Nostalgia

I have the Europe blues...hardcore. Even more than that...I'm so afraid of forgetting. I hear something, see something, taste something, and it triggers a memory from a million years ago...I mean, last semester. Was it really last semester already? I'm afraid I'll forget what it was like to walk along Old Charles bridge in Prague at night. I'm afraid that it was in Krakow, Poland, that I took my first shot. Right now I can feel exactly what the icy, clear mountain air felt like at 7:56 on Wednesday mornings, walking over to the Cassidy's to babysit.





When I look at my 700 or so pictures...I think of how incomplete they are. How insufficient at grasping each city. Yet how can the sunset at the hermitage in Assisi possibly be summed up in a picture? Or Paris...I'd give anything for another day in Paris, just wandering around.


And in the midst of it all, I regret. I regret being so preoccupied by my own soreness, physical exhaustion, and preoccupation with my own worries that I did not marvel longer. If I could only go back, I would spend a lifetime's worth of time just marveling.


The sad thing is that no matter how much my heart aches for Medjugorje, or Poland, or the Kartause....I will never get another chance...not like that semester anyway. I may go back to Europe, but as far as I know, time travel is still just a fanciful wish.


So I will sit in this very American institution, drinking an overpriced coffee that I paid for in dollars, listening to mindless chatter...in English, and dream of "cafe au lait", "Danke schon", and the days long ago...I mean, last semester.

Pull up a seat

If I ever opened a coffee shop/bakery, I would call it "Mimi's place".


It just sounds cozy. It sounds like somewhere you could go to socialize, with bar stools and vintage fabric. Huge photographs of Europe hung all over the walls, with little collage pieces scattered inbetween. There would be little booths, and "study corners", isolated enough for those, like me, who get easily distracted by other people, but who still want the coffee shop feel while they study.


For goodness sake, the coffee would be good, but not overpriced. And the baked goods? Natural ingredients...simple...homebaked..and delicious. Bookshelves full of board games and my favorite books, all free for you to use.


Mimi's place is the sort of place you can lean over a mug of coffee at the bar and hear the latest neighborhood news, talk about faith, or whisper about the boy you like.


Doesn't it just sound like somewhere you'd like to go? Unfortunately, it's only in my dreams for the time being. So for now, meander over to the virtual "Mimi's Place" and pull up a metaphorical bar stool.