The Angel of Revelation by William Blake, 1803
“Forgive me for expressing to you my enthusiasm, which I wish all to partake of, since it is to me a source of immortal joy, even in this world. By it, I am the companion of angels. The ruins of Time build mansions in Eternity.”
William Blake
It’s been a tough couple of letters hasn’t it? Now I want to change it up and tell you about one of the most incredible single moments of my midlife year.
I’ve been lucky to have spent quite a bit of 2025 in the Belgian city of Antwerp. It was to here I first fled when my relationship ended, in search of peace, space and solitude. I can’t really explain why I chose this small city in a small country, other than the fact that Paris has memories, Brussels and Amsterdam are too expensive; and my good friend Jo Franco has made a great life there.
“Antwerp?!” my friends and family exclaimed in astonishment. All I could say was that — even though I’d never been before — this city felt right and, in the absence of anything else, feels right was going to have to do.
This is the sixth instalment in a very personal series of letters about a period of transformation and growth in my life.
You can read the rest of the letters here.
As soon as I arrived, I knew my intuition had served me well. This quiet, historical city with its narrow pebbled alleyways and sun-drenched street cafes, was the perfect place to get lost and be lost.
I liked it so much, I returned again in August. It was during this second trip, I experienced something extraordinary.
I was walking home from a bar where I had enjoyed a couple of small beers by myself in the warmth of the summer afternoon. I was strolling, lost in thought beneath an ugly and noisy underpass, and then suddenly I was struck ——
💥
—— I was overcome with the most profound and vibrant sense of my own energy, my own power. I was filled with this overflowing joyful abundance, an unshakable certainty that I can have anything I want, that this is an infinite world; and then, seconds later, a deep gratitude.
I remember reaching up and putting a hand over my chest, it felt like my heart might burst out there and then, there was so much love in it. In that moment, beneath that noisy underpass, nothing was wrong and nothing was missing.
“Everything is going to be great” I said to no-one but myself and goddam, friend: I really felt it.
Robert McKee has this idea that moments of “aesthetic emotion” — where you feel the joy/awe/love in the moment — are rare in life; usually the feeling happens days or weeks after the trigger.
This was one of those rare moments. In the face of everything that was happening to me, I was fully present and deeply grateful to be alive.
Looking back, I now understand that on that warm summer afternoon, the slowest, deepest waters at the very foundation of me had shifted direction. I am sure that over the following months and years I will witness that change ripple up through me, eventually breaching the surface.
✹
The apartment I rented on my second visit to Antwerp was a duplex with a single tall window overlooking the city rooftops and a mezzanine balcony dividing the high space in two.
Now, as my friends will tell you, I do not have many strong opinions about interior design, but I love a mezzanine. There’s something about a space with multiple levels, where it’s possible to look down on an area, or up, that makes me feel creative, curious and powerful.
So I said to myself: “When I get back home, I will find a flat with a mezzanine.”
Still glowing with joy, abundance and gratitude, I had this certainty about this mezzanine, like it already existed and it was waiting for me to turn up. Unusually for me, I entertained no doubt, no skepticism, I didn’t attempt to lower my expectations. Instead, I sat on my Antwerp mezzanine and pretended it belonged to me.
About two weeks later, I arrived in another small, medieval, creative city, this time in the east of England. Once again, I had never visited this place before but, once again, my intuition was leading the way.
The week before arriving, a brief survey of the rental websites revealed there were no flats with mezzanines in the entire city.
“That’s fine” I said to myself, “it’s too early anyway. If the perfect apartment was there now, it would be taken before I arrived.”
No doubt, no uncertainty.
Well, reader, the following morning I opened my laptop and there it was: a perfect studio apartment, in the city centre — with a goddam mezzanine. I knew instantly it belonged to me, and four days later I signed the lease.
✹
So that’s the next big announcement: After eight years I have left London (again) and found myself a new home in a new city.
And for the first time since Paris, I feel like I am meant to be in this place, in this moment. That’s a lovely feeling, if you can get it, one I have missed. (If you want to know how ideal my new hometown is, its official title is The City Of Stories, for heaven’s sake.)
It’s been nearly three years since I realised magic is a choice and decided to choose it. Since then, magic abounds, there is no end to what it can deliver, mezzanines in eternity!
Until another Sunday soon,
