Member-only story
LIFE LESSONS | MESOLOGY | TREES | MIGRANCY
Some of the things I didn’t know I missed about summers in Europe
(because I hadn’t really noticed before)
When you’ve been away from a place that you know well and you keep moving and exploring the world, it becomes really hard to remember what you miss.
This summer I returned to Belgium and the UK for a few weeks to run workshops, meet clients, and sort out some other matters. My daughter came with me. It felt like a God-given father-daughter bonding opportunity.
Almost as soon as we alighted from the bus that had taken us from the airport to the old home in Antwerpen, I discovered what I had never known I had been missing.
The smell of European trees in Summer.
The lime trees. The chestnut. The cotoneaster. The fig tree. The buddleia.
Their fragrances are so pervasive, and so uniquely intimate and sensual, that I cried.
I spent the first day crying. Really. Do you see that little green bench there in front of the house? That’s where I sat down and broke…
