A Flat Full of Records and a Foot Full of Glass

June 2nd, 2024

Dear Friend,

I awoke around 5:20 am, or at least I think around then. The clock on the oven was blinking 3:50 am, and I’ve determined it to be about 80 minutes off. I spent some of the morning reading (“The Assassin’s Apprentice,” brilliantly good) and attempting in vein to close my eyes until 7 am rolled around and I concluded that it was time to get up. I <3 Jet Lag!

The light in the apartment (*cough* my new flat) is stunning in the morning, and the place is almost eerily peaceful. I saw the rusted red tea pot full of last night’s fresh mint, and it looked so lovely that I almost thought “I might become a morning tea-drinker”… right as I grabbed my purse to head out in search of a latte.

A Friendship Fairytale

My flat is finally looking somewhat liveable. I spent yesterday moving in and organizing with the help of Robyn (my magical new landlady) and three friends: Richard, Margaux, and Meghana. Each was unbelievably kind: Robyn driving me across London to fetch my suitcases from Lex’s, Richard & Margaux lifting fridges and hanging clothes quietly smiling, and Meghana, the absolute #1 champion & at this point more a resident of the loft than me: she got the rug settled up in there and remade the bed (that’s twice now in 3 days). What’s more, Richard actually texted me to see if he and Margaux could help with the moving, not the other way around. I mean, that’s the stuff of friendship fairytales!

How many records could a record store have if a vinyl store record store would?

We also tackled the fridge, whose icebox was, dare I say, an actual glacier. Whatever was going on in there should be studied by glacial scientists to stop the melt. Or I suppose, based on data about refrigerant being the worst climate change culprit, the glaciers are melting BECAUSE they are now inside my refrigerator. Meghana, Robyn, and I chipped ice out of the frosted-over freezer into a big blue bucket. Well, I did nothing. I’m in surgery recovery mode still, and no one will let me move.

The Glass In My Foot

And, well, that night was a bit funny. It wouldn’t be the first night in my new apartment if I didn’t shatter a fabulously shatterable mug at 1 am with no dustpan or broom on the premises. I tried to swiffer up the glass (10/10 do not recommend swiffering up glass) and went to bed resigned with it mostly in a pile by the edge of the kitchen. Unsurprisingly to anyone, this strategy was not that good, and the next afternoon, I completely forgot, walked barefoot across the kitchen, and ended up with a sharp sliver of glass in my foot. I unsuccessfully tried to pull it out with tweezers and hobbled around it until that evening, when Robyn was determined to help me remove the shard.

She pulled out a red basin filled with water and suds, clicking the kettle with her right hand as she instructed me to put my foot in the small tub. When the kettle was ready, we began our funny basin soak dance: “nudge your foot a little to the left,” (pours boiling water in the right), “stir,” now move it right (pours boiling water in the left), etc. The soapy water was scalding, but Robin rebuked me whenever I tried to remove my foot: “Oh, it’s not that hot,” she tsked as she tested the water with her hand.

Robin grew up on a farm and knows the trick to everything due to, as she calls it, growing up on “country living.” She puts on a southern accent sometimes when she says this, which isn’t half bad seeing as she did spend some time in South Carolina in her 20s, though her pronounced Irish accent mingled in with the southern impression does sound decidedly silly.

Anyway, we’re sudsing my foot and Robyn is pouring the wine. As she stands by the sink washing some dishes, I note her sparkling shoes and compliment her: “I like the diamonds on the souls of your shoes,” I say. She gasps, “That’s my second favorite song of all time!” I later asked about the first, but now I’ve forgotten what it was.

She’s got diamonds on the soles of her shoes!

I put Diamonds on the Souls of Her Shoes on the Bluetooth speaker on the kitchen table: Robyn makes me promise not to tell Daniel — in a house full of the best speaker equipment and vinyl systems of all time, we are bluetoothing Spotify. But it does the trick. Paul Simon comes on in his merry way “She’s a rich girl, she don’t try to hide it,” and Robyn dances magnificently through the kitchen while I chair dance with my foot in the bath.

We spend the next hour drinking copious amounts of white wine and bonding over our shared love of Joni Mitchell, even pulling out a guitar and singing “The Circle Game” in questionable harmony.

Every 10 minutes or so, we try to remove the glass with the tweezers, and if it’s not coming out, she’ll say, OK another round: kettle, pour, foot move, pour, foot move, sit, etc. At one point, she goes: I have a magnifying glass! So there we are, drunk as skunks, looking at my foot through a magnifying glass, pulling at this shard of glass with tweezers. We think we get it; I stand later and feel it again; we repeat the whole fucking affair.

It’s a hilarious evening, and I end up going to bed at 3 am or so, finally shard-less and much drunker than I was a few hours before.

But anyway, that was Friday, and today is Sunday, a brand new day!

Semblance of Order

The place is finally coming into a semblance of order and even coziness. It feels like me: the soft wooden desk, the candelabras, the jewelry tree Robyn lent me hanging with all of my mom’s hand-me-down necklaces, the Guatemalan bird tapestries I’ve dragged to 5 different homes this year.

Aside: I did the math and realized I have moved five times since last March. Someone is going to have to drag me out of this place kicking and screaming!

I’ve organized my desk in a bit of an ingenious way I think: it’s a blank slate, but the dresser next to it has a drawer for work set up and a drawer for music set up, so I can transition between the two seamlessly. We’ll see if I end up wanting to have a more SET music space, but for now, I think this works pretty well. Tight quarters!

Moving five times in the last year (one international) has certainly not been ideal, but I will say I have gotten better at it each time. I have adopted a very specific system and a kind of hardened minimalism that relies on ruthless purging.

What makes me most glad about this place is the kind of belongings that I sincerely want, a nice record player, stereo system, and record collection, came built-in with the place!

Settling In

And I am so delighted by the simplest things about settling: I seem to exhale as I unpack my clothes into a large French Dresser, organize my desk cables into permanent positions, create a little makeup station by the window (the best morning light), and finally chuck my suitcases into storage. I even get a kick out of hanging the dustpan and the Swiffer by the door, perfectly aligned on Command Hooks, and perfectly coiling my guitar cables and hanging them in good order. Even setting my books on the bookshelf gives me a sense of delight and satisfaction.

I’m HOME, it all seems to scream.

While there is still much to do in terms of settling (mostly art, plants, and lighting, which I’ve learned from the best – the fabulous Maddie Bouton – make the biggest difference of all). Especially the loft, which at the moment is still a bit, well, rough. I would like to make it feel cozy and well-decorated.

When Daniel (Robyn’s husband/my landlord) gets back from Ireland on Tuesday, he is going to fix up the speakers so I can listen to music, and I think that will do big things as well.

So, surgery recovery is happening, slowly but surely (I started Physical therapy on the 10th), and despite some continued pain, I am settling back into London.

The record is in the mixing stage, and I can’t wait to have that to share with you soon.

Sincerely,

Halle Payne