everything and nothing has stayed the same

I notice the cold the most. I shiver as I rush from one university building to another, and, having lost my gloves, my hands mottle and spread between bronzed tan at skin on my wrists and bloodless cold white beneath the skin of my knuckles. 

And I notice the dark. I am very lucky to live on Scotland's sunniest side, and I love the briskness of a crisp blue day with no clouds to quell the biting wind. But the late mornings, the early evenings, and the days of never-ceasing dusk haunt and hollow me. I arrived home and none of my clothes suited me anymore. I cleared out the browns, the greys, the blood reds and forest greens. I walk down old grey streets with a bright red coat and a bright yellow scarf and hold the clear sky close.

Though everyone tells me it's like I never left, I have returned to Scotland a minimalist. I write and write and see people who matter most and leave this tiny town when I can. I have been here a fortnight straight now, my longest streak, and in a few days it will be time to leave again. St. Andrews is best enjoyed part-time.

I think about Melbourne always. About the sun, the city, the sky, its scrapers. The friendships, the good bits and the bad. Cycling down Swanston, my mind at peace, and up Heidelberg, taking my thoughts out on my aching legs. The glow and buzz of the ever-shining CBD and the dark of the suburbs lit by streetlamps and strange starlight. Experiences which are mine and mine alone. Stories I inevitably won't end up telling because you can never tell them all. Can you even share an experience once it has already become a memory?

The hardest, strangest part of going away is coming home. I suppose I knew that all along.