I never really liked Bree. The grey town in the heart of Eriador was filled with old houses and grey brickwalls, a sign of an architecture of the poor. It was here I once came when I decided to move and care for my own.
I was young and I did not like all the strange folks that lurked around the streets. Beggars and the poor felt so threatening, and I easily learned which areas I should avoid or not... I wanted to have a respectable job, but it was very difficult to find one, so I started to develop my music and I found like-minded people to share this work. As a young woman I also met people that gave me much heartaches and pain... The feelings I once felt at that time, I can easily associate with Bree...
During my childhood I read books and stories about places far far away. Beautiful Rivendell with the fair elves. Green fields in the Shire and the wintry lands around Thorin Halls. I often made stories and songs about these places, dreaming and longed to go there and leave Bree forever.. I wanted to go to these magical lands and live amongst their kind..
At this present time, nearly twenty years after. I have been privileged to see all these places and the beauty of them all. I have learned traditional songs and their ways of living. I have seen the elves, the hobbits, the dwarfs. Some easily to understand and get to know. Some that appear cold and not want to know strangers...But I have got friends and memories for life from many different corners in Middle-Earth. I met persons, not of my own kind..but still I will carry with me for the rest of my life.. I even discovered love..a secret, very forbidden..something I cannot speak of, . but someone I can escape to when I want., someone that do understand me.....
But I also saw dangers and war.. Not all the lands I used to romance my thoughts around..wasen't that lovely as I thought. But I learned to apreciate what I saw, but I also learned that I prefer comfort and peace..
This has been a great inspiration for me and for my songs, and without all my adventures, and all this persons I have met. I would never be the Achazia that everyone knows...
Yesterday I visited Bree again after some time away.... and suddenly it struck me... and it struck me hard. Tears filled my eyes, when I realized how much I love this place. Grey Bree, with its stone house, it suddenly appeared so beautiful in my eyes. I even stopped in front of some beggars and played a song for them, and I gave them coins, their eyes shined like stars and I felt somehow content. I visited Jasmines Garden, the little garden in the center of Bree, I remember how in love I was the first time someone held my hand...I wonder why I have tried to forget all this lovely feelings, but chosen to remember heartaches and pain instead?...
The sunset colored the street, and I felt warm and good inside, There has been so many places in Bree that the Shades has played. The time with The Shades was not only work, but much fun, to be able to do what I love the most was a true blessing. To share creativity and friendship was the two good values I learned from this place. I wont stop that..
When I visited the Inn, I saw old friends, nothing was changed at all, and I cannot tell how happy about that. Everything was the same, I saw Cymaru cleaning the tables, Mugendo smoking his pipe-weed by the fireplace, Kosei writing stories and Grymrock playing his music with his friends..Even the drunkards I feared and disliked in the past, felt so lively and harmless and they now colored the place... and then.. Welin enter the door to the Inn, with her arms embracing me...;'Mother you are finally home..'Then I could not hide my tears anymore...
I was home again, with family and friends... in lovely Bree.. Still there is parts of me, that will long to the unknowned..But is good to know I have found home..even if I will leave again very soon..
Achy....
