3
" Now is the time of fresh starts
This is the season that makes everything new.
There is a longstanding rumor that Spring is the time
of renewal, but that's only if you ignore the depressing
clutter and din of the season. All that flowering
and budding and birthing--- the messy youthfulness
of Spring actually verges on squalor. Spring is too busy,
too full of itself, too much like a 20-year-old to be the best time for reflection, re-grouping, and starting fresh.
For that you need December. You need to have lived
through the mindless biological imperatives of your life (to bud, and flower, and show off) before you can see that a landscape of new fallen snow is THE REAL YOU.
December has the clarity, the simplicity, and the silence you need for the best FRESH START of your life. "
― Vivian Swift , When Wanderers Cease to Roam: A Traveler's Journal of Staying Put
12
" I am acutely aware that I am now the middle-aged traveler that I used to consider to lame, so embarrassing. And I have something to say to my 20-year-old self:
You cannot possibly know how much time it takes to learn to treasure this world, how many years it takes to properly cherish your place in it.
As you age, you will find it more and more remarkable, a miracle really, that any of us -- you, me -- are here at all, the result of an undeserved, infinite gift.
And the older you get, the more you know how much you will miss all this when you are gone.
In the end, the world was not all that changed by your coming, you were not all that crucial to it. But the world, this world, which you will one day travel in homage and gratitude, this world was everything to you. "
― Vivian Swift , Le Road Trip: A Traveler's Journal of Love and France
15
" They were as unexpected as a mirage, those dancers on the Pont des Arts. Strictly speaking, the bridge is for pedestrians only, but waltzing is allowed on special nights like this. A guitar, a violin, an accordian -- a tune everyone knows -- and the dancers begin to twirl, spin, soar and glide all around us, in love with life at 3/4 time.
Did I say waltzing was allowed?
Under these circumstances, it's mandatory. "
― Vivian Swift , Le Road Trip: A Traveler's Journal of Love and France
