Schoolmistress

"dear diary,

coming from the small town, the little island, the station, or wherever you next life incarnation has decided to place you, and arriving in the big city. a flat in the middle of it all, small yet mine and comfortable enough. isn't that good enough for starters. then there's my new job, and the absence of stagnant headmasters or others obsessed by sheep and who took the last rum on saturday's station dance. i have real colleagues now, people my age, people my kind, and first day after work some of them took me for a hell of an evening out, oh, so much wine and a single long good laugh, and i got by far too late and drunk in bed. there's the faster pace of the city, clearly noticeable, perceptible, and the lights and the crowds and the shops and the cafés. the burden of vigilance, sprung out of uncle aaron's mere existence and what he once did, is gone, off my shoulders. i tread the streets, dance the streets, lightly. the sense of freedom is mindblowing.

oh, it's not all new to me, because i have lived here before. but at that time there were still things to be done, things to return home to do, muting my joie de vivre. now they have been done. and i'm back, having left that past for ever i hope, i hope, i hope, and having left with a thrilling parting kiss, objectionable enough to have been out of qustion in the old life, but tempting and exciting enough to mark the beginning of the new. this is not just a move. it is a change, too. a liberation. a smiling downhill walk into the future. schoolmistress days have ended.

mia"