Monday, July 9, 2012

Wanderlust

Last year at this time I was packing for Knit Nation - a week in London, comfortable shoes, a new camera, and an insatiable appetite to devour every moment of my precious time in that city.

Maine is at its most glorious right now. Stunning. The air almost knocks you over, so rich and thick and sweet is its fragrance. We've waited all year for this.

Yet in my fickle mind I'm back in London, taking pictures of wisteria-covered windows I wish were mine...


And people going about their daily lives, unaware...


I'm sipping a short cappuccino at Monmouth...


And I'm still enchanted by this little orange car that I spotted in a Notting Hill restaurant window.

You know how you can be in a room full of people and feel utterly alone? For me, that's how wanderlust works. It usually hits when I'm at my happiest and most settled, surrounded by the kind of beauty that is Maine in July. 

Does that ever happen to you? And where would you go? 

16 comments:

Meredith said...

I can relate. I just returned to my cube life after a vacation up in Parry Sound Ontario.
After spending a week just off the water, heading into town for fish & chips, looking at all the quaint cottages and swimming in the lagoon with my 2 year old son, it's really hard not to wish I was still there.

I wish those wisteria covered windows were mine, too. :)

EmEm said...

Living in CA, the summer air is very dry. But if the morning starts out with fog, the air is damp and full of the smells of the mid summer flowers. If I close my eyes it feels as though I am in Ireland on the little farm that we have stayed at. I can see the mountains in the distance and hear the cattle and sheep waking everyone up. It's my favorite "go to" place. And I too, wish that Wisteria covered window was mine. It looks like a window that leads to a room in a fairy tale.

Unknown said...

Meredith: I love how you spent your vacation. Especially the part where you headed into town for fish and chips! I wish you could still be there.

EmEm: This may be what's happening, something about one paradise invoking another? Though I'd have to work a little harder to draw parallels between rural Maine and London, but that's kind of what happens. So smart.

Bullwinkle said...

Isn't that the very definition of wanderlust - a desire to travel? When you are settled and happy and comfortable; and you want something else?

I'm trying to conjure up some wanderlust for sandy beaches and palm trees (Dude's pick for the next vacation.) It's not working for me ;)

Kendra said...

Orrrrr, you could come to Camp Wannamakaquilta at Tanque Verde Ranch with me. Gaurantee no wisteria, no cool air, but oh so much to see and do and always the threat of a truly amazing monsoon.

Anonymous said...

Scotland. That's my wanderlust. To be back there in June, when the gigantic Rhododendron are in bloom and the light stays until well past 11 pm. And the castles, and gardens. And the smells that were familiar as soon as I stepped off the plane. Strange, and beckons me still.

Jen (the one in VA :-D ).

besshaile said...

Oh - it hits me too - but not when it's perfect at home. When May or October comes to Virginia - I wish I was in Virginia. And I usually am.

Carole/Sloknitr said...

In this hot and sticky time in Southern NJ, my wanderlust took me to Calgary, Alberta, Canada - to see that self-same KnitNation organizer and her delightful new baby. The Rocky Mountains, Banff, Lake Louise - a wonderful respite from the cruel heat of the mid-Atlantic.

Minh said...

My casual wanderlust takes me to Coastal Maine! Walking on the rocky shores of Isle au Haut or Monhegan, eating at Grace or Cleonice, and stopping by all the yarn stores...

But the real place I want to go back to is New Zealand. Fjords, mountains, and rolling hills.

Linzleh said...

I think wanderlust is just our soul searching for home. That home isn't necessarily where we currently reside... Linzleh (once from Pownal,ME now in St.Charles, MO)

Natalie Servant said...

I'm heading to Paris next week for the first time in 22 years. There's so much I want to see and do. It'll be a magical week but I know I'll be glad to get home in the end as well. I like making memories while I'm away, but I do love being at home.

Anonymous said...

Not so much a note on the wanderlust but on your bedside reading - it's much like mine, and Cold Comfort Farm has been my favorite book since I was eleven!!
Emily

Anonymous said...

I'd go to that place in Blue Hill I've heard about, the one where they serve these delicious caramels. I'd talk to the woman there, the one who knits, cooks, gardens, reads. I would tell her how much joy she adds to my life.

Anonymous said...

This time of year I get gripping wanderlust for an Adventure (capital A intended). I've had some wonderful ones over the years but lately returning to familiar places calls to me. I've been to Istabul twice in the past 3 years - and found myself pricing flights to Istanbul last night on-line. It's something about continuing to peel back layers, inside myself, too.

Liz said...

Easy. I'd like to be on the Maine coast. When I was a kid we'd drive from Ottawa, ON to Ogunquit almost every year (my family began going in the 1920s). It was a 2-day drive and we'd stop overnight in Vermont. Then 10 years ago when my own kids were still young, I did a house exchange from our Washington,DC house to Portland and I fell in love with the non-tourist parts of Maine. Wanna do a house exchange to historic Kingston,ON on the shores of Lake Ontario?

Anonymous said...

MAINE

or the south coast of Massachusetts, where the water is warm and the skies are beautiful this time of year.

Anywhere where there is water, actually. (I'm in northern California, but it is so dry here, and the water is basically useless.)