note to self

Lugano was one of the best days that has ever happened to me. The morning I left, I woke up early to sit near the lake and watch the sunrise. I felt the air change and the light shift; I wrote a full page of goals for these coming months and then I ran a quick self-evaluation of the moment, trying to memorize everything I was feeling right then. And you know what? I realised that, while there are a million things to improve and work on, I like this person I am becoming.

So, note to self: you're okay. And full of bloomability.

all roads

Rome, surprisingly, feels like home. Probably just because it's nice to feel somewhat settled and back with people I know, but home nonetheless. Plus, it's summer here. I've missed the heat.

From my balcony at the hotel, you can see the Vatican---only a few minute's walk up the hill. A few of us just got back from a late-night visit, St. Peter's all lit up and the air finally cool and calming. I love this; I love this so much.

I just wish you all were here.

Svizzera! Bella, bella Svizzera!

Mostly this week has felt more like a celebration of Europe's various forms of public transportation, but you really can't complain of the long hours on a train when you have Switzerland outside your window. Today I arrived in Lugano, and I don't think I ever want to leave. For a girl who forever wants to live her literary loves, it doesn't get much better than this.

My friends, this is such the best.

parlez-vous frenglitalian?

It took a ferry, a train, the metro, and an unexpected night in Cherbourg, but I made it! And Paris, for the day that I get to spend here, has been mostly happiness. Biggest problem? I speak just enough French that people reply as if I'm fluent. It only gets worse if they happen to see my last name.

I also have the hardest time separating my French lessons from the Italian, so I make for quite the mangled mess of a conversationalist.

turns out,

I'm allergic to London. At least, it seems like I am: each trip I've made to this grand city ends in a terribly red, itchy rash on my ankles. Only London, every time. The good news is that it's gone within twenty four hours, and tomorrow I leave London for good (until I come back, of course).

It's been a crazy weekend, and a rather good farewell. Saturday was all markets, and Sunday all churches, and today was all me, wandering (Andrea left me this morning, and now I am all alone). I walked from Westminster to Covent Garden, and up through Camden to Oxford Street. I braved the Notting Hill Carnival for some excellent people watching and long thoughts of What Is This World Coming To, and by the time I wandered back home I had fifteen miles behind me and one new blister on my pinky toe. A glorious place, London. I am going to miss it.

But now, to the Continent! By Saturday I will be in Rome, and in between is all sorts of train rides and hostels and adventures. I have absolutely no idea exactly what I'm doing, and it feels great.

Huzzah!

what's on your mind

Goodbyes. So many of them. To Strait House, to Wales, to Andrea, to London. Usually I do not like them, but today I am okay with a few farewells. Today they seem more open than closed, more bright than shadowed. Airplanes, buses, trains whisk us off to every corner of this country toward home but, eventually, we'll be back. And in the meantime, there's ever so much for us to do.

da bo

Far away a voice is calling

Bells of memory chime

Come home again,come home again

They call through the oceans of time

We'll keep a welcome in the hillside

We'll keep a welcome in the Vales

This land you knew will still be singing

When you come home again to Wales

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{CYMRU AM BYTH}

bloomability

Ten miles, altogether. Four hours, roundtrip. A measley 3,560 feet at the top; we laughed (silently, of course) to call such land a mountain. But that was before the rain, before the wind, before the cold. Seventeen of us began at the trailhead, only eight made the summit.

The storm had been gathering a good hour into our ascent, but we waved it off. We were only near Mt. Snowdon for a day; we weren't going to waste the chance. A fourth of our party had deserted only a quarter mile in, eyeing the grey clouds as their perfect excuse to turn back. The rest left us just past halfway, when the going got tough and the first rain began to fall. Within minutes we were enveloped.

I've always wanted to walk on the clouds; thing is, they're rather . . . wet. And these ones were temperamental, too. The rain thrashed all about us, the winds were picking up speed. On either side of the trail were craggy drops into the white oblivion, the heathered hills and slate mountain face obscured in heavy mists. My raincoat was nipped in tightly by then, but there was no help for the rest of me. I was satched, very nearly from head to toe.

It was unrelenting, but we were laughing. What a glorious adventure! What a true story! At the top we unfurled the Welsh flag and toasted the white sky, Andrea and I echoing our favorite Peter Lombardy Guthrie the Third in our triumphant shout. "Libera!" we yelled, arms open to the rain, "Sono libera, libera, libera!" We paused to smile at the storm. "Fantastico, veramente fantastico."

Tom passed out victory biscuits as we ran back to the trail. Dark chocolate, slightly damp from the weather. The storm was picking up in earnest now, and fear of hypothermia began to set in. "Imagine the paperwork!" Tom joked. We ran for base at our own pace, our only goal to make it back, and quick. Eventually, we were each left alone to our own descent.

It was a glorious two hours to think, and to wonder. At times I'd feel the numb void of blank thought begin to press in, welcomed by the cold and hard mantra to run-run-run, and it was those times I'd think of (and thank) my dad. An old email of his tumbled about my mind and I began to plan ahead, counting years in my future as I passed rocks and mountains. Sheep chewed around every corner, a monotonous rhythm unfazed by rain or wind. Night was falling; a thousand feet down the storm began to clear. Stars came out; I threw back my hood. So much time to think, to feel. My heart was full, and I was happy.

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If nothing else, I will take away from my study here the verb To Do. For a long time I've been governed by deep decision-making and carefully devised plan---and while that certainly comes in useful, there are times where that caution has held me back. But these past six weeks . . . well, they've changed that, completely. In London I swung myself up onto a street statue for a photo, thinking only after the deed was done. At Merlin's Cave Tom barely had to suggest I climb a thirty foot rock out in the tide before I was scrambling to the top, my bag left on the beach. I watched the storm gather from the base of Mt. Snowdon, and I did not care. I meant every word I shouted from that summit: Free! Free! I am free!

{more pictures at flickr}

for andrea

We saw some ancient rocks. It was so cool. Then we slept on the brick courtyard outside the Royal Shakespeare Company's box office in Stratford just to get tickets to Hamlet the next day. That was even cooler. Now I'm sitting next to you in the internet cafe, where the guy just asked you if you were American because you kicked Jeff's chair, and we laughed and laughed and laughed. And that was the coolest.

I'm s'cool, I'm s'cool, I'm s'cool.

{to everybody else}

I am cured. One read through Breaking Dawn and I'll never ever touch a Twilight book again. Disgusted, disturbed, disenchanted. The end.

inspiration found

Peonies, turquoise, humanity, keyholes, bookshelves, tea pots, sisters, late night walks, stargazing, lazy cats, hardwood floors. Cranberry pinks and cubbyholes; fairytales, sharpened pencils. Plenty of things to love and inspire.

But I find I am most creative when the skies are grey and the air chilled; there is nothing like a rainy day for a little inspiration.