A NICE WALK BACK through Viljandi Town on the night of the folk music festival, all the streets lit up by lanterns, and people gliding by on bicycles or scooters at midnight, straight down the middle of the street without caution, talking between each other, groups huddled around cars drinking, or sitting Indian style in the parks under the shadows of trees. Something about it reminded me of my first trip to Europe in ninety-four, and the street festival in Zurich where I saw kids approximately my age drinking in public and having a good time and felt so jealous that they could openly do that, and then sleep off their drinks on the trains out of town into the Swiss hills. Then I got back to my hometown that summer, where a kid I knew kept his beer stash buried in the woods so his parents wouldn’t find out! But I also missed Nantucket tonight, which seems to be the place in the US I miss the most. This has grown in me over time. Sometimes I think Nantucket is my home in America, Orange Street, Union Street, the Whaling Museum, the Unitarian Church, Siasconset. I suppose I also went there as a teenager and bonded with it, and remember hearing the parties at night and wishing I was there. Also thought of Block Island recently and how the Irish girls who worked in the hotels would gather at night and sing folk songs in the yards. Sometimes I miss that time, when my best friend was my cassette of Pink Floyd’s The Wall that had that special new cassette smell. Anyway, it was a nice night and felt at last some balance restored within myself after feeling uneven for some time. Thanks for that.
north! 