fragments

This place.

Right now.

It's so special I almost feel as if I am standing on sacred ground.

Last week I gathered all my wits about me and stepped on a plane and fourteen hours later I was stepping off a train and into the arms of my grandparents. A precious twenty-seven hours, just me and them, before the rest of my family arrived here in Germany.

The air here -- especially in the evening -- it's thicker, like you could grab a fistful and cup it in your palms. There is color everywhere, so saturated and vivid you think it might leak in crimson puddles onto the ground.

My English keeps slipping away from me and I couldn't be more thrilled.

I've been reading Steinbeck in the sun and I am writing this during a great crackling, booming thunderstorm.

Thinking only in fragments: ice cream on a Thursday afternoon and again on Sundays after church, sunshine reflecting on a still river, the creaking of the spiral staircase, the rattling of my bicycle tires on the cobblestones.

I am so happy here.

(I haven't been very good about taking pictures with my big camera or blogging, but I've been posting a lot on my instagram if you want to check it out!)