city, where slowly, slowly, things are falling into place. Its not what I expected, and I remain terrified (possibly not quite the paralytic fear I felt before I left) but if I successfully managed to get myself 3000 miles from home without going into complete meltdown, then maybe it's about time I started trusting my judgement a little more. I can navigate successfully - almost - the crazy masses of buildings and people, and while communicating with individuals is still an anxious experience, these damn yanks often don't give me a choice, with complete strangers launching into conversations all over the place. It's even, dare I say it, enjoyable.

Two days ago I cut my hair - just an inch to stop the split ends and such. It felt like the city was consuming a little piece of me, and that it might go on, inch by inch, until eventually leaving an entirely different, yet entirely the same me. I think I've been reading too much modernist nonsense. Perhaps I will attempt to stop stuffing my face with sugar and get some sleep.