It is very difficult to get across to most people just how out of touch we are with modern living and specifically people density and noise. Aside from medics, tradesmen and checkout people, I speak with nobody other than the wife. This has been the case for quite a while, over six years. I have spoken in person to/with her brother and friends when they visited. I have had very few zoom type calls in that six year period. Certainly, less than two dozen. I do not speak on the ‘phone. Nor do I chat via email or WhatsApp whatever the hell that is.
In many ways I am a bumpkin, a pikey and a hermit. I am no longer accustomed to “sophistication” nor the high octane pace of somewhere like Saint Helier Jersey. {Population~ 30k}
I am unaccustomed to any social interaction.
Part of the purpose of visiting Jersey was to see how it felt to be surrounded by people and anglophone people at that. It is fair to say that I am still a little shell shocked. We were out of the compound for less than 48 hours and in the Metropolis for 24.
The fist thing I noted was just how frantic and ill at ease people were. The energy they were giving off was edgy and wanting to please, to fit in. The manager at Pizza Express asked us if we wanted the app…Why? I don’t use apps and we have not been to a Pizza Express for more than six years. I did not even have a ‘phone.
The people in Jersey seemed rushed and hassled compared to here. And boy were they loud when bullshitting each other. I noted several chunky “personal trainer” types, keen to exploit the Jersey dollar for fitness and “well-being”. There is money and it attracts.
The only calm experience, outside interaction, I had was when I sat on the bench outside M&S and a well-heeled woman older than me sat next. Neither of us were rushed. We shared silence for a few minutes. She went into Givenchy. The main street was a bit like a cross between high street Guildford and Bond Street London.
Jersey is clean and “posh”. It is also surprisingly multi-national with people there to meet the services sector demand. I used to hang out in posh places, South Kensington and earlier Mayfair / Piccadilly. I lived in Brixton.
The hotel we stayed at was very nice. We ate at the hotel restaurant. They played loud “party” music and people outside on the terrace were necking booze and smoking or vaping. The food was good and the service very, perhaps overly, quick. There was noise and laughter outside. I thought to myself that once I used to do that kind of thing. I would have been content as a Brit on the piss. It all seemed more than a little forced and false. It was hurried. There were ostentatious handshakes and kissy-kissy helloes.
I was the alien from another planet. I was able to order, in English, food from the pygmy African waitress. I was observing, earth.
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The rheumatologist suggested we move to Jersey for the “quality of life”. It did not seem that attractive to me. How do you explain quiet tranquillity with no social interaction and a gentle river running through the garden? That has quality and not a constant needy need for social interaction and social affirmation. There is no need for endless consumption, conspicuous or otherwise.
I am still sighing a little, a whole day later.
What is obvious from that visit is that it is probably not wise to live in a “built-up” area and that I do not miss the people in whose country I once lived. I do not need that English vibe.
It might be possible to live in the countryside and visit an urban “metropolis” when there is a need.
Unfortunately, I am like a sponge and can pick up all that emitted jangly nervous energy. It made “in town” sleeping hard.
Theoretically It would be possible to earn money tutoring wealthy kids in physics and chemistry on Jersey. But I don’t think there is anywhere there far enough away from “civilization”.
If I found Jersey difficult to hack, London would cause a complete meltdown.
Did I really get on the Victoria Line every weekday morning during rush hour? Really? And without any medication?
In terms of incarnation that seems like the most surreal incarnation that I have ever had.
Still more than a little shell shocked after only a very brief jaunt…
Dreamyoga 