Full Circle

I was born and remain a Londoner, despite all attempts to escape. After each global adventure, I find myself back here, striving to reconnect. On a fine day, in a chosen spot, in spite of the business bustle and carbon-fuelled  din, this remains one of the most humane and open of cities.

After the boulevards and beaches, returning from two years in LA was a nightmare. London seemed like Lilliput: cramped streets squashed with houses, pinched faces with horizons to match. My arrival was accompanied by another failed relationship, unemployment plus a shortage of funds. This didn't help matters much.

One night, I quit my bleak bedsit, and took my disillusion out on the streets. I found myself in a lesser-known part of North London, wandering through a dark wood. The place held no terror to compare with depression. If I'd met the Hound of the Baskervilles, I'd have kicked it into touch. 'Come on and try it,' I thought. 'Make my day.' Apart from the odd squirrel, there were few takers. Dark woods can seem rather empty when you're spoiling for a fight.

Eventually, I found the way back, down a long dismal street bordered by a wall. Looking over, I glimpsed a graveyard. Its presence mocked my footsteps as I hurried on. At the corner was a church. I peered at the fading noticeboard. 'St Jude,' it read.

"I know it," my my brother, Ed, when I mentioned my night. "Jude - the patron saint of lost causes!" Ed is knowledgeable on stuff like that. "Where you were baptized," he added.

"Baptized?" the word sank in. "You mean, after all this crap, I haven't really gone anywhere?" From a minefield of mystery, a world full of spills and adventure, life suddenly made sense.  I'd been going round in circles the whole time, or one giant one, ending much where I began - bar a few scream-filled weeks.

The nightmare gained substance: trapped underground, as faces and stations change around you, sunk motionless in a seat. "I might as well have stayed on the Circle Line," I groaned.

Ed smiled. "You're back now."

"I don't feel I've left!"

"London's not a bad old town," he said. "We all have to belong somewhere."

I suspect he was right.

Difference between Daughter(s) and Girlfriend

Daughters can seem remote at times, though you've probably known them since birth. Assuming you've known your 'partner' all her life could be a mistake. A partner can walk out of your life any time, married or not; daughters never. They're stuck with you, genetically at least. "For better or worse" is true in their case, even if they ignore you. The same applies "for richer or poorer" hopefully.

For your kids, you are the key to what went wrong or right in the past: a piece of evidence that predates them. In the case of romance and relationships, one usually turns up long after a partner's first passions or loves. Accepting you is a retrospective fit: something you try to live up to. Like reality, you are constantly challenged and tested. Survival dosen't disprove the fact that you weren't there from the start; it merely compounds it.

There's an ambiguity about love, define it how you will, especially when it dwells on the future. Partners may believe you'll change one day; daughters know you never will.

In general, loving a girlfriend/wife/partner plus a daughter or two covers all angles - without making life any simpler or (let's face it) comprehensible.