Ode to a Nightingale

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades	75
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:—do I wake or sleep?

Keats - Ode to a Nightingale

Tomorrow is my last day at work. Was it a vision or a waking dream? Both my life and the nightingale. My family have been banking since the 14th Century. We were bankers to the Princes of Milan. The word itself "bank" derives from the Italian word for bench which in the Milan Borsa was traditionally broken in two when the deal was struck. I wonder if today, in so many ways, I have come full circle. I am struck by this metaphor. Perhaps to move on we all need for the bench that we sit on to be broken? Perhaps the early Milanese bankers got it right? Do we ever strive for the new, for the difficult, if we are sitting in a position of comfort? I know I don't.

I walked home tonight from dinner and drinks with a soul friend. Across Paternoster Square and back through the city. I found myself walking across a cross roads, along the other arm of the cross, perpendicular, to the way I walked across it about six months ago. Again, it felt as if in some ways I have come full circle. It caught me on unawares. It is time for me to go back to Mexico. As my soul friend tonight said, its time for chapter three. I know she was referring to the next chapter of our friendship, but I am aware that these chapters are also aligned to those of my adult life. 

For clarification, I call her a soul friend as we seem to find each other and meet again in different circumstances, in different locations, in different occupations at different times. She is meant to be in my life. We have parallel paths. We met in Italy at a horse show in 2004, in 2005 I asked her to come and help us out in NY, in 2009 she came to London, we have spent time together here since then, somehow, she claims (I don't believe her as she would have done it anyway but it might have taken longer) me changing my life has inspired her and she is going to try to go back to the States in the next couple of years. We are connected.

The Yeats quote is one of my favorite poems for so many reasons. Both deeply personal and more abstract. I realise that in a few months, with hindsight, my times here might seem like a dream. It will cloud over, the memories will haze up, things will become more diffuse and less defined. I welcome that day. I have regrets, of course I do, but on the whole they are small ones. I wish I had had the opportunity to work in the City. To walk the lanes and steep myself in the history and legacy of the place. The city seems to me to be one part magic to two parts modern and odious. The one part magic would make the experience a worth while trade. But, then again, we all make our own magic. Someone asked me today if I was looking forward to running away from it all. I said not at all. I am running towards the rest of my life. That is what it feels like, especially cemented by the past two weeks in the markets which have done nothing but affirm my choice. This is me. Breathing deep. Preparing. Running towards the rest of my life.