A few weeks ago, as Danny and I sat at the kitchen table eating dinner, I suddenly set my fork down and just listened to the jazz streaming from our living room. “La Vie En Rose” had just come on. In an instant, I was back in Paris, soaking up the ambiance at La Closerie des Lilas that last night before I returned to the States.

When I see a rare firefly in Florida, I’m transported back to the summer nights of my childhood, chasing lightning bugs in back yards in Pennsylvania and Maryland, the grass smooth and soft beneath my toes.

Sometimes when I taste just the right blend of curry and spices, I feel as if I’m back on St. Lucia, eating lunch overlooking the Caribbean and the Petit Piton as tiny sparrows hop from the back of one empty chair to another in the open-air dining patio. In my memories, there’s always a soft breeze.

Mist settled on green mountains whisks me to Cherokee, North Carolina, where I feel the nostalgia of someone who doesn’t fully belong, but whose ancestors did. Cherokee tastes like potato wedges and Cheer Wine, and it smells like pine and sawdust.

And, now, seeing any photograph of Alpine-esque buildings wtih steep, tiled roovs lines brings me right back here — to the WinShape Retreat in Rome, Georgia, where I soaked in the Pursuit 31 Conference last fall and will again this coming October, and where Danny and I are wrapping up several days at CONNECT. There are some places that you visit and can’t wait to leave behind. There are others that you visit, and then leave a piece of yourself behind when you go. We lose a little bit of our hearts to every place we love.

~ Laura