Where's My Fairy Godmother?

It was beautiful this morning. Starting the day with a run around Town Lake and a swim in Barton Springs, with the sun just risen and painting the clouds behind the downtown skyline. And then a coffee house on a cloudy morning. These are the things I’ll miss. I love this city. But it’s a trade innit? I’ll give up Tex-Mex for fish and chips, Dr. Pepper for real Guinness, Barton Springs for the River Cherwell, Oxford for Austin. And then all I’ll really miss are the people, these beautiful people I know and love. So why do it? Why ever leave? And the answer is I don’t know. But I want to find out. I want to see what else is out there. And I’ve done it before. The only difference is that this time there’s no time limit on it. ‘Yeah, I’m going to Cali, but it’s just for the summer.’ Or the next year it was just for half a summer. And the next year it was England, but only for six months, or Europe for four weeks. And I feel I’ve spent almost as much time not here as here, only I’ve always come back. And I will come back, I just don’t know when or for how long. The last time I made a move like this I was not quite three years old and I was leaving the Kalahari Desert of southern Africa for some place called America. And all I know of that move is that the night before we left I walked through the village hand in hand with Mum singing ‘Little Bunny Foo Foo’ in a high-pitched, quavering falsetto voice, and the next day, when our plane landed I breathed a huge sigh of relief and announced to all the passengers, ‘phew… us made it!’ But I might be mixing my childhood stories here…

The point is, there were no difficult goodbyes that time. Laissez-faire, and take what life gives you. Maybe I’m over thinking this. It’s not goodbye for ever. I’ll be back, or you can come see me, and everyone’ll be happy. Right? Sure. Smile and tell me that’s exactly how it’ll work.

I’ll believe you.