Home Sweet Home (Earth Edition)

You might have noticed that I haven't been talking much about me. Truth is, I have a LOT to say about trekking about all over the place for months on end. Some good (damn, it's been a lesson!) and some bad (also ouch, so much I got wrong!), but I couldn't find the energy to talk about it because I was too exhausted to even process it. At one point, I found myself picking up a call from my psychologist in the Amalfi Coast and apologising profuselly because I had completely forgotten about our session--I just had no idea what day of the week it was anymore.

I'm back in Buenos Aires, where it's spring. The day before I got here they claim it was proper summer weather (28 degrees), but as if I manifested it rained right before I got here and it has been quite chilly at night at least, though then we get 25 degrees the next day. After a very mild winter, it's supposed to be an extremely hot spring and after reading This One Wild and Precious Life, I am trying to not to shrug when I hear worrying climate news like that. I haven't quite figured out if I'm up for attending a protest, but at least I'm going to stop hiding my head in the sand.

The author made a fascinating point that really struck home for me. Optimist can easily become pretending everything is going to be okay by some magical external force, so why bother doing our bit?

And pessimism can be: well, there is no solution, so why bother doing our bit?

Extremes, as usual, meet.

And the reality is (I think) that our bit does matter, but things that matter are scary because they can go wrong. I can get them wrong and then it's my fault--I don't know about you, but if there was every a phrase to strike terror in my heart is that one.

But I'm exhausted (and probably most people are in the endless rat race getting harder by the day) and more responsibility is the last thing I want.

And yet... when I sit down and do the things I know are good (like meditate, or go for a walk, or call a friend, or crunch the numbers so I'm on top of my expeses), I don't get the momentary relief of evasion, I feel proud.

It doesn't guarantee anything, it's no promise that I will get what I want and I will be safe.

But I can rest easy in knowing I have done my part.

Another one of her points was that being kind to strangers, helping in any way we can, it's in itself an act of revolution in a world that disconnects us and wants us to feel that void with possessions and experiences of the kind you photograph and memorialise instead of actually enjoy. I want to try that.

Do you have any stories of community acts that made your little corner of the world a little brighter? Please tell us all in the comments for inspiration.

Here are some photos of the Amalfi coast to lighten your soul.

Leaving my family in Europe was heartbreakingly hard, but also extremely necessary. If you have read any of my books, you probably know I have complicated relationship with my family that spills all over my vision of the world. I love them dearly, but they also make me feel trapped in lots of ways. In the ways I was as a child, in the role I was assigned as the eldest child of quite irresponsible parents, in how I feel judged for being too much for all the ways in which I am atypical and yet admired for those very same qualities when they become useful to them.

They are a mirror and like most mirrors, of more use at a slight remove to see clearly.

What has age taught you that you can give us spoilers on?