Helsinki > Milan > Cinque Terre > Florence > Venice > Rome

Eleven years later, this writing series revisits the trip that quietly changed the course of my life.

What began as a winter holiday between two people in their twenties became something far more formative — a story about travel, love, fracture, and the years it took to understand what happened there.

These short chapters trace the journey across cities and time zones, and the echo it left in the body and nervous system long after the plane landed home.

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01: YVR > LHR > HEL

We’d met almost one year prior.

In the early minutes of January 1, 2014, on the dance floor in Whistler, B.C. Now we were celebrating our first year together with a five-and-a-half-week winter-holiday through Europe.

02: Helsinki Café (Pt. 1): Cinco de Mayo flashback

Helsinki was magical. And alarming.

I witnessed my first avalanche. And it wasn’t on a mountain.

Three days into our trip, we reminisced about a Cinco de Mayo party that friends hosted at Woodward’s…

03: The unplanned pregnancy

An experience we both had in common.

It created a quiet tenderness (at least for me),

a gentle awareness, and a mutual respect for how formative and fragile those moments and relationships can be.

04: The long-distance open (Pt. 1)

He was 24. I was 27. It was early 2014.

His plan was to drive from Vancouver back to Markham, spend the fall with his grandparents in Finland, then get to backpacking Europe...

05: The long-distance open (Pt. 2)

Canada Day long weekend and a road trip to Cherryville.

We slept close in a tent and woke to the sound of wolves around us.

It’s why Bon Iver’s performance of The Wolves

at Glastonbury always gets me…

06: Helsinki Café (Pt. 2): The Avalanche

I love that Woodward’s patio story.

The friends who hosted the Cinco de Mayo party were having trouble. In a fit of jealousy and a burst of rage he’d thrown her laptop across the living rom…

07: Milan, Cinque Terre, Florence, & Venice

I would have created distance.

Had I been told, shown, or known about the fracture lines that led to the avalanche in Helsinki, I would have suggested he start seeing a counsellor before I gave our relationship any more of myself…

08: Rome to Florence, NYE (day) 2014

It’s New Year’s Eve. We wake up in Rome on a bluebird day.

We already hate the Contiki tour we joined and we’re only eighteen hours in. Travelling just the two of us for two and a half weeks had been lovely. This might have been a mistake…

09: Florence, NYE (eve) 2014

Do you remember that Christmas episode of The Bear —

The one where alcoholism runs the show

and ruins the special occasion?

Very much, same energy here. Yikes…

10: Door kicked down

And at first it reminded me of the time —

My friend, all 5’2” & 108 lbs of her,

kicked a hotel room door down

while I was inside making out with her cousin…

11: Neurogenic shock.

The idea of running into the hotel lobby, with its fluorescent lights and New Year’s Eve chaos — was a visceral no.

On some unconscious level, my body pulled me in the opposite direction. I fled the sensory overload and found a dark, quiet stairwell, folding myself into the shadows while hyperventilating…

12: New Year’s Day, 2015

Pisa was beautiful though. Another blue sky day.

Everything that followed looked ordinary on the outside, which made what was happening inside harder to name. Everything had changed. Time resumed, but it did so without asking whether I was ready to move with it…

TwT || poems and nightmares —

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the wolves

we slept close

under zippers and stars

and woke to the sound of wolves all around us

—

we howled along

and were sung back to sleep

the sound of wolves still echoing all around us

—

in the morning

the river

whispered

—

reminding me

that fallen trees

and beaver dams

shape the path

and change

the flow

—

by what falls

you can see

what will stay

and what will go

before florence

i unlace myself from him

then the grief of having been touched

by someone that's not you

in places otherwise still branded by us

it creeps thick, like ivy

a heavy haunting

—

tangled and tethered

veins and vines

crawling up carotid arteries

search… ing

for light

for breath

—

up stone walls

and rickety old staircases

through

forgotten

closets

reaching

an empty attic

—

where a closed window’s shutters

cast a painful sliver of light

on an old box labeled 'us'

still up there

from before

returning to therapy after a bit of a break

when the only person

you’ve ever loved

almost takes your life…

it’s quite a lot to reckon with

—

when the weight of finding love again

makes you more nervous

than the grief of living without it…

it’s quite a lot to reckon with

—

when the police department

you reported to

was simultaneously being sued

by the accused

in a sexual assault case

involving your former high school English teacher

and a student

only a few years after he was your teacher…

it’s quite a lot to reckon with

—

when just four years later the accused is charged again

and again and again…

it’s quite a lot to reckon with

intimacy after ipv

his

winsome

profile

turns

towards me

with quiet control

**

he steps

away

from a computer

on a desk

in a room

at a hotel

with a green roof

**

and i rise to my knees

at the edge of the bed

eager to greet him

**

draping my arms

around his 6’4” frame

lacing my fingers

at the nape of his neck

**

me and the silk of my dress

***

leaning in —

until his soul finds mine

teasing me with his tongue

and i respond without hesitation

***

tracing the fine cashmere

he wears

damn well

from the

back of his neck

across his shoulders

to his chest

where we

share a breath —

**

before kissing me again

in a way that just wins…

**

i melt

***

my hands

map his chest

his neck

his shoulders

**

gently

lightly

back and forth

over and under

**

present again with this man like no other

***

his hand

travels my left side

grazing raw silk

**

breathing still

at the top of my thigh

**

slipping under hem

tracing over garter

**

drifting against me

**

barely lifting the satin and lace.

his voice, low and hungry…

**

“you’ve been waiting for me.”

TwT || This Woman’s Truth Blog —

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May 31, 2020

At some point I might get super honest and vulnerable with my writing. It might start to feel a bit moody in this corner of the digital world.

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Helsinki > Milan > Cinque Terre > Florence > Venice > Rome

TwT || poems and nightmares —

TwT || This Woman’s Truth Blog —

TwT || Soundtrack —

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