The year is 2022

The start of a year of change and transformation, among new explorations and uncertainty, while nature hesitantly crosses the watershed between one year and the next. 

The Covid pandemic eases and war breaks out on the eastern front. I choose to pass my days in blinkered oblivion, seeking out sweetness and the first flowerings.

The end of an era and who knows what lies around the next corner. A blank page as white as the snow that persists in its coldness. One door closes and another opens.

An icy start down familiar paths through juniper and buckthorn scrub in search of a direction. A sort of tentative orienteering without a map in search of new points of reference among first flowerings and backward glances.  

Turbulent times, a roller coaster of the good and the bad, nearness and distance. The stability that comes from shared movement is than skin deep and a sense of purpose does the rest.

The quiet before the storm… ready, steady, go. Impossible not to look back, not to wonder, how, when, if (only). Home is? Seeking refuge in the little things seen in a new light with too many shadows. There will be clarity.

The first words on a new page in the book of life. Eyes heavy from nights made sleepless by other people’s revelry. Slowly a new centre of gravity takes shape, balanced between doubt and certainty.

Summer trickles slowly away and a certain peace seeps back to my world with an audible sigh of relief. The old empties, the new gradually fills, but the memories itch and scratch, pulling me back. Acceptance is not an easy battle to win. 

New commitments, new hopes, the hesitant start of a new adventure that would make sense of what I’ve become. One step at a time. The important thing is not to lose the rhythm.

Cold. This is what I remember most. And the evenings closing in. A month spent tying up loose ends, dreaming, planning, packing… destinations Crete, La Palma. Somewhere to awake new enthusiasm, to find new warmth for old bones.

A whirlwind month… Crete and the thrill of a new love affair, a cold, fleeting return to Italy, then the volcanic La Palma and the thrill of passing near the newest land on the planet. Paths and plants new and old, but already the intuition is taking shape. The future lies to the east and not the west.