A brief note
Well this week I had my phone stolen and that wasn't great. My reaction to it was interesting though; and I realised I wasn't as traumatised as I thought I would be. I mean, I wasn't robbed at knife point or anything, I just left my phone in a coffee shop for a few minutes and when I remembered it and returned, it was gone. I was mostly angry at myself.I was mad because I didn't have insurance. Because I was feeling ill and absent-minded when I left my phone behind. And because I hadn't had the phone for very long and I wondered how I could have been so stupid.Funnily enough, my first thought was not "I can't believe someone would just take something that didn't belong to them!" I didn't even care about the thief until much later, when I started to wonder if I'd backed the phone up and whether I was going to lose my summer photos.I wonder why the first instinct is to blame ourselves for being so trusting of other human beings who, you know, were obviously always going to let us down. It's strange to me how easily I could accept that someone probably stole it, and that they just saw an opportunity and took it.I think I had fantasies about angling this blog post to be about the feeling of someone having something that belongs to you, but actually I'm more concerned with my complete lack of faith in the kindness of strangers.I think my feelings about London and, to be honest, the world in general, are changing. And you, oh so lucky reader, get to witness the metamorphosis. I've also written an article this week about the lack of diversity in the UK book publishing industry, so you can read that little positive ditty too. I know, I know; I shouldn’t rock the boat that I need to get on to, to sail me to party island (or life as a published author), but I'm not the first to write about it and I probably won't be the last. And like I said, you might be witnessing a metamorphosis, so let’s all savour these brief moments of reflection while we can.
Image credit: Pickpocket by Alina Oleynik from the Noun Project