I noticed that Londoners have a certain way of communicating with each other on the tube – a form of communication that I am not unfamiliar with, as I’ve used it many times myself with other Londoners around the city. What is this communication tactic, you might ask? The eye contact, eye-roll and shrug all muddled into one look. It’s almost a silent language, but quite entertaining to notice once you’ve picked up on it.
What do Nat King Cole, Etta James and Louis Armstrong have in common? Perhaps it’s the sweet chorus of Dream a Little Dream of Me or the lilting melody of La Vie En El Rose that pulls on your heart strings. Maybe it could be the bittersweet tenderness in nearly all of their lyrics. In my mind, jazz music bears the soul and the mind of those not afraid to love, even in the face of rejection.
There are so many things that we do every day out of habit, or because we’re ‘supposed to’ and don’t really put much thought into it. But with the bigger choices, do you ever wonder what life could be like if you’d chosen differently?
As I’m writing this, I’m sitting at one of my favourite coffee shops in London. It’s on a busy street with people walking by and red busses zipping past me. Whilst one may see chaos, this is the calmest and the happiest I’ve been in quite some time.
I thought the furthest I would live away from home would be New York City, and that I would eventually settle down back in Minneapolis. Living abroad really hadn’t even crossed my radar yet.
