Last night, it hit me. As soon as I stepped out sometime around 9:30 P.M. to pick up my car, the cool freshness of July's summer air hit me, and instantly I felt a twinge of sorrow. You never know what summer in Sweden is going to be like. Certain years you'll have weeks of 85-degree weather. Other years, you're lucky if you wear a bathing suit once. So warm weather is not to be taken to granted.
The same thing goes for sunlight. All winter long I literally ache for the blessed return of 21 hours of daylight. Yet all too soon, the climax is reached, and the days gradually grow shorter. And you feel the twinge again.
The twinge that reminds you that this, too, shall pass. You can't hold onto it. Of course, one could argue that rather than fret over the inevitable, we should embrace the preciousness of summer's healing powers as long as we have them, seeing as how time waits for no one. Naturally, they'd be right.
But there's something to be said about that tender sadness as well, I think. It's what makes me human on a whole. The touch of bitter to that which is sweet. The cleansing release of unshed, cathartic tears behind a Mona-Lisa-like smile.
Isn't that what nostalgia is all about? Looking back, sometimes longning, yet with the knowledge that you can't go back no matter how much you might want to. Even if you could, it could never be the same.
The picture you see is taken from where I am sitting as I write this entry - Scandic Hallandia Hotel in Halmstad, overlooking the Nissan. This is the town where I met my husband 19 years ago. I swam in that very canal my freshman year of college. Tonight I walked by the café where Catarina and I celebrated the completion of our exams with a cappucino and almond cake. And I get all mushy inside.
Remember when we used to eat all of our Halloween candy, except for Mary Jane's and Hershey Dark Chocolate? Today, that 70% bittersweet chocolate is the only kind I'll eat.
<3
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