fika comes full-circle

today is my love’s last day of school at her university. ever. i dropped her off this afternoon, and will pick her up tonight after 8:30 – this is her long day. in the meantime, i have my book club meeting and we are discussing the geography of bliss – woo hoo! i totally choose that book because i read it this summer, and i knew i’d go crazy trying to get another new book read. plus, i loved it and i think it is a perfect book to lead a discussion on. what’s not to like? travel + the search for bliss. sounds like something i could have written. hehe.

however, that doesn’t begin until 6:30, so i’ve got some time on my hands…

back when lina started studying right after we moved to asheville, i also found myself with some extra time on my hands. actually, all i had was time since i had no job. basically, the world was wide open. so, how did i decide to use my time? well, i went to cafés and coffeehouses. i decided that, in order to reacquaint myself with this city that i adore and in order to take care of missing the swedish tradition of fika, i’d drink coffee all over the city and begin writing. i would hunker down in a corner, trying to figure out my next step in life. and before i knew it, i had dreamed up a crazy project – my 40 days of fika project  – yep. i visited 40 cafés in 40 days, and i blogged about it. you can find that blog {here}.

so, for most of the fall semester last year, i was busy drinking coffee, meeting people and writing + blogging. it was during these months that i finally began to call myself a writer. i claimed it and it empowered me. this crazy project of mine even led to me freelance for a local, independent arts + cultural newspaper. and, after my 40 days of fika were over, i created a fika group – because people (who i didn’t even know!) were wanting to meet and fika. to this day, we have 171 members of that group that visits cafés + coffeehouses once a week, meeting to sip on coffee and enjoy conversation. soon, my time while lina was in class was taken up by meeting people, facilitating my fika group, writing, and doing other life-errands. but the 40 days of fika was over – and it was a very special time for me.

a year and a half has passed now, and everything is winding down with our move to sweden just around the corner. and, as i said in the beginning, today is lina’s last day of classes at her university. she worked so very hard to make this dream happen – and now, she’s gotten her absolute dream job , and it’s time to look to the future.

so, when i dropped her off today, i knew exactly what i was going to do until my book club meeting: i was going to visit a café and fika – like i used to do.

here i am now, in my happy place. doing what i do. in the midst of people, ready to interact, if the opportunity to arises. but, otherwise sipping on my coffee and typing away. as i reflect on the time that has passed while we have been in asheville, what I have come to understand is that i am a storyteller. and this is the life that i seek to live: coffee. people. places. words. images. so, here I sit. feeling like things have come full circle. that this part of my journey is coming to a close… and I am ready to move on, continuing to tell my stories and to live life to the fullest.

light + love xx