Contentment

Life has a way of moving the goal posts. Since leaving London eight years ago, we have travelled round the world, and moved seven times (to homes in Spain, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Cheshire, now Hampshire) thanks to my husband's career change as a pilot. Along the way we've gathered two children, two dogs, lost innumerable hamsters and goldfish. I did think of calling this blog 'Wife in the South,' in honour of the glorious Wife in the North, but the rate at which we move I would have to rename it every few months. The last move south, I was still surrounded by Pickfords boxes on the second night in the cottage we are renting when my husband arrived home to tell me they had closed the airport base. I thought it was his notoriously dry sense of humour. But no, either he had to change jobs, or we had to move again. This time he changed jobs, but now he is away a great deal in exotic locations while we are here. And yes, I have read Air Babylon.

In London, as a newlywed lying on the grass in St Luke's garden with the sound of the lunchtime traffic on the King's Rd in the distance, I used to imagine escaping the 9 - 5 for a golden future filled with a troop of kids, a Georgian box, perhaps a lovely ramshackle place in France, and me with a study full of published novels. We're not there quite yet. As I packed up our comfortable life in Fulham and we set off for an uncertain future, my other half assured me the aviation industry was crying out for pilots. No one could have predicted 9/11 happening just as he graduated, and right now with ex-council houses near us fetching over a quarter of a million pounds, and the sale of a kidney required every time you fill up the car I find myself thinking that a small cowshed of our own somewhere that is not on the main drag for Sunday bikers down the Meon Valley and the chance to write full time would be bliss. I've carried the manuscript of my first book with me through all the moves and finally there's the first glimmer of hope of seeing it published. Perfection can wait. It's our wedding anniversary tomorrow, other half is in the Maldives, and a few years ago I would have been miserable. These days I am aiming for contented.

Somewhere at Rioanji there is a carving that translates loosely as 'I learn only to be contented.' I've used the quote at the beginning of my first novel 'Love & Loss', and thought often of this over the years since visiting the temple. At the time I felt anything but Zen-like contentment. We were in Japan in winter, I was freezing cold and every step felt like I was walking on glass. Travelling round the world with hand luggage I had naively imagined I could pick up some winter boots in Tokyo. When I was directed to the huge-big-footed-westerner boot department of Isetan, all they had were high-heeled numbers. I picked out a beautiful pair of killer heels in supple tan leather. My husband narrowed his eyes, mentally warming up for that 'I-told-you-so' moment. So it was I tottered my way around Kyoto and Osaka - even the Geisha looked distinctly more comfortable in their wooden geta sandals. Naturally I didn't let on to my husband that I was in agony. I remember almost weeping, my face frozen in a rictus smile as I had to hand back the rubber sandals they make you wear at the Rioanji temple and put the accursed boots back on. It was only afterwards, nursing my blisters in a hot bath that I read about the carving. The sentiment, and the beauty of the temple have stayed with me - like a dogeared postcard of a painting at a museum, sometimes the things you take home have more meaning at a distance than the moment, in spite of what Walter Benjamin said about reproduction killing the magic of art. Contentment - to be done with wanting ... something to aim for.