Postcards to Home

11 July 2006

Beste Familie,

I am writing this from a secluded spot in the wooded village of Wassenaar. We are here to celebrate the end of the school year and the beginning of new adventures. Staying for the week we are living in a bungalow home fully fitted and supplied for seven people, so the five of us fit comfortably. If there ever was a postcard moment in this experience of living in Europe, I am having it now. The weather today is ideal. It is a mild seventy-five Fahrenheit degrees outside with faint wispy clouds high in the sky. The sky is that perfect crayola color. You remember the one, a perfect sky blue. As a child it was the color I chose to complete my house drawings, scribbling an inch of azure across the upper edge of the page; an interpretation of the big bright blue sky I saw outside. The front garden here is filled with cone flower, lilac, small fichus trees and crawling ivy. The bungalow itself is surrounded by tall trees; chestnut, oak, pine, willow, ash and others that I do not readily recognize. The sun is shining at that perfect angle causing beams of light to shoot through the branches, reaching fingers of brightness toward the earth. The leaves themselves, nearly transparent as the sunlight radiates through, gently shiver in the breeze. The quiet wind has set yesterday’s wet towels in motion, pushing them to and fro as they hang on the line. Just down the road from where I am sitting there is a small pond populated with ducks, geese and swan. Each seem completely tame and none startle at our approach, but merely continue on about their business. When you are a goose here, it appears it is your business to strut through the camping areas looking for handouts. And quite frankly, I find having a goose approach with its strong beak and fierce determination sways me to be very generous with the sandwich scraps. The whole family is enjoying the meanderings of the water fowl, especially when a duck or two wander into the front yard of our bungalow searching for nibbles. For the kids the ultimate part of this experience is the amusement park and water slide attached to this camping commons. The roller coaster craziness is a five minute walk from our little hideaway home and they have been able to thoroughly investigate the park and the fun it has to offer. Meanwhile, I am sitting in the garden, sipping my cola light and feeling the summer breeze tickle my sun-kissed face.

It is in a word: perfect.

Wish you were here.




* Submitted to Scribbit's May 2007 Write-Away contest.

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