Sitting on the sofa, doors wide open, I watch the sun dip behind the neighbour’s whitewashed wall. Pale lemon. Whole. Birds chatter in a sing-song spiral, as if it’s already spring. But it’s not…it’s winter. Winter far from my narrowboat home in England where mud and damp were challenging my soul. Winter in Portugal, where tangerines grow on trees and my heart is as light as a feather.
How could I have forgotten how happy it makes me to be here?
Two long years of waiting for no travel restrictions, I guess, is enough of a sentence to block out love for a place, to forget to remember in the name of survival. But now I am here and happiness rises up within me like bubbles of pop and the world feels filled with possibility again.
We go to the beach where waves crash against a blue sky and dunes roll like my dreams. Undulating. Endless. I lie down on the damp sand, my little dog curled on my chest and I listen to the roaring, feeling alive again. Everything makes sense; where I’ve been, where I’m going.
At the end of last year I made a list of the things that had made me happy, joyful, hopeful and those that made me irritable, stressed or sad and I have vowed to simplify ever further so that I can spend this year surrendering even more to the good stuff.
Nothing in life is certain so giving ourselves over to the simplest of pleasures seems like the perfect place to keep building from.
There is much to come, but for now it’s enough to know that I am here, in this moment of simplicity, and that I am surrendering to the pale lemon sun—its wholeness reflected in mine.
I find myself wondering how 2023 is starting for you? It always warms my heart to read your comments and thoughts!
Simplify and Surrender