monday monday

How else could we live? We pour ourselves into vessels that may crack, dream dreams that may dissolve, love people who will certainly change. And in doing so, we become more fully human, more alive…

The winter rains have arrived which everyone warned me about. “It pours endlessly and everything will feel damp and moist,” they told me. 

I’ve been living in the tiny fishing village-turned-surf destination of Ericeira in Portugal, for three months now. The palms outside my windows are waving at me carelessly reminding me not to go outside.

It’s Monday and I woke in bed with my cat’s face so close to mine I could feel his soft breathing. He had tucked himself under the covers next to me like a doll, making me laugh. 

I promised myself a slow start this morning and folded myself deeper into the lingering nighttime warmth letting my mind drift and wander without holding onto any particular thought. 

Finally, the urge to relieve myself urged me out followed by padding out to the windows to confirm that it was indeed a day to stay cosy indoors.

Lighting candles and incense in the living room I moved back to the kitchen to make warm lemon water to drink always the first thing on an empty stomach followed by honey-sweetened cacao to enhance the cosy atmosphere. 

The start of 2025 has felt like water slipping through cupped hands. Impossible to grasp yet vital to life itself. Like water, we try to build our worlds on what cannot be contained: love, friendship, and the gossamer threads of possibility. In my small corner of existence, as the world churns with its fires and floods, its violence and chaos, I find myself surrendering to this paradox.

A chance encounter on a cafe stoop becomes something more. A love story with a tall Italian stranger transforming from nothing into something. 

This is the eternal human condition – to build our castles on shifting sands, to stake our hearts on what tomorrow might reshape entirely. How else could we live? 

We pour ourselves into vessels that may crack, dream dreams that may dissolve, love people who will certainly change. And in doing so, we become more fully human, more alive to the exquisite uncertainty of it all.

I sit watching raindrops fall in gentle rhythm, as candles flicker and fade one by one. My to-do list grows longer with each passing thought – a testament to my endless optimism about what I might accomplish this week. Though I know, deep down, that time will move more slowly than my dreams, I’ve learned to forgive myself for this hopeful nature. There is something beautiful about believing in possibility, even when reality gently reminds us of its own unhurried pace.