The end of some old things, a change of seasons, some head-shifts
and new thoughts (or old ones reconfigured?), some extraordinary encounters have precipitated a new adventure.

It’s like standing before a great clutter of colourful threads and sparkly things and mysterious symbols and seeing how the whole thing transforms into legible patterns when certain strings are pulled.

It’s the excitement, even exhilaration of realizing that not only is there an incredible realness outside the constructs you had held so tightly, but now that you have let them go, there is also a *somewhere* to travel. In fact, a somewhere that is written so much inside you that as you travel you become so alive you nearly explode.

It’s a new book, in which old chapters are there again in more dimensions; and old clues show up again, slightly changed. A
strange thing to find many of them written in the story I have been writing over the past three years.

Have been learning about the desert fathers and mothers, a guy called Henri Nouwen, and exploring practices like meditation, contemplation, lectio divina: feels like fire is spilling outevery which way.

I need a horse…

Looking forward to seeing what each place will have in store, as lots of them are quite blank spaces with incredible people in them. Tenerife
(uni athletics warm weather training) seems like the biggest experiment; perhaps the place I am looking for the most treasure in because it feels less obvious what it will be. I’m still quite amused by the whole athletics thing (been doing it since October) and feel like a stranger there (despite the fact running does remain one of my world’s favouritest things); it’s a funny territory to navigate. The culture is a dominant one, like the part of Tenerife we will be in, probably; existing there can be both hard and incredibly rich. The people I’m going with are amazing and I want to know them better; but lots of them push away quite hard, maybe this will be tough. I’d like to do some lone exploring in the north
if I can. Also, apparently the waves are enormous; swimming in those by night is a definite something to look forward to. It wouldn’t be overly dangerous to do this alone, would it? I will have to keep in touch with my danger-level mentors by email…

Family is a funny thing. Really odd, I can’t get my head around the idea at all.

Thoughts from this weekend: loving family is another insane adventure
for the choosing, but is also easy to throw by the wayside (or is it?).

Grandparents get frail so suddenly, it is shocking. They also have a lot of stories.

Six hour journeys are the best way to get to know your siblings.

Also, ‘family’ (the concept) feels too safe: I see the (hypothetical)
boxed in sanitized settled family unit and immediately run in the
opposite direction. But some people yearn for the sense of stability this will bring. Is it down to different sorts of people (Marika had thoughts on
'nomads' and 'settlers') - and if so can both be done in a 'mobile'
kind of way?

It also feels too unsafe: you can’t escape your (real) family, they
can invade your space and throw your belongings out the window.

The other is from a dream: it’s a huge multicoloured house on a harbour
where whole families and individuals all live together. I forget what happened in the dream, but I could also imagine living in a place like that.

I am very attached to my red-and-blue backpack. It fits oh-so-snugly
on my back; is neither too wieldy nor too small, has convenient
underside, top and multiple side pockets, and has been with me since my first expedition to iceland aged sixteen. Thereafter my wingéd friend has been a faithful companion on long and short journeys of very different sorts across europe and africa; has (unlike many of my possessions) never been lost (except temporarily, by customs) and
even boasts mary-poppinesque properties of significant magical-capacity-stretching.

Said backpack is in the process of being filled again. (well technically: there is stuff all over my room around it, which amounts to much the same thing).

I love that it can hold within it all that is needed for months and months.

While the rest of the world is supersizing, downsizing is curiously liberating. Strangely enough, I feel fuller having emptied my room.
My belongings in this house consist now of One Box of assorted affairs. Maybe this will go too, but not just yet.

My new ambition for the end of university is to be able to carry all that I own.