We’re back from a wonderful few days in Baden-Baden Germany, after spending time with friends at one of the most beautiful weddings I’ve attended. In the middle of a heatwave, we congratulated Scott and Sonya as they declared their vows atop a vineyard in Germany’s Black Forest region. There were tears, champagne, strawberries, blazing heat, a gaggle of friends, a lightning storm.
Love and lightning. Perfect.
Mom and I concluded our 2nd annual Mama-Den Summer Euro trip last week. We’ve decided to make it a tradition to set aside a week or two each year to spend time together on this side of the world. After the ridiculousness of last year’s trip, we realize just how good for the soul a raucous, unsupervised mother-daughter escapade can be.
This year, we visited Holland, Belgium and France. And even though we’ve been to Paris many times before, it was my favourite stop. The city is just stunningly beautiful. The afternoon we arrived was warm, sunny and perfect. I couldn’t get over the fairytale feeling of walking, living, eating in such gorgeous surroundings. Do people really live in such a fairytale setting?!
The city of love is a hard one to photograph. After an hour walking the streets, beauty numbs the senses. It’s like walking into a candy shop of all the best sweets in the world and not being able to decide what to purchase. Paris is visually overwhelming.
But what I loved about our time there together was just that, it was TIME. We didn’t run around trying to photograph sites. We just walked, ate, talked and shopped. Rinse and repeat. It was slow, relaxed and lazy, just the kind of time that Mum and I needed with each other.
Between the crepes and jewelry stores, I did manage to snap a few photographs here and there. It takes little effort to capture beauty in a city like this. It’s everywhere.
Back in February when we went to Vancouver for the Winter Olympics, the Boy and I were talking about the idea of progress. It had been a while since I’d been back to Vancouver, my university town, and I was so pleasantly surprised to see such great improvements in transportation. Obviously the city spent millions to invest in the games. Efficient transport is a necessity when on the world stage. I was proud to come back to my old hometown to see things much improved.
Now, exactly one year since I quit my job in London, I’m back to spend the summer. And wow, I can’t describe how emotional the last week has been. I came with a year’s worth of meticulously earned zen only to be smacked in the face with all the great and terrible things London has to offer. Madness, energy, chaos, life, dreams and nightmares. I felt like a villager coming to the big city for the first time, completely overwhelmed and under prepared. How could I have forgotten just how fast, crowded, vibrant and chaotic this place is? You’d think that after a year of vagabonding, the senses would dull and London would feel more peaceful somehow.
On top of the stress of trying to find a proper summer sublet, I’d forgotten about the crowds, the expensive everythings, the impossible schedules of friends I wanted to see, the summer tourists, the hot sweaty smelly steaming transport system. Instantly, the thudding heartbeat of a city on permanent fast-forward was ringing in my ears.
For a moment, I was shocked to see that London had become more crazy, more busy, more chaotic than I remembered. Is that even possible?, I thought to myself. Had the city changed so much in a year?!
And then I realized, it wasn’t London that had changed, it was me.
I have changed.
I am calmer. I am softer. I am a satiated wanderluster with a travel hangover the size of Texas. I am ready for my hangover nap.
I am here with heart in hand and feet firmly on the ground. Finally! Feet. Firmly. On. The. Ground. This is huge. Rewind to a year ago, and you’ll see a Denise whose feet were so itchy she couldn’t step foot into a travel bookshop for fear of chronic, debilitating, painful wanderlust.
Progress.
Vancouver needed a direct line from the airport to downtown. Enter: the Canada Line.
Denise needed to see the world. Enter: a year long rendezvous with the open road.
And now, after zebras, lions, gelato, beaches and tango, it’s no longer just about place. It’s about the people whose time and love and energy I share in the places that we inhabit. It’s about love and family and friendship: all things I had to travel hundreds of thousands of miles to chase, only to find it all back where I began. It’s about coming full circle.
The London of a year ago was fun, stimulating, alive. It was jet setting and mid-week dancing and shows and fancy restaurants.
Today, it is old haunts with even older friends. It is the chronic non-committal friend who happily admits he is in love. It is people moving to the outskirts to raise beautiful families and babies. It is moving on to bigger and better things. It is crazy girl friends finding true love. It is home-cooked dinners around kitchen tables. It is the familiar pub with familiar neighbourhood faces. It is raucous girl talk over sushi and cocktails. It is complete joy and happiness at the beaming progress of love found, peace acquired, change sought.
It is Progress. Not in the superficial physicalities of this magnificent city but instead progress in the hearts and lives of the people who make this place worth coming back to.
Progress is good. It can be healing.
