Glasgow

I've been thinking of Glasgow a lot lately. I think I live there just long enough to really feel like it was my home. I remember sitting in the airport, about to head back to Minnesota for awhile, and really feeling deep down like I lived there. Obviously, Chris and I had a flat there, but I also felt like I knew where the important things--dentist, doctor, liquor store, produce stand-- were, I felt good going grocery shopping, or taking the train to a friend's house on my own, or meeting up with friends in the city center. I knew how to ride my bike, or take the subway, or walk, or take a train just about anywhere, and I had friends, and I could understand even the thickest accent.

But even then, there was something in me that wouldn't let me get too settled in. In the past 10 years or so, I have become very cautious about putting down roots anywhere. Little roots had started to form in Glasgow. I think about being there a lot, and I kind of miss it.

There are lots of things I don't miss, of course. I don't think I would have ever adjusted to having wet feet and hair all the time, or the vast amount of fried food in the diet. But I do miss a lot of other things--riding my bike along the Clyde, the Voltaire bookshop (which was essentially a musty room full of literal piles of books), the subway, DJing at the Bier Stube for 40 pounds a night, walking up the long driveway to the Strathclyde University Jordanhill campus, the enormous cinema in the city center, and the buskers along Buchanan street.

Things here are nice and stable, and I'm grateful for the way things have turned out. Sometimes, though, I wonder what could have happened if I'd been able to stay in Scotland another year or two.

xo