The First Morning
The suitcases were still closed.
The flat still smelled like other people’s holidays – layers of perfume, sunscreen, something fried. For years I’d rented it out to strangers, and now I’d finally arrived with the crazy idea that it could be my home.
Third floor, no lift. Getting everything up here the night before had been its own workout routine. But in the morning all that effort shrank to background noise, because there was only one thing I wanted:
Coffee on the balcony.
The table was still the old plastic folding one. On it, the first object that actually felt like mine in this place: a big white mug with black letters curled around the side. The mug was a gift from a Spanish friend, a last-minute replacement. My favourite one – the hummingbird mug I’d got from Neville – had shattered a few days before I left England.
I sat down, bare feet on cool tiles, and let the sun hit my face. From this height I didn’t see a car park, just the tops of trees, their leaves moving in a lazy, late-morning breeze. The noise from the street was a distant murmur, softened by three floors of air and concrete.
Closer, much louder, were the parrots.
They screamed from somewhere in the branches like a badly tuned tropical orchestra, arguing about seeds and territory and whatever else parrots negotiate at full volume. It should have been annoying. It wasn’t. It was proof that I was somewhere else now. Not Poland. Not England. Somewhere that had parrots as background noise.
I wrapped both hands around the mug. First sip: strong, hot, slightly too bitter, exactly right. For a moment there was nothing except sun on my skin, ceramic under my fingers and that ridiculous, beautiful chorus of birds.
The questions were waiting just inside the sliding door.
Where is my home now?
Is it still in Poland? No.
In England? Not anymore.
Here? Not yet.
Inside, the bags lined up along the corridor like a to-do list. Sheets to wash, cupboards to claim, drawers to fill, walls to decide on. I knew that in a few minutes I’d stand up and start the work of taming this place so it would stop feeling like a rental and start feeling like a life.
Maybe this time I’d grow roots. Maybe I wouldn’t. I had no idea.
On that balcony, none of it was decided yet. There was just light, heat, caffeine, and a sentence on my first Spanish mug telling me, very calmly, how this story was going to go.
IMPOSIBLE DERROTAR A QUIEN NUNCA SE RINDE.
Impossible to beat the one who doesn’t give up.
I took another sip and let the parrots scream and the traffic hum and the future sort itself out later.
For now, this was enough.
Upside Down
This drawing belongs with this frame because both begin with the ground shifting under you.
