Inviting the day in.

Slowly this place is sewing its threads back into the fabric of my being.

I’m falling in love, ever so quickly, all of a sudden, with the crawling ivy, the coloured front doors, wrought iron balconies and sandstone terraces. With our front stoop and the yellow leaves falling as if straight from the sky.

And I’m learning the landmarks. Not those most admired, nor those most often photographed. Instead the landmarks of this little neighbourhood on a hill which I can now call home, this little undulating street and our shabby Victorian house with its blue front door. The row of majestic, tall as anything trees (what kind, I’m still unsure)…the red old timey car with country abbreviations painted in white along its boot. The schoolchildren swinging high into the air in the park, their voices always seeming to rise a decibel as dusk rolls in. It’s cold but not too cold yet. There’s often, when it’s not raining, a perfect mist in the air. The weather a wholly satisfying sort of sultry.

Living here once more is equal parts surprise and delight. A returning to oneself. ‘Blast from the past’ is an oft-uttered phrase around these parts. Of course, some nights I miss the little German city beside the Danube with a ferocity deep in my bones. But in growing up, I’ve learned that happiness is so often what one decides it to be – thus I’m finding my contentment in the walk up one particular hill, in a warm brew of tea cupped in a cold hand, in the twisting bicycle ride along misty avenues to class. In the vase of pink roses (oh such a perfect essential pink you never did see!) atop my windowsill.

In togetherness.

"There is no effort of will, no firm resolve in the face of this thing called living. There is only paying attention to the quiet each morning while you hold your cup in the cool air and then that moment you choose to spread your love like a cloth across the table and invite the whole day in again." (Brian Andreas, Story People)