postlogue: all in my head

Before I left on my trip, as Uncle Don was wishing me well, he said something that struck me as funny: "You're going to have such great memories. It'll always be in your head."

"In your head" seemed to have too-close ties to insanity. So I was amused to hear the phrase echoed (actually, with a neurologist on the Tour, maybe I shouldn't have been) several times while we were gone.

Among the things that were all in my head (literally or figuratively) were

• the inner ear infection the first week of the trip
• the fishy taste in the water on the ferry (after Brian suggested it tasted fishy)
• my budding German romance (although I still do want to write a country song with the chorus: "I left my heart, my laundry line, and my new socks in Hameln"; I think it would be a big hit.)

But Don was right.

The feeling of Rothenburg at twilight, or of opening the window to a crisp German morning with the birds singing, or of listening to Messiah by candelight at St.-Martin-in-the-Fields, or of seeing THE Magdalen College for the first time, or of standing in the places where Luther, Zwingli, Cranmer, Huss, and so many others changed the tide of history, or of seeing more beautiful Alpine scenes in one day than could fill up a thousand post cards . . .

The pictures don't show it. And I could type and talk and scratch away for years and not describe it.

Now I know. It'll always be in my head.