Friday, August 10, 2007

A Longing

Do you ever just want to get on a plane? Just pack a bag and jump on a plane to wherever you long to go? I've been feeling that a lot lately. I've been seeing pictures of my friend who is getting ready to make London her permanent home and another friend who is plane-hopping from London to Paris to Amsterdam and they all make me want to fly away. I miss London so much. I miss the parks, the laughs us LonDolls had as we began to knit our strong bonds of friendship and I especially miss wandering through the London streets, wondering what I will discover around the next corner or when I emerge from the next tube stop. I want to stand by the Thames at dusk again, across from Parliament, with its lights beginning to softly illuminate the emerging dark. I want to sit in a pub with my girls, drinking in the laughter and submerging myself in the realization that I am half a world away from my everyday life.

And sometimes, I just want to see old, familiar faces. I want to surprise Jen in Maine and squeeze the cheeks of the two little boys that are filling her with such love everyday. I want to walk on the beaches in her pictures, hard stones under my feet and the cool ocean air spraying against my body. I imagine the streets to be filled with rows of small shops with lighthouses painted on their windows and antiques hiding on their shelves. I would stay up until dawn, curled up on a sofa and talking with her over every detail of our full lives, of her happiness and maybe how I can soak up enough of it to take home to see me through the sad days that sometimes come. Her smile and kind voice would be a refresher to my soul and I would leave with, I hope, a portion of her contentment to bless my mind.

When my mind and heart start to wander to far away places and then begin to urge my body to do the same, it is hard to suppress the longing in my soul. It wants to see, to do, to feel. It wants to fill my eyes with wonderous sights, my ears with laughter and my heart with wonderful memories that I can take out every once in a while, dust off, and relive in my mind. I want to see my son sneak his fingers over the side of the gondola in Venice and shiver at its cold. I want to see my daughter stand in front of the statue of Lincoln at his memorial, read his words and to know that she has taken them to heart. I want to hold the hand of my husband while we wander the cities, observing every architectural detail and never being able to fully convince our minds that we are exactly where our hearts wanted to lead us.

3 comments:

Andrea Frazer said...

That was a beautiful post. And while I don't long to travel, your writing makes me want to.

Tinker said...

Hi! I am so with you on those desires, though since my daughter is two I mostly fantasize about myself getting away and somehow miraculously not missing her and her not missing me.

Since that's not going to happen, I daydream about a time when a 12 hour plane ride won't phase Viva and she will be as excited as I am to comb the streets of an exotic Southeast Asian town for great street food, sniff out incredible gifts to bring home to friends, and frolick on the beaches--without having to pause to take a nap. Well, for now, I can dream.

Were I able to dash off and do these things as I did when I was single, I'm sure I'd be dreaming of having a baby who bellows like a cheerleader "Come on, Mommy, come on!" each morning when she wants out of the crib, likes to run through the house playing "naked baby," and challenges authority (i.e. me) just like her mommy has done all of her life.

In any case, I'm thinking next year she'll have her passport in hand!

Thanks for the great post.

Roberta said...

And that's the catch, isn't it? While longing for freedom from the everyday, we can dream of getting away. But we know that if we were to get away, we would long for the everyday.