On The Couch, An Epiphany

The Gap Year/Weekend That Wasn’t

Mrs Parsnip informs me that she is going to be going away for an autumnal weekend with the girls. I am rather excited. I started at a law firm straight after law school and never did the whole gap year thing. You know - the one where you travel and have adventures and meet strangers in bars and connect with local culture and cuddle baby elephants and dance with Geishas and find yourself. It just wasn’t the norm for ambitious (or broke) brown boys in 2007-8.

I have always wanted to travel by myself, so this will be it, I think. My Grand Gap Weekend. Not quite a year (too long), not a month (not enough holiday left) but a weekend will suffice for now.

This is how it played out.

Seville

I adore Spain (see last year’s post, Churros for Breakfast) and in particular, Seville, so it is the obvious first choice.  There’s a crowded little bar in a random lane that I was very taken with when we went a few years ago so that is what I’ll do - head out on Friday night and have a late dinner. I will carry my little yellow writing notebook and find a corner table to perch on and drink beer and jot down clever little observations about the human condition. And then over the weekend I’ll wander through the lanes and stop under orange trees and indulge in Salmorejo and Carrillada de Cerdo and finally finish one of the short stories I have been working on since 2013.

But the flight timings suck and there’s nothing ideal on Friday night, which would mean losing out on most of Sat morning + airport hassle + leaving on Sunday afternoon to get back and all of that malarkey. This is not going to work, I realise sadly. Another time, Spain, another time.

Paris

Never mind Spain, there’s always Paris. An easy, two hour Eurostar from London, no flight attendant safety briefings or cranky people reclining their seats or wailing babies or air pressure changes to make my ears pop.

I shall go to my favourite buckwheat crepe place in the Marais, walk along the Seine, try and find some miscellaneous hidden passages (ideally without being mugged), go to the Abbey bookshop in the 5th, get some more culchah at the Picasso museum and while I’m at it, send Father Parsnip a postcard with Picasso’s famous “Le Rêve” painting on it. He will likely frame it and put it up in his living room, at which point I shall triumphantly reveal to him that half the head in that painting is a penis and record his reaction on video. Real mature, I know.

I shall cross, but not enter Shakespeare & Co. (too many other tourists, and also, I once saw them sell a copy of Twlight in their main bookshop section, which was a buzzkill). But as I meander past, I shall remember that at some point in the 1920s Hemingway was here and I shall resolve to re-read The Sun Also Rises for the millionth time. Swept away in the nostalgic romance of the literary moment, I shall briefly contemplate getting a beat up typewriter to write on myself before Mrs Parsnip and common sense prevail. Also, you can’t spellcheck on typewriters. Disastr.

French Onion Soup, Bœuf Bourgignon and multiple macarons shall be consumed. Perhaps I shall ask someone for directions in broken French and they shall be disdainful when they reply. And as a tribute to the cultural melting pot that is Paris, I may snack on some shawarma/falafel while out and about.

However, last minute Eurostar tickets and hotels are insanely expensive. I don’t feel like spending a bomb just for the weekend and I am too old and not cool/carefree enough to couchsurf or similar. Rather unhelpfully, the only friend I knew who lived in Paris moved back to the US (selfish, really).

London

Why go all the way to France when I haven’t fully explored almighty London yet, I tell myself.

As a creature of habit, I have my usual hotspots that I stick to and keep repeating. London lays before me, unexplored. I have, for instance, never really been to Clapham (drunken house party in 2008 does not count). And I have only been to Brixton twice and never to Dalston.

I shall finally learn why all of Australia and New Zealand migrates to Clapham. I shall walk on the Common, make friends with cute golden retrievers and have multiple flat whites while random dog owners acknowledge me with a “G’day” . And finally, I shall head to Brixton for some superior goat curry Ramen. Rather conveniently, I’ve just finished reading Bernadine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other and am definitely in a Brixtony frame of mind. Perhaps I’ll end up in East London hanging out with the bearded oversized beanie wearing vegan hipsters with their white sneakers and ironical shirts.

Aaaaaand if I stick to London, I can sleep in my own comfortable bed at night, with the correct number of pillows (2 - one to use per normal and one to clutch) and perfect mattress. It’s a winner!

The End

It’s freezing and after Mrs Parsnip leaves around 4ish I lounge about a bit before I have to head out to one of my chosen destinations South of the Thames (South! Jeez Louise!). I start flicking through the Court of Owls graphic novel just to find something to do and fall asleep on the sofa.

I wake up in a panic and realise it is now 8:30 pm and I have not done any of the things I thought I would do on my Grand Gap Weekend. It is at this point that I have a late 30s epiphany: it is dark and cold and I am never really going to swap fleece jammies for real trousers and voluntarily leave the couch. In the Grand Intergalactic Existential Battle Between Globetrotter Me and Homebody Me, the latter wins.

This is who I am. I decide to lean into it. I order a pizza and watch old episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. It is blissful. I am in cheese and pepperoni and sci-fi induced heaven. This is it, I tell myself - these are my weekend vibes.

Over the rest of that weekend - I mooch around the house, reorganise my bookshelf, make a hearty soup, wonder if I should take up Philately again, snooze, do some research on electric vs hybrid cars, read old issues of the New Yorker and go to bed super early.

On Sunday night, I am in my trusty yellow chair, reading, when Mrs Parsnip walks in, her nose pink from the cold autumn air.

“How was your weekend?”, she asks, taking off her coat in the hallway, seemingly amused at finding me in the same spot I was in when she left two days ago.

“Brilliant!”, I beam.