I've just returned from a week-long trip to Barcelona, Spain. I'm sure I'll write about it too, but for the moment I want to dwell in the now. I'm scared the summer holiday will go by too quickly if I don't stop to soak it in every now and then, so that is what I am currently doing.
There is a time for stress and there is a time to take a deep breath in and out, a time to rest your brain and your soul. Last week I let myself slowly grow golden in the sun, washed down crumbly pastries with espresso and explored narrow, inviting alleyways until my feet grew sore. Last week was the inhalation -- breathing in as much of a new city as I could. This week is the steady, restful exhale. Home again, nowhere to be and nothing of importance to do.
There is something to be said for loving the place you live in. There are a lot of things to be said, really. But sometimes it's not quite something that you can explain. Sometimes you arrive somewhere and you just know. Know what, exactly, I'm not sure. But I've felt this way about a few places that I can remember. My university, small, quirky and weird as it may have been. Tzfat. Edinburgh. Bristol. My house here in Bristol. It's hard to believe that I've lived in this city for almost a year now.
When I was flat-hunting, I looked at a place before this one that didn't feel this way. There was nothing objectively wrong with it. It just wasn't quite right. Something was off. You should always trust your gut when something feels "off". I learned this the hard way from the first flat we rented here. A tiny sense of "off-ness" can slowly grow into a vague, constant unease and then quickly turn to anger, resentment and a need to get out fast. Home shouldn't feel like this.
But now I'm here. I'm sitting outside in my small, overgrown garden. A vine has made itself quite comfortable wrapped around the tiny wooden dining set. A fat, pollen-drunk bumblebee tumbles out of a flower, and bumbles off on its way. The neighbour cat is stretching up on its hind legs to lazily swat at a butterfly. I can hear distant wind chimes and see laundry flapping in the breeze.
Down the street is a local Indian grocery packed so tightly with spices and samosas, fruits, and veggies and rice, that only one customer can squeeze through the narrow aisles at a time .There are people sitting and chatting outside of a cafe and some tucked cozily inside. The air carries the warm, tempting smell from five different restaurants, serving food from from five different cultures. There's a local pub and its garden lit by fairy lights, where we sat with our new housemates to toast our new home. I can walk to a big, green park where there's a hidden lake and other little secrets.
There's a cycle path down the street. I can hop on my bike and get into town or even to the next town without worrying about cars. I don't worry about not having a car. I can get into town in fifteen minutes. There's always something going on. There's art around every corner. The weather changes about ten times a day but the colourful, pastel rainbow of houses stay consistently cheery.
Next week, I will be home too. This time, it's the one that I am talking about when I start a story with "back home...". Back to the airport, back through security, back through Iceland, back home to Canada. To my childhood home. This is one of those places too, but in a different way. I didn't choose this place, but I grew up with it, and that's just as important. My boring, beautiful middle-sized suburban town. Sometimes, a place doesn't become a 'Place' until you leave it. The only way you'll know is by how you feel when you leave, and even more importantly -- how you feel when you finally return. I love where I live, but I am still cursed with a dual sense of home. I think it's a good thing, though. I think you should try to collect as many 'homes' and Capital-P 'Places' as you can.
But once again, today is for being here. Once you've found your place, you must do everything you can to not take it for granted. When you leave, if you leave, I guarantee you won't be thinking about the stress, or the confusion or anger or whatever it was that troubled you at the time. You'll think about the good things, and the people you shared them with. The first warm days of summer. You'll remember drinking coffee in an overgrown garden, the bumblebees, and the sun on your face.
C.
