My Inner Juliet
Welcome to my random musings about the world, on a weekly-to-occasional basis.
Where we are: We’re in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark. It’s another pastry-heavy city. I am getting a bit pastry-heavy myself.
My Inner Juliet
I often find myself mentally quoting Juliet on a travel day: “Parting is such sweet sorrow.” It sounds melodramatic if I say it out loud, and my spouse has quite enough reasons to roll his eyes at my melodramatic tendencies, so I usually keep it to myself. But in my imagination, I am draped across that stone balcony in Verona*, hand to forehead, swooning from the drama of it all.
Don’t make me leave! Nooooooo! I don’t want to go! [Yes, I know it was Romeo who was leaving. Stay out of my melodrama.]
That was me on Monday, downright blue about leaving the Faroe Islands. It was so peaceful, so quiet, so wildly beautiful. I had an excellent routine; I made progress on the book I’m working on, I enjoyed cooking most of our meals, I knew which grocery store had the best fruit on which days. I had figured out the place and settled in, crappy weather and all.
On Monday we uprooted all of that settled-ness and said good-bye to Klaksvik.
Good-bye is a heavy word, weighted down with different meanings as well as emotions, both acknowledged and denied. Living like Lee and I do, always on the move, means good-bye is a constant in our lives. I know the heft of good-bye, the taste of sadness when I leave loved ones—but also the relief of freedom, the zing of excitement. They’re all part of good-bye.
Lee likes to say that the nomadic lifestyle is a constant stream of summer camp vibes: you arrive somewhere new, stay long enough to settle in and fall in love with the people, the food, the rhythms, the pleasure of novelty and new experiences. Then you wake up a few days or weeks later, pack your suitcase, and walk/drive/fly/ride/sail away.
My heart breaks a little, almost** every time.
But then we get to the airport or train station, and I’m caught up in the romance of travel. Any other emotions get swept away. I step inside the terminal, and focus laser-like on checking in, getting through security and immigration, finding our gate, buying a coffee, ticking off the thirty-seven tiny steps that make up my travel-day routine. I look at the list of destinations on the departures board, and grin like a fool.
Good-bye is a new adventure, every single time.
*There is a beautiful stone balcony in Verona that is said to be The Balcony. I’d share a photo, but every one I took when we were there (years ago) is full of tourists’ heads.
**In the interests of brutal honesty, I admit that occasionally I’m nothing but thrilled to leave a place. Luckily those occasions are few and far between.
Take care,
Lisa
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