12.6.08


Last weekend was a beautiful knock at summer’s doors. The sun beamed joyous rays relentlessly onto a sparsely populated park in Tallinn, Estonia. Lying at the water’s edge with gentle calling of birds and crashing waves acting as an ambient to the usual city sounds, the wind was blowing ever so gently (the most perfect of speeds), not too fast to give you chills and also not to slow so that the Sun slowly raised your body temperature to an uncomfortable level, but at a perfect pace. A couple of beers that had been bought before at the local store around the corner had been opened and were being passed around to be shared with friends. The cold bottle glistened as they touched the warm air and as I looked up at the beautiful blue sky, noticing the slight intricacies of the clouds that made my imagination run wild with shapes of cats, dogs, and dragons—I took my first sip of my beer. I put the beer down and lay on my back for a minute or two. It could have been a lifetime, for time had stopped, and I became entranced into my self-spun web of thoughts. I contemplated the future, the past, the people that I have met that weekend, and most of all, I contemplated how much Estonia has changed me. To use words like ‘good’ or ‘bad’ seem shallow to try to describe my feelings. I believe that words would fall rather short of how I really felt, and to be completely honest, I don’t think it is a feeling that can be felt anywhere else in the world.

Estonia is a beautiful place. Most of the time I am to wrapped up in my own world to see it, but it is moments like this that cut through everything inside of me and just brand me with happiness. It is times like these that I am reminded of the wonderful friends who have turned into my new family and the wonderful strangers I have yet to meet here. I look forward to the journey that is on front of me. That path is long and hard with many obstacles and I still have miles to go, but sometimes I can rest on the side of that road with people on the same journey and just take it all in with one breath then exhale the experiences out and feel a renewed sense of hope and optimism for the past, present, and future. These are the moments that truly make me happy—the moments that are collectively shared that lie beyond the realm of known communication.

Christopher P Kedzierski

USA - Estonia

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