In my memory I am walking up Solomon Street, and "Mean to Me" by crowded house loud LOUD in my ears, the asphalt rough beneath my bare feet. I felt this explosive joy, the kind I'm feeling right now (though i couldn't go outside without shoes for fear of cold and dogshit)...
Tonight, although it didn't look like it was going to be great, it turned out fantastic.
Jutka came for a short while, short...what am I talking about, is it ever long enough with people you love? but at least it was something, and then on the walk home, I was hassled by this dark skinned white toothed too friendly Kenyan, and I was very glad to get home, but then loneliness crashed around me a little, B is out at a games thingo and I looked at the dishes (did them) and the wine (drank some) and sat down to write some long overdue emails. And then Peter came online and we talked and I was reminded of the balmy easy wonderfulness of our time in Munich again. It was such a holiday for my soul. If only all family matters were that easy.
And after talking with Peter, and receiving an email from Claudia as full of love as any electronic communication can be, I feel suddenly beautiful and unalone and ready READY for this next big adventure.
All the people in my life are little gifts. I cherish them all so much.
The string of farewell dinners, phone calls, drinks I've been having and will continue to have in the next two weeks mean more to me than I can say. Whether it's a dinner for two in a dimly lit almost empty Pest restaurant with impeccable service and impeccable steak sitting across from a perfectly groomed wonderful friend M, or a party of 200 in Szekesfehervar where I know only a handful, but they all bring smiles, stained with beer but jovial, I really am the luckiest girl in the world.
And here we are, balmy november, in this happy, tiny little flat. I'm going to be leaving pure and happy memories behind.

I thought also this morning of Wray Avenue, and why it ripped me up so much to leave there. I think it had to do not just with it being the first place I was truly free, but it also had to do with remorse and guilt. Not regret, not that, but remorse. It was a heady time, and I can't bring myself to regret any of it.

How appropriate then, that the CD has spun to "Into Temptation" because I remember listening to this also, on the way up Solomon Street to the Monument, my head full of those thoughts. Was I just very young? I was, but it was so beautiful, in its own damaged way. I can't wait to see Freo again. And share it with the person I know I can be faithful to. Can be and want to be.

...