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5 a.m. blues: Europe
July 10th, 2002 05:07 amIt's 5 a.m. and I've been awake since 4. Grrrr. Insomnia is becoming a bad habit, another mid-life crisis symptom (I would rather call it that than a perimenopausal change, just because I hate clinical terms). I think I'm starting to like using LJ as my cure, since I lie awake with so many thoughts jumbling around in my brain anyway.
So tonight, or this morning, I was thinking of my trip to Europe when I was 24. I went with my little brother, who was 21. We were the greenest of greenhorns, naive and unworldly, unfit to be let loose in the wider world. We spoke no languages, had no knowledge of other cultures, hadn't even practiced carrying our 40 lb. backpacks so that I almost fell over in Heathrow Airport when I first put it on.
From that trip in the late 70s I remember:
A snapshot with an English bobby who, when I asked, grinned broadly, opened his arms, and said "Let's have a cuddle, then". I love that picture.
After a gray rainy morning of squabbling and bitching, praying for light (lightness of spirit, metaphorical light, whatever) in the church of the Sacre Couer and walking out to a full, glowing rainbow over Paris. I took it as a miracle, myself. It was a healing from when I was 16.
Finding my free spirit in Greece.
More sunrises than I've ever seen before or since, because nobody told us how crowded the trains get in high summer when Europe is flooded with young backpackers (or was then, I don't know what it's like now). Standing all night on trains, or sitting in the corridors. Being accosted once by a couple of young drunks, and my brother -- my little brother -- getting in front of me and growling "Leave her alone!" and they did, and my heart warmed because he defended me.
By the end of our ten weeks I was able to sling my backpack up into the highest luggage racks effortlessly.
We became very close on that trip. We still are, sometimes. Those are our best memories together, ever. I'm going back to bed.
So tonight, or this morning, I was thinking of my trip to Europe when I was 24. I went with my little brother, who was 21. We were the greenest of greenhorns, naive and unworldly, unfit to be let loose in the wider world. We spoke no languages, had no knowledge of other cultures, hadn't even practiced carrying our 40 lb. backpacks so that I almost fell over in Heathrow Airport when I first put it on.
From that trip in the late 70s I remember:
A snapshot with an English bobby who, when I asked, grinned broadly, opened his arms, and said "Let's have a cuddle, then". I love that picture.
After a gray rainy morning of squabbling and bitching, praying for light (lightness of spirit, metaphorical light, whatever) in the church of the Sacre Couer and walking out to a full, glowing rainbow over Paris. I took it as a miracle, myself. It was a healing from when I was 16.
Finding my free spirit in Greece.
More sunrises than I've ever seen before or since, because nobody told us how crowded the trains get in high summer when Europe is flooded with young backpackers (or was then, I don't know what it's like now). Standing all night on trains, or sitting in the corridors. Being accosted once by a couple of young drunks, and my brother -- my little brother -- getting in front of me and growling "Leave her alone!" and they did, and my heart warmed because he defended me.
By the end of our ten weeks I was able to sling my backpack up into the highest luggage racks effortlessly.
We became very close on that trip. We still are, sometimes. Those are our best memories together, ever. I'm going back to bed.
