London in autumn is a strange kind of beauty. Skies are blue and endless, marred only by the yellow leaves imprinted on them by the old oak trees in Regent’s Park.

I live in an old brownstone block, the windows of my flat have white frames and red bricks framing the round end and sometimes when it’s raining, the street lamps in front of my window look like they’re sparking fire when their light falls on the drops of rain in just the right way.

City life is a strange kind of beauty. You’re never alone but loneliness is always lurking around the corner, especially in the most crowded rooms. Still: There’s always light, somewhere, and darkness is an evil hard to find. The morning sun will shine over the rooftops and lay itself in golden shapes onto your face when you’re still half-asleep and it will make you think that there has never been another life before.

Every city you live in will teach you different things. London has taught me the colour of happiness (Kensington-Garden-green in sunshine), the easiest way to make friends (talk), to pursue my dreams by default (even if, especially if, the chances of success seem small), the smell of a pumpkin cupcake (it’s delicious), that a macchiato is not a latte macchiato (but something infinitely bitter that you’ll have to toss away), that people will sometimes cross oceans for you (quite literally).

London has taught me all that, and then one more thing:

That I’m okay and that I always will be.