On being undersold and overpriced

Archive of Lady Catherine de Turnips, entry 4663-0-y.

Dear friend,

Oh, I wish it were a letter from elsewhere. It is so easy to imagine the simple delights of an idyllic island escape. A humble desk by the window to the leafy garden. A birdsong – just on the very edge of perception. Light curtains dancing on the gentle breeze bringing echoes of seaweed and salt not from very much afar…

Britain is also an island, isn’t it? They say, one can never be further than 70 odd miles from the sea here. Yet here I am, fighting with an unprecedented London heat (not the first, not the last) in a very urban manner and as violently as a lifelong pacifist can: to be more specific, suffering in silence and migrating from one airconditioned spot to another when yet another place shows (and, sometimes, tells) that I have overstayed my welcome. My current exile is a tired corner of an East London coffee shop where, for now, my presence is traded for a price of a frappuccino – and oh my, even if this fancy-ish drink is overpriced, I am clearly underselling myself: so far from simple delights!

They say, the word "metaphor" is connected, by its meaning, to the idea of transporting elsewhere. What is great – and what is horrible – about human nature is that we are always wandering in several places at once in our minds. I remember when a fountain in Odesa made me think of the Spanish Alhambra; for some reason, another fountain, in St Petersburg, made me recall the water sources of the Ottoman Istanbul. I miss them all dearly – St Petersburg, Odesa, Istanbul, even yet-to-be-seen Alhambra – as, probably, some time from now, I will miss where I am now. One can never be sure with those escapes.

So here I am, writing a letter "from afar" – just because my mind decided to wander elsewhere, but, for a change, I wanted to anchor it in one spot for slightly longer.

Your friend,
Lady Catherine de Turnips