I am sitting on a plane after travelling continuously for the past 30 hours. My internal clock is totally confused and it still thinks that it is the morning of this same day when I was a at Queen Victoria Market in Melbourne having my last cup of flat white. In this city of passionate coffee lovers, the term last cup of flat white sounds particularly harrowing – it almost symbolises something similar than the last supper for a death row prisoner. To be honest, I don’t feel that bad even though sadness and longing dwell everywhere in me.
I try to absorb everything around me and preserve it to my long term memory. I feel the softness of the coffee foam in my mouth, I can smell the roasted coffee beans, I hear the sounds of trams passing by and I see all the people making their way to do their shoppings at the market. Waiters are organising tables and chairs, customers are pondering do they want their eggs poached, scrambled or fried and other people are just weaving their way towards the market stalls. All the hustle and bustle combine together into surprisingly harmonic experience, and I desperately try to absorb every drop of it. I’m sitting there at the same time as an outsider, an observer, and yet being at the centre of it all. I feel utmost gratitude for being part of this very Melbournian experience for the very last time.
But yes, the reality hits me. Really I’m already thousands of miles away. It is not even the same day anymore, it is actually already evening of the next day in Australia. For me, the sun is just rising and I’m looking it from the comfort of my plane. I look down and see water everywhere and small islands that are like spots on this blue canvas. I see spruce forests, I see birch trees, I see brown fields and houses around them. This is the country where I’m from, and it feels both familiar and foreign at the same time. This is Finland. My next destination.
I’ve returned. It is time to turn a new page.
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