I have realized lately that the places I miss are the ones I have not been to. There is a fancy restaurant with blue lamps on a side street in Barcelona. I have never been there, I always thought I would go there with somebody special and laugh a lot.

Then there is a fishermen village not far away from Tarragona. I wanted to go there to see the fishermen boats and to eat some fresh fish. There is the village of Cadaquez (where Dali lived), last time I have been there I was 12. I remember there was a serpentine road to the village, it rained heavily, and the fog was dense. This is the only time I saw my dad scared. He slowed the car down and said “Mamma mia!” in Russian. Then he stopped the car right on the road and we all waited for the rain to stop. Those were the only emotional words I’ve ever heard from my dad. The rest of my life I know him as a very rational man, solid as a rock; He speaks with an even voice, he never gets angry, he works a lot, and he likes to play cars and planes with my son.

I miss the two towns in Norway that I never got to visit: Bodø and Tromsø. Both are around the arctic circle. I thought I would live there for some months, work remotely, and see the snow fall behind the windows. The way you feel the relationship between the nature and yourself in those places must be entirely different; An intense mix of beauty and respect.

I miss people I did not get to know quite well. It is a queer sensation of missing somebody you do not know.

I can’t say I miss Barcelona. I try to imagine that I will miss these cafes, these streets, this full moon that I am seeing right now sitting on the atico of my parents. The moon is big and yellow. Strangely enough I have no feelings towards all this. I do not miss the town of Besalu that we visited yesterday.   I do not miss the roads that we walked in the past years. The roads were beautiful, the walk was worth it, but the places remain just sceneries.

I miss the poems that I did not find. When I am tired I like to read poetry, sometimes looking for a particular author, sometimes choosing the verses randomly. Lately I have not found anything that would make me stop and want to read it over and over again. Something that I could read like I breath.

My son still likes to put his fingers in my hair and mess with it. He still does it, so I do not miss that. What I really miss is laughing a lot, lightheartedly. This desire to laugh is the little motor that makes me go forward (may be even fly forward), the true motivation behind everything I do.