journal entry, february 27, 2024

hello hello hello from lisbon. i’m sitting in a massive starbucks in arrivals with a view of the whole terminal and all of the reunions and hellos it is home to, drinking a decadently creamy coconut latte. mom and i woke up at 3am in scotland and now it’s 10:30 and here i am. we had such a long hug goodbye in edinburgh airport— these last few days have been overwhelmingly magical, i’m coming into this trip with a heart already bursting. love! gratitude! energy! excitement! joy! preemptive and intense nostalgia for the present moment and recent past that i cannot escape! but ten out of ten times i would rather nostalgia and its slightly weighted undertones than the urge to skip ahead. so, i am choosing to bask in it. to remember all of the love and connection and groundedness and happiness that’s bringing on the nostalgia in the first place. i’m just passing time here for thirty or so minutes before i can make my way to our place to drop my bags. i’m on the anticipatory cusp and high of a solo city afternoon— the girls land around 3 so i have a beautiful sunny few hours to myself, with my new zoom lens and parker’s cam corder to keep me busy and observing and taking note of all of the things that stand out to me.

second entry, march 1, 2024

i am currently sitting in the back garden of a cafe in the center of alfama with ward and bella. they’re one table over essay writing, and i’m at a lower down two top, wearing ward’s sunglasses, listening to mazzy star, basking in the sun in my rainbow sweater. photosynthesyzing. feeling at peace, full on yummy food, warm. the winter sun providing. ward and i were talking about how beautiful and circular it is that for our october reading week, we chased after the last remnants of the summer sun in spain, giving ourselves one last taste of the season before returning to the rapid scottish transition into winter. and now here were are, february reading week, in a southern enough climate that while we’re still feeling the white winter sun, we’re also gifting ourselves the first taste of spring. we held ourselves back in summer, and now we’re propelling ourselves forward into spring, after and now before scotland does the same. we shortened our exposure to the cold scottish months, which is maybe why we loved them as much as we did. i think i’ve woken up each day of this year appreciative of the climate i was in— and now the joy of spring is close enough to touch, to hear, to breathe in.