Homesick a little

As I sit here, eating Camembert straight from Normandy (the kind that comes in a wooden container and melts in your mouth) [a gift, thank you M ever so much], I miss the little bakery just down from my apartment, the scent of bagettes and criossants that would go so well with this treat. Baggettes of Oman, you are not a baggette to me, I apologise, but you are sandpaper in compare.

I miss walking to work passing the bakeries and pattiseries in the morning, seeing sweet little cakes arranged in the window in cotton-candy hues with candied pears, set admist used bookstores and antique emporiums and auction houses. The little friar in his walker going to the Cathdedral always said good day to me, and the jewelry shop keeper with the most fabulous 1920s ruby ring you ever saw. As friends post pictures of the lavendar farms on facebook I feel a tad homesick as if the smell is still in my nose, though I know you all envy my fresh morning mango juice, the sunshine, and the abaya selections here;).

MOP insists he has never been homesick, and would never feel such a way, but I believe this is due to the fact that well, he's never been out of Oman for more than 2 weeks at a time. I bet he'd miss mango, and chips Oman, and tahous hot sauce;).

Oman is my home, but sometimes I miss the land-far-away just a little. The colour of feild of lavendar, and drying the sprigs in the cupboard, cheese in wooden boxes (instead of glass almarai jars), browsing used book stores and antique shops for neglected treasures... My sister and I never bought our coats from a mall but from Vintage clothing stores. I found vintage Oscar de la Renta winter cashmere, she found wool Mary Qant plaid with over-sized 1960s buttons (which I borrowed of course when we went to London). Sometimes we'd find something so beautiful that had no brand at all.

I still have beautiful little Egyptian inlaid boxes I bought for less than baisas from the window of an antiques store.

I miss that.

I miss seeing girls ride their bikes down the street in cute ballet flats, high heels, and flowing chiffon skirts, and black tights, with woven basket on the front of the bike, and a second-hand beret in their hair. Not that I ever managed the bike+chiffon act myself. Though I skated alot in rollarskates in floorlength chiffon and oversized necklaces +black abaya +niqab.

Sometimes I miss the scent of the rain through the branches of the chesnut trees, and the little cafe I lived above without enough hot water or living space lol.

I remember the icy night there was a fire and all us tenents sat outside without much a care with the cafe owner, discussing our city, and we all drank hot chocolate and petted someone's cat and didn't even notice when the firedepartment had given us leave to return inside.

I love Oman more. I know, I can't [as in, would never want to] ever leave the Sultanate, but every now and then I remember something from the life I left that I loved and feel a pang. It was not much there that I loved, but when I love I never forget.