neptune

Yesterday I went for a massage, but it did nothing to loosen my tense shoulders. If I were a sassier customer, I'd ask for my money back.

It wasn't until I got on a plane, checked into my hotel, went out walking, then sat down at the marble top bar in a small, dark restaurant and took a first sip of crisp white wine that my my muscles started to untangle themselves.

Travelling, walking in a city I've always wanted to visit but have not yet seen before, is so restorative. Carrying only a small purse, wallet and my new camera (more on that later), I set off to walk for hours.

Without my usual Mary Poppins-esque bag of stuff, my phone, and without company, I felt weightless.

I glanced down to watch the fading sunlight glint off my ring and thought of my new husband (eek!), somewhere else entirely, working on his own stuff. Cities apart, my love for him echoes steadily, as if we're thinking of each other on a loop. Distance, particularly the kind created by our separate, grown-up endeavours, makes me grow ever fonder of him. We need to take these breathers, and allow ourselves to come up for air from the depths of new marriage. Nothing changes, except something you can't name. But the first month or so of marriage after a whirlwind honeymoon (more on that later, too) have swept us away.

When I leave the restaurant the light is golden and the air smells of the sea, and of the garlic frying in the dozens of Italian eateries that surround me.

I walk slowly back to my hotel, and realize my limbs and muscles have finally gone limp from the heat, the walking, and the solitude.