baroque heart and maple syrup

I don't remember the date other than it was some time in October. The weather was cold and dry. A classmate thought that the 44A would be a more direct route home. It wasn't. By the time we passed the Jordanhill campus everyone on the bus realized I was lost. Obnoxiously, aggressively, kindly they demanded to know where I lived. And then, in painstaking detail they explained which bus numbers I was to take.

I don't remember the date but that is when I decided to love Glasgow.

I stepped off the 118 knowing the general direction I ought to go but uncertain how I would find the house. Tired from my extended bus travels, hungry for dinner, I shivered, crossed over Drymen Rd. and headed east. Eight minutes later I halted in hopeless wonderment regarding my whereabouts. Absently my eyes wandered up to the street sign. Somehow I had stumbled onto my very street. 15 minutes later I melted into the hot shower.

I don't remember the date but that is when I saw that the house on Speirs Rd. was home.

I sat comfortably on the couch. And then I didn't. Cute and flirty quickly transformed into an anxious attempt to breath normally. "We need to go... now!" Keep calm, stay in control, breath in, breath out, repeat... Mentally, physically drained I drive past the illuminated monuments. How strikingly lonely this all is in the wee hours of the day. I pull into the parking lot, give a faint "morning" to the night receptionist, unlock the door.

I won't remember the date but that is when I accept that my bed is no longer a squeaky twin.

Despite having packed the box just over a month before I'm highly anticipative of what I'll find. I catalog in my head: a diffuser, a picture frame (or two), a snowglobe, my favorite sheets. What else? I wonder. Diffuser goes in the cabinet. The picture that epitomizes Glasgow goes next to the bed. The one that represents laughter on the wall. The old snapshop of my childhood inspiration kept where I can see it. Those sheets get a long hug before stowing away neatly in the closet. And then I pull out a slightly crushed, frameless, matted picture of a place that will always be familiar. A thousand times I overlooked that challenging valley.

I remember the place for that is where I found something special.