As if Big Sur didn’t already call to me, I discovered this earlier in the week.
My worry: if I went there, I might never come back.
I don’t think that would be so bad though.
{photos and architecture by Mickey Muennig; featured on Tiny House Swoon then Design Tripper, and found via The Innocents Abroad}
On my recent trip to Kentucky, my father and I stopped in at his sister’s bookstore in Frankfort. My aunt Elizabeth and her children were the exotic part of the family in my mind as I grew up: they lived far away, in a world filled with books and blue grass and wide open spaces. I hardly knew them.
It’s only been in recent years that the cousins on my father’s side have begun to seek each other out and form bonds of friendship. It’s as if we picked up old books that were there, waiting to be discovered, and found a world within them.
I could get lost in my aunt’s bookstore, and I very nearly did. The bottom level is like many other book shops, filled with new titles laid out to catch your eye. But upstairs are where the real gems lie waiting for owners.
Books long forgotten line the shelves. They hide in shadows. Sometimes only a cover peeks out from beneath another book. You catch a flash of bright blue or a shimmer of gold. These books tell stories beyond the ones written in them: old owners names can be found on the first page, inscriptions are written on the inside front cover, notes have been jotted here and there in margins. You can feel the ghosts circle around you, whispering ever so softly as you move from one volume to the next.
I think we both need to find a bookstore to get lost in this week…
Nearly every photograph I look at lately whispers to me. “Travel,” they say. “Move. Adventure. Explore.” I find myself plotting new locations to watch sunrises, imagining stories that might be told at sunset, daydreaming about conversations with strangers. I want to learn languages and make mistakes and wander down dark alleys, discovering shops time has forgotten.
I remember being 17 in Germany, so sure that the wrong turn would take me to the right place. There were small bakeries that made pastries in the shape of fish bones and marketplaces that sold bundles of sticks and strawberries in the cold. I walked down streets drunk on new cities and lack of sleep. I declared one road on some island heaven and watched as the sail boats glided across the lake.
I remember being 21 in Ireland, falling in love with the melodic accent and the rosy cheeks of a dair-haired boy who worked on a boat. I climbed over stone walls in the pouring rain to see nature’s sights and ate blue ice cream that seemed more from Hogwarts than this world with the way its flavor seemed to change. I ate sandwiches on riverbanks and noticed a balance there I hadn’t seen in the States. I wasn’t ready yet to wander cities alone.
Ten years later, there was Scotland. A country I traveled alone. This time solitude was comfortable. I was ready to open myself to strangers, and wonders unfolded. I discovered stories and fairy hills and old stone circles. I ate meals in cities and coastal towns and small villages. My heart broke open with love, over and over. My time there was a dream.
And soon, the wind will carry me away again.
{image from Project Yosemite, featured in 16 hours}
