This is a perfect moment.
And there are others - standing on the banks of the Danube and seeing the city lit up like a bonfire, clutching a mug of mulled wine and making fun of each other in the Christmas markets, everyone clustered on the couch in Kriszti’s living room so we can talk to Dani in Colombia, running madly through the lamplit streets, the moment where we all see Mátyás Templom in its full glory (looking like nothing so much as Minas Tirith), morning coffees, night-time lunches, dancing and drinking and remembering. Even saying goodbye, in its wretched agony, is still kind of perfect, because we all know that it’s not forever.
Just before we left Budapest, Kriszti told me something to bring me out of the miserable downward slide I was starting on - “No memory is ended while we’re still alive”. It’s from a film I really ought to watch. It helps to remember that no matter how awful it is to be parted, the next meeting has a chance to change that sadness into just an interlude - something that was just a pause in the story.
