in-love-fallings, part five

When I fell in love with...

* seagulls: as a kid, curling up in a narrow bunk bed in a primitive summer cottage on June nights that never grew dark, listening to the ever-present shrieking of these not-so-loveable birds through the thin walls. This sound means summer, sea and home. Since it is absent during winter, the first cry of a seagull in spring always sends a joyful jolt through my body.
 
* walking for miles in strange cities: sometime just after I learned to walk, probably. My insatiable curiosity and thirst for exploration will never be quenched.

* trains: possibly when I started taking those long trips to Helsinki to visit my sister. Definitely by the time I was a starved student and got on the train some Thursday afternoons for a long weekend in that homeland that seemed so distant and exotic by then. Yes, ten-hour round trips every five weeks or so, for seven years, can really get on your nerves, especially when someone has stolen your seat and someone's toddler is screaming in your ear. But waiting for me at the end of the long journey from the big city were home, peace, Mum's cooking and a wild landscape of snow and wolves (the latter was mostly imaginary). On the way back, I could look forward to my own bed in the fascinating city. Trains, even just the metallic smell of train tracks, symbolize freedom.

* real baths: relatively late in life, coming as I do from a land of wonderfully hot saunas and quick showers. Must have been one of those first, freezing winters in Ireland. The heating system ran out of fuel and my landlord, also my boss at the hotel, took his sweet time getting it refilled. Weeping with rage after another cold, sleepless night I left the room I had been assigned and occupied a much better one, against every staff rule. In the face of my rage, not even my boss dared to object. Unlike the other rooms, it had a bath tub. Shaking with cold, I lit candles, put Bach on the CD player and sank down into the hot water. Needless to say, I never looked at water in the same way since.