I know, I know, but I like it here. Or I did. Until my friend Covid met up with me and a four day fun weekend became nine.

I still love Iceland but maybe we are on break for a minute.

I need to share first I am well and healthy. 2022 Covid is more like an head cold for some, I know for others still quite scary. I feel lucky to be left with a socially undesirable cough and a delightful negative test. The lottery winning moment when one gets one’s bar code of freedom is really just lovely.

This old boat and I spent some quality time together this week. I’d brave the weather (and there’s a lot of weather here in March, snowed daily) and we’d hang out. I’d look at the sea and think about life on the rocks together. For me maybe more like a pile of pebbles stuck in my shoe.

Lots of thinking time. Lots of just thinking nothing. I always hope that this is when the words will flow and I can just bang out some quality wisdom but this week, I didn’t do much of anything at all but watched it snow, ate cheap supermarket sandwiches and longed for my own bed and land.

Mostly I waited. And I thought about being stuck a lot. And how good I have it. And sometimes I was lonely. Sometimes I was just so grateful. And sometimes after these two years of so many feelings, I let myself just feel nothing much at all. And well, that was apparently the lesson I needed to learn.

Sometimes nothing is something. And my mind, with its various stressors from personal life and work, just took that needed minute. The wisdom is just in the stopping. The just breathing in and out. The listening to my chest for possible intensifying of the illness which never god seriously bless me came. The doing the small things like finding a place to do my laundry, celebrating my sense of smell returning.

And so. This is what I have to say. And what I hope to take from my time out. To take the time outs in this life. To just stop. To think nothing. And to just heal from illness, from stress, from broken hearts, from anger. You name it. To just sit on some uncomfortable but not awful rocks and look at the sea of life and just be there. In that moment. In that weather.

And now, I check in to my flight. I smell all those delightful and beloved duty free perfumes. And I go back to my life. A life that I am just a bit more grateful for, friends and family I long to be with. A job I am glad to have. And life is a bit brighter. I am a bit stronger for it all. Not such a bad thing after all but maybe next time, a cheaper tropical place with umbrella drinks? Just a tiny request universe but I’ll take what I get.