My sentiments exactly....

To love a place.  To hold it so dearly that one aches at the memory of it.  Are we not most fortunate?

Rainy Days

Another rainy day, and as I sit here with my steaming cup of tea, mindlessly gazing out of the window at the wetness beyond, I can't help but smile and reflect on all the rainy days I have experienced. The Dutch Downpours that truly connected me to the phrase, "it's raining cats and dogs" but honestly, it was more like cows and horses; coming and going quite frequently I was always sure to be caught unawares and unprepared, but hey, anything to make those absolutely stunning tulips grow. Or the fresh, clean rain of Sweden. Or the sparkling raindrops of Germany, the gloomy storms of England, the chilly wind-swept showers of Austria, the warmer sprinkles of Italy. Each rain smelling unique depending on the type of ground it touched - gravel, concrete, grass, dirt, ancient, modern. Or if I was lucky enough to be catching whiffs of it through open windows instead of soaked to the bone (because I yet again forgot my umbrella since I grew up in San Diego).  I LOVE rainy days, the good ones and the bad, and even more so since my memories of them are so geographically different, special and loved. I will never forget all those times sitting in coffee shops, or bars, in Oslo, Paris, Amsterdam, London, Berlin, waiting out another storm, creating moments that haunt me on rare rainy days in San Diego. So thank you rain. You cleanse the world as you cleanse my soul, and force me to take a moment to remember the blessings I have.

Safe, and hopefully some rainy, travels!

Writing: Best Outlet for the Soul

I have much to say on this subject but as it is a bright & beautiful Sunday, I don't feel like thinking much nor being on the computer. But I did find some wonderful quotes from the current book I am reading (the third book in the Wicked trilogy) about writing and thought I would share in lieu of my own rambling thoughts.

"She was thinking of white paper and dark ink, and the difficulty and danger of scoring a page with lines of ink, to make it sing, if it could."

"And her appetite to write was countermanded by a dread of being read and recognized."

"The circular page of the moon in the water - words written in water are sure to wash away, and the moon itself no wiser....What words she had thought to write on the face of the moon were washed away form her as she submerged, trying to disturb no one, nothing."

"Regularly, I ask blank paper, and in all my life I've never known magic writing to appear on its blank surface."