Here I go again: places and feelings. I return to the atlas of my memory when Michelle’s roommate, Gemma, asks for recommendations for her upcoming trip to the city I lived in during the summer of my 21st year. I wish I could retrace the loops I circled on cobblestones in the early evenings, filling my time with aimless footsteps because I didn’t have any friends. It’s been almost ten years since that summer. What is time, if not distance? I look through these photos and search for that version of me; one that waited in line for ice cream for 20 minutes and still didn’t know what flavor to get, who approached strangers in the park to try and make conversation, who went to the art museum every day and didn’t shy away from solitude.
I send Gemma my recommendations, but personally, I think she’d be better off buying an outdated travel guide from the bargain bin at a bookstore. And Vienna keeps creeping up on me: The Bachelor season previews; my friend’s birthday in two weeks.