you, me, and the islands
you caught up with her in moscow. you spent the morning organizing her ticket back home for the evening. the afternoon passed listening to her complain and trying to find a place you could feel intimate - a run-down cinema and a b‑grade romcom.
that was the tail end of the last time you had a ‘real’ holiday for yourself - 12 years ago.
you’d spent a week on svalbard, an island in the arctic circle. it was november, with 24 hours of darkness. your days were filled with dogsledding or wandering around town or reading - your evenings in the bar with an ebook, talking with strangers between lines, or setting the screen aside entirely.
it was pleasant enough, but time was pierced by notifications from her, needling you to meet her on the way back.
the last genuine holiday before that was also on an island - this time in europe during winter. a week on a farm in estonia. cooking, walking, reading, chatting with friends online. you spoke english with the young locals, russian with the elders.
those stark evenings - smoking on the balcony, listening for nearby waves, watching stars hanging in a dark‑blue sky - afforded you a tranquility you hadn’t felt since before you’d married and divorced. nothing to do all day - your time your own.
fully burnt out now, you crave time to be your own again. but it’s not secluded winter nights in europe you yearn for - not anymore.
you still want quiet - afternoons on a beach, laying on a lounge with a beat-up novel. though you also hunger for life, surging human energy.
mornings at fresh food markets - the odor of sweat mixing with the scent of fruits you don’t yet know the names of. the feel and sound of crumpled foreign paper notes in your hand.
evenings at a noisy open-air bar with overpriced, fluffy cocktails. meeting an exotic woman, immediate connection - the kind where neither of you can believe you’ve never met before.
knowing within minutes you’ll later depart somewhere quieter - neither rushing, content to live in tension and unrestrained smiling eyes that devour each other’s.