I’m back in Bermuda for a little while. It still hasn’t hit me I’m going to be here for some time. I’ve been back for one month, but I think once January ends the feeling will start to settle in. When I was contemplating moving, I wanted to. Never would I think I’d feel like that. I’ve lived in London for seven years and have not once considered coming back to Bermuda for longer than a two-week vacation. In the final months of 2017 London wasn’t serving my soul.

** I wrote this a week after Notting Hill Carnival and was commissioned for an online publication but unfortunately the editor didn’t get to it in time and it was too late to publish, thus it’s on the blog.

“I’m not going to the carnival this year.” The statement I repeatedly said to my friends and myself in the weeks and days leading up to the infamous Notting Hill Carnival.

Nostalgia is a triggering and sometimes peculiar experience. How one simple instant can transport you back to a place in your life has always been fascinating to me. A memory so vivid with people who have changed or are no longer in your life, thoughts or emotions we no longer have, doing things we can’t imagine doing now.

I’ve been on vacation for two weeks back home in Bermuda. On my last day there my family and I went to brunch at Southampton Princess and while leaving the hotel this young man working as a bellman approached me asking if I was Chenae.