Portobello Beach

Yesterday I hopped on bus #26 and headed five kilometers east of Edinburgh's city center to the sandy suburb of Portobello, perched along the Firth of Forth.

 

Overwhelmed by school work and life's most tender moments these past few days, I made the trek to take a deep breath, fill my lungs with salty air, and regain some perspective. As I gazed into the cloudy distance of the North Sea, some of my favorite poetic lines swirled through my mind.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love:

Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

 I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves

Combing the white hair of the waves blown back

When the wind blows the water white and black. 

And whom better to take such a journey with than my friend and flatmate Chloe, a third-year Erasmus student from Dublin-- self-proclaimed bookworm, literature student, and fellow Eliot fanatic. We stood beside one another on the beach, silently allowing our hearts to experience this place, enduring our own unspoken sentiments, before settling into cozy chairs in a local coffee shop together, books in hand, and freshly baked Scottish treats in our bellies.

This was a good one.

xo