Tag: Kings road

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Awareness

Julia Chi Taylor

I ran down the five flights of stairs from my flat as a start to my run!

On reaching the lobby, I poked my nose out of the door – the rain was pouring down…!

(I can’t see rain from my flat!)

Rain jacket needed, I caught the lift back up to the 5th floor! 🙂 

Down the stairs I ran again – and out into the streets to a delightful rainy March morn…

I jogged 300 metres to the King’s road…

I love that road…

I always have

It has an air of happening energy and possibility – creativity in motion

The years of people going by – and by – making their way.

For others it may be a different experience…

We are all living in our own ‘movie’ – but we so often make the mistake of believing others are experiencing the world as we do… 

With awareness and presence to our own ‘now’, it is easier to cross the bridge into the worlds of others 

To be where they are too 

Now

But first and foremost if we are aware of our every breath, our every thought, our every action then life is transformed…

But to do this it means clearing the emotional pain, the psychological dramas that can arise in any moment;

And when we practise living this way, in time we experience that we are the awareness that is aware….

I was first attracted to the King’s road for a shopping trip when I was fourteen – over the years I have returned, again and again – and now I live a short distance away from its hustle and bustle, it’s unique essence.

I jogged past ‘The Duke of York Square’ where the Saturday Food market stall holders were starting to set up, and on to Sloane Square, turning right and making my way down to Chelsea bridge and over it to run about in Battersea Park

All these places so familiar, so many of ‘the stories of my life ’ have happened around here…

I was racing races in Battersea Park when I was still in my 20’s 

And now in my 60’s its like none of it ever happened

Because the now is now

And the now feels better because of the past that never happened

And is also happening

Now

Awareness is everything; when we are aware we will become aware that we are the awareness and we have always been free

Now

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Dear Diary, So Many Lives

Last Saturday I was sitting in the sun on a bench under a tree in the Duke of York square, an old man came and sat nearby with his coffee… I noticed his energy reach towards me even though he was turned away…

Anadi came back with our coffee and juice and sat beside me…

The old man got up, came over and stood in front of us… ’Are you on holiday?’ – he asked… ‘Every day is a holiday’ Anadi replied, smiling.

‘We live here’ I explained, ‘but every day does feel like a holiday…’

‘Do you know who lives over there?’ he pointed up to a flat that looked over the square…

‘Who lives there?’ –  we asked…

‘Are you old enough to know the Beatles?’ 

‘Everyone knows the Beatles’ Anadi laughed…

‘Well who’s left?’ – he continued… ‘Paul McCartney’ I offered, ‘Ringo’ Anadi replied

‘Yes, that’s the one’, he nodded… ‘Ringo lives there…’

He then started to tell us about the many other well known people who live round and about before starting on his own life story…

‘We came down from Kings Lynn with my Mother because of the flooding, we moved to Battersea, which wasn’t like it is now…I started to swim in an indoor pool – they were all outdoor where we’d come from, and freezing cold – and then there was the boxing club next door, so I joined that…

My brother and I started with the boy scouts and when it was ‘bob a job’ week we couldn’t get any work around Battersea, and so we tried Chelsea instead – that’s when I fell in love with the Kings road… I was 14 and we had jobs for the whole week…

I went into the theatres and asked if I could do some work there and they told me to come back in the summer… ‘

He told us how he did go back in the summer, and was soon earning £15 a week ‘More than my Dad’, he offered…

He told us more of his life , the famous people he had met and how eventually he ran a well known deli on the Kings road, which sold Caviar for £48 a portion…

We sat sipping our coffee and munching on croissant listening to his tales, the sun warming us

He finished by telling us how he and his wife sold their home… ‘The estate agents suggested £1.8 million – Our faces fell when they told us that, so they suggested 1.9’

‘We said “no” and put it on the market for 2.5… Within a week nine people had offered to buy our home and so I suggested the agent offer someone to gazump…!

‘We got £3 million, it’s still in the bank’ he finished, laughing…

A man with a camera around his neck was hovering … ‘Hello Joe’, he said ‘How are you doing…?’ He chatted awhile and then the man with the camera showed me some of his photographs, ‘They’re fabulous’ I said…’I’ve photographed Stella McCartney’ he responded…

Joe told us he is 80 now, and he still loves the Kings road.

I told him I too fell in love with the Kings road when I was 14 and came on my first solo shopping trip to London here…

They both went on their way…

Anadi and I than walked over to Battersea Park, we sat on the grass in the hot hot sun;

‘Life is such fun’, I said, ‘all these people we meet, their lives and their stories…’

So many lives… So many stories

So much love, so much living

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Dear Diary; Limitless Possibility

The Kings road is our playground now. I love the energy…

I was first drawn to this place aged fourteen years. I went there for a shopping trip with £5 to spend.

I bought two pairs of brightly coloured loons (£1.99 each) – two bits of material sewed together serving as jeans – fashionable in the 70’s! And a T shirt…

And now years later, I love our weekly ‘outing’ to Pret for coffee.

Rain threatened in the cloudy grey heaviness, so we carried (well Anadi did!) the big purple umbrella I had immediately purchased on returning to the UK last year.

The heavens opened just as we had arrived, carrying coffees and ‘brunch’, to sit outside the Saatchi gallery – our ‘outdoor cafe’ for now.

We made for a corner, between two buildings, and sheltered on a dry bit of ground under the umbrella. 

A fun time – a dry and warm time – in our little den with the rain pouring down.

There was no where else I would rather have been but there, sharing a cup of coffee (and an almond croissant of course!) with Anadi – looking out through a glaze of translucent wetness.

We watched people running this way and that for shelter, under trees and shop fronts.

All of us being where we all were.

There is nowhere else to be but where we are.

From this place we can create our next moment and our next…

From this place of presence…

This place free from the pain of the past, stories, outdated scripts that feel to have nothing to do with who we know ourselves to be.

Here, right now, in the watery filled moment there was nothing but possibility, shimmering and dancing with the blowing leaves on the trees.

Where to now?

Which way will our energy glint and glisten to reflect another experience, another scene in the play of our life?

Do we want to turn and catch the light in a different way, from a different angle and see a new act playing out in front of us; or do we like the old?

Perhaps we didn’t we know we could turn a different way and see a different reflection.

In this moment, in this silent space there is limitless possibility…

And in the next

And the next. 

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Dear Diary; Life a Mystery to be Lived

There is a shop on the Kings road that I have been drawn to since living her …

The look of it anyway… I had never been inside; it was always closed when I ran by – morning and night – as I journeyed to and fro to work.

An Aladdin’s cave, a magical mystery tour awaiting me, a treat in store … And then it was shut 

Locked 

Down

A shiny orb – a  crystal ball emanating esoteric energy – sits still in the window… The colours, the vibrancy; crystals clustered… velvet drapes…

Beautiful to me

A world I have always loved…

But today as Anadi and I wandered by, the door was ajar… I peered in.

‘We’re open’, a man called, and so we entered to the experience of delightful be-jewelled joy, the smell of mysticism; books, cards, colourful clothes, silk dresses, striped trews… Hippy bags – I bought one; Joss sticks piled high – ‘Nag Champa and Palo Santo please’ I bought these too… Cards painted – swirling, shape, form, magic…

I spoke to the man who had beckoned us in – admired his ceiling, newly painted purple, yellow, black stripes in between… Anadi chatting to the other.

‘This is a haunt of Eric Clapton, Charlie Watts and Mick Jagger’ he said…

Ahh, kindred spirits – I mused, as we set off once more on our Saturday outing; along the Kings road.

Life unfolding, walking up a road…

Many buildings, with doors to walk through…

Which ones we choose determine the experiences, the lessons, the people we meet.

Other spirits who too have walked through that door; opened the way to new vistas and visions

Experiences to be had.

Many doors, many choices

No wrong way or right

All unfolding exactly as it is

In each moment

“Life is a mystery to be lived not a puzzle to be solved’

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Dear Diary; Life an Adventure

Sunday, shiny sunny beckoned us with his golden glow…

Life an adventure.

Every ordinary moment extraordinary.

While we’re alive, when we live, fully, every ordinary extraordinary moment is shimmering with its own unique energy…

Reflecting our own unique vibration; everything a hologram …

Anadi and I set off running up the Kings road… I padded off, my feet naked, Anadi in his Xero shoes ; out for a Sunday excursion.

I fancied coffee, and – it turned out – a biscuit…! We sat outside the Saatchi gallery, drinking coffee, chatting

Being

Together

My perfect life.

On we ran into Green park, along to Buckingham Palace, awesome in its grandeur and splendour.

A lap of St James Park… Green too, verdant alive.

Pelicans gathered on duck island – I was reminded of the limerick my Dad would recite

‘A wonderful bird is the pelican, his beak can hold more than his belly can

He can hold in his beak, enough food for a week

But I’ll be darned if I know how the hellican’.

We ran up the Mall – the first time I’ve done so without having already run nearly 26 miles! Looped our way through Trafalgar Square and back to green Park.

A taxi driver pointed to my feet, slowed down and slid his window down…‘You Zola Budd’ he laughed with incredulity… 

On the Kings road again, we chatted for a while with Donny, he’s been on the streets just over a year, but is ready to get a job, to get back into society again.

He told us he had been angry with everyone and everything… He left everything…Being on the streets has restored him he said – he’s met nice people.

Zola Budd? He questioned glancing at my feet!

Life extraordinary in every ordinary moment… Every person extraordinary unique.

‘I succeed at everything I do’, Donny continued – recounting some of his past experiences in the workforce… ‘I’ve even succeeded at this’ he gestured to the streets and his two bags…

The paths we tread so different, yet the same…

Making our way one step at a time

My new friends in London, all homeless; Donny, Kev and Darren

Some resonance within me reflected in them

And so it is 

All of us a hologram