I glanced out of the window behind the cashier at CVS in Brighton Center today and thought the passing storm clouds were snowcapped mountain tops.
I never used to mistake the clouds in Brighton for mountains and the fact that I did, even for a split second, makes me giddy as hell. So I’m nostalgic, and maybe a little sappy, but the idea that I momentarily mistook clouds for giant snowcapped mountains is a change in my psyche I love. Those mountains brought me so much joy and inner peace. A day’s stresses were always forgotten the minute I’d hop on my bike and head home, always in the direction of the sparkling 12,000 foot face of Mont Blanc. No matter the stress I was under, it could always be easily erased by a short train ride to Interlacken, Luzern, Zurich, Bern, Saas Fee, Montreax, Nyon, Lausanne, Fiesch, or somewhere else, with each destination jaw droppingly majestic and each new adventure bringing me to the most beautiful place I have ever been. The natural beauty at every corner- the city’s and their old towns with cobblestoned streets and medieval architecture, the snowcapped peaks, the happy cows wearing big rustic bells, the wildflowers, the acqua blue glacial rivers and lakes- was a welcome dose of mental health after the daily rigors of living abroad and after the stressful pace of American Law School. So, the fact that my imagination is able to recognize bits of that glory in the humdrum surroundings of home, well, as I said, makes me giddy as hell.
Being back in Boston in seemingly a fingersnap of time, is a bit unreal and makes the last four months spent in Switzerland seem like a long, amazing dream that I am just waking from, to find nothing has changed, really, except for maybe me. I will make a grand return to the law tower after New Year’s to have my obligatory mental breakdown in the CDO to discuss job searching, of which I have not really done much of these last few months and am hoping the consequences of such are as nonexistent as is my motivation to write cover letters.
For now, though, I’m going to unpack and search the skyline for glimmers of the snowcaps that I love so much.
