I have a Secret...

... I miss Middelburg.

Two weeks ago, I had a skype call with a group of friends from RA, and one of them said, "Do you know, I don't miss Middelburg, one bit? I miss you guys, but not Middelburg."

Even as I responded indignantly, I was questioning whether I really missed Middelburg myself. Most of it, certainly, is missing such great friends. Maybe what I miss now is my housemates? And they'll all be gone in the next year or two.

Then again, I obviously miss the coffee. Ko D'oooooor claims it has the best cappuccino in Zeeland, but so far I haven't found anything better in the Netherlands.

And the lovely walk to school! I even miss the parking lot all back, like a brick park, all red and green, or red and orange in fall. And the street I raved about last spring. Just looking at those pictures makes me want to go for a walk, in Middelburg, with the Lange Jan tilting over every other building, and the graceful Oostkerk standing humbly on its little square.

I knew for certain that I missed something about Middelburg, not just my friends, the other night when I was trying to fall asleep. I was lying in bed, too warm, because although it is late October, and I open the window every time I am home, and I haven't turned on the heat in two weeks, my room is always warm and stuffy.

I lay there and could not settle down, so as I closed my eyes, I pictured my room in Middelburg. My table over there, the couch and armchair and bookshelf with four times as many books as I have now. More than picturing it, I could hear it: quiet. Or maybe housemates laughing in the common room, their voices growing loud the minute someone opened the door. The wind in the vines that grew along the street, and the occasional scooter buzzing by to deliver a pizza. The voices of students humming louder and softer as they passed my window, mere feet away from me in my bed.

How could I not miss the place that had been my home for three years? Middelburg was not a six-month excursion, like Nice and Moca were. Though I loved both those places in their own way, and they have shaped who I am, they simply aren't Middelburg. Though I get excited when I remember the Dominican Republic, or hear Spanish being spoken, and still have that weird, unrequited love of France, when a teacher now mentions a printing press in Middelburg or a 17th-century map of Zeeland, I'm as thrilled as if they're telling the class what a wonderful place Powell's Books is.

I doubt that I'll feel that way about Leiden after only one year, but then again... you never know.