Friday

[or the difficult task of retelling a story]

I am...
in love with a foreign city.
In love with the clip clop of horse hooves on cobblestone streets.
In love with the feel of icy air against my cheeks, the sun warm against my back.
In love with the fairy lights strung between rooftops, like stars against the black sky.
I am in love with the language of strangers that is so familiar to me.
In love with the landscape that changes from grey to white to black and back again like an old movie.
In love with the stories behind each window, the stories to be heard in the wood of the doors.
In love with the scars worn proudly on the buildings from era's far worse than ours.

I am in love with the fact that despite it's strangeness, this place will always feel in parts..

Like home.


But despite all that I am in love with, I miss all of these:
I miss the balmy heat of a summer night.
I miss the way the cool of the water seems to reflect back upon itself, so that sitting in the harbour is always refreshing.
I miss being unable to touch the steering wheel for the first twenty minutes of a trip in case of finger/palm burn.
I miss the bustle of cars and pedestrians out in the hundreds on a saturday night.
Miss walking through streets I've been on so many time before and always discovering something new.
I miss the mix of cultures, the beauty of the entire world interacting together in one place.
I miss the city in the morning, miss it during the day, most of all miss it at night.
I miss coming home to the wag of his tail, the way he rests his head on my knee when I eat breakfast.
Miss waking up in the middle of the night to his dreams.
I miss my bed and all the memories held amongst the sheets.
I miss driving late at night, the cool air streaming in through open windows and the music loud.

I miss all of these things because of the memories they hold of the one I miss the most.
And despite the fact that I am, indeed, many thousands of miles closer,

I feel a million miles further away.

And so, tonight I begin to pack, and as I do, I will think of these places.
The one I love, and the one I miss, and the one I will be moving to soon,

and wish they were all one.

Lover come back to me.