i am on the train to amsterdam.

it is grey and sleepy and lovely today. a perfect day for a train ride. the train is empty. thomas is sleeping. i am not sleeping.

prague was fleeting, but warm and sumptuous. like some delicious dessert you can almost only take a few bites of, it is so rich.  it is the most beautiful place i've ever seen. yesterday we split up and i roamed the streets, drinking wine in the sun, reading on carefully manicured lawns by the river, visiting book stores and reveling at the shapes of the words, twirling through the serpentine roads, writing, feeling pointless in the most free and perfect way. i felt the need to touch everything. i ran my hands along buildings, spread my fingers through the grass, turned postcards over in my hands, mauled fruit and chocolate at the farmers market. just to see if it was real. see if beauty like that can really exist.

apparently it can.

i am baffled.

thomas and i met for dinner. we sat in a cafe by the river. we had plates of cheese and bread and coffees and chocolates, while an extraordinarily old man huddled in the corner played the piano. we read books. we talked. everything feels languid and utterly decadent.

i am almost confused by the freedom that traveling allows. i just have a backpack. i don't have to be anywhere at any time. i don't have keys or rent or schedules. there is always another train. there is always another hotel. nothing is keeping me anywhere. i feel a bit like a balloon that's just been accidentally released from some sweet baby's hand and is now blustering wildly through the sky. floating. skating back and forth with the wind, spinning, twirling, drifting further into space, amazed that all that was tethering it to the earth was one tiny curled piece of ribbon. i barely know what to do with myself.

i think of melby's book, the red balloon. that red balloon that followed a little boy in a turtleneck around paris. i think of her copy of the book with her name written in crayon in the front and the torn pages inside. i don't know what that means.

i am a balloon. i am not a balloon.

i will not return to earth popped and devoid of life. but maybe i will let my line out a little. not always stay so close. maybe i will hover and float, instead of clinging.

we have been traveling now almost 12 hours. i don't feel bored or listless. i feel disconnected and airy and strange. the sun is beginning to set. we are in the netherlands now and the words just look like confused german. i feel that same way. familiar, but misspelled.  just beyond discernible meaning. a little bit off. we will be in amsterdam only a day and a half. and then we will leave for paris. and then i will go to london. and then and then and then.

i feel a little bit like a conjunction. i feel like punctuation. i feel like a balloon. i feel far far away from everything.