Such Sweet Sorrow

It’s in my thoughts all the time at the moment. ‘Parting is such sweet sorrow’ wrote Shakespeare and it’s true. Like a helping of sweet and sour sauce! We’re leaving the Netherlands and every move I make the thought comes back – is this the last time? I sit on the tram, not reading my book this time, but gazing silently out of the window, lost in thought…

Things I love, things I hate drift past the window: the grey fog, the ugly buildings in the poorer parts of town, the graffiti (not always a work of art) and the drab clothing that emerges each winter – black and grey, grey and black. But I pass sights that I love – the lifting bridge over the canal, a work of mechanical genius that the Dutch are so good at, a barge gliding softly along the smooth canals, a flower shop, a shop selling cane furniture and wicker baskets and the bikes – trailing dogs, carrying babies, sleepy toddlers, crates of beer … almost anything, whilst their owners answer their mobile phones or warm their hands in their pockets!

Parting – it happens to me every day. Is this the last time that I will make this journey? Is this the last time that I will sit at Kathy’s table, laden with the results of her lovingly produced creative cooking, surrounded by familiar friends with whom I can forget to brush my hair, tell my secrets, risk exposing my attempts at writing a literary masterpiece? There’s sadness involved in parting.

But it’s sweet too. It focuses the mind. Each time it happens I am filled with joy that these things, these places, these adventures, these friends have been mine. And they will always be mine to keep: memories filed away, shared experiences, high points and low points. Yes, I’m leaving, but I am enriched, enlarged, inspired by so many things. There are painful partings, I know, but this is a good one and I shall remember it with happiness.