I end this rather long day by brewing a cup of chamomile. I always make it the same way—the same brand’s bags, the same amount of water, and the same duration to let it brew. And this is extended in kind to most of my days. If a friend asks me how my days have been lately, I do not have a proper answer. I find myself stupefied in my repetition and banality. How have my days been? Well, exactly like they had been for a while now. In many ways, it is what paradise seems like.
Still, even Eden, with all its perfection, was not enough for us—ideal days are far from that. Now, I have begun feeling the urge to escape, at least temporarily. The only thing I know better than anything else is myself. I know that it has been a while since I set up camp on the loamy soil of calmer days, and now, since it has been long enough, my mind has begun to feel trapped again. My life is a continuous making and breaking of patterns. It is not in perfect discipline nor the lack of a routine that I thrive—I bloom in the in-between.
Earlier this evening, as I walked through the city and crossed the road, a little girl sitting in the backseat of a giant car waved to me, and I waved back. Almost immediately, as I passed and reached the sidewalk, I realised that this was my first interaction with a stranger in weeks. I feared it had been close to a month since I met someone new. It made me wince at the limitation of experience that has begun to set in like mould on an old wooden chair out on the patio of some farmhouse no one visits anymore. I believe I must get a change of scenery soon.
There is something about looking at the sea that you cannot get in a city fenced by hills and mountains. Mountains, especially when they surround you, are like walls. It often starts to feel like they are closing in like it has now for me. When you look at the sea, all you see is infinity; you see so much that is possible, all you cannot see beyond an unreachable horizon. Now, I cannot help but imagine a radiant, hot pink sun over calm, almost still water, the bright orange sky and no shore in sight, and the quiet hour as you take it all in, and hope—the hope that something remains to be seen.