After my recent jaunt of being a penniless traveller, I am slightly overwhelmed with the amount of clutter I have accumulated in my room. A major clear-out is in progress and between the stacks of sheet music and pressed flowers, I found this note. It's dated a few days after my return from my trip to Scotland in 2007, my first ever trip away from home and was scribbled in the wee hours of one of my jet-lag induced sleepless nights.
'I am missing Edinburgh. I miss cold, stone buildings and misty meadows and twenty different shades of lush green. I miss the buzz of learning and laughing and singing. Excitement and pleasure and feeling as though I have never been happier than at this very moment. I miss Carly and Liza, Amir and Tashi, Roxanne and Will and my Spanish senoritas. I miss feeling dumb and inspired and light and slightly beautiful. Also, the lovely sensation of belonging. I miss Japanese tourism, pillaging, dancing and discovering.
I miss being the Pied Piper and the lone Australian. I miss being Red. I miss being a mystery. Life without chores and T.V. and my cellphone (but not facebook...that I could not live without). I miss early morning lectures and frosty nights and terrible cafeteria food. I miss grumpy old ladies and blistered ankles and broken glasses.
I miss defiant graffiti!
I miss sparkly red Dorothy shoes and terrible pick-up lines and even worse poetry scribbled in the sleepy aftermath of a beautiful dream. I miss having beautiful dreams. I miss the colourful Indian shops, cluttered second-hand bookshops and classy vintage stores.
Like that place where you bought your kilt from.
I miss being able to get away with wearing pink snakeskin ballet slippers and shiny blue tap shoes. Roald Dahl coffee mugs and C.S. Lewis biographies. Being defiant and cheeky and indulged enough to get away with it. I miss sharing secrets and wicked whispers in dirty pubs and trendy coffee shops and having my grammar corrected. Persian and Hebrew, Spanish and Gaelic. I miss feeling alive.'
No comments:
Post a Comment