Into the storm

"What am I doing here, what is the point of these smiles and gestures? My home is neither here nor elsewhere. And the world has become merely unknown landscape where my heart can lean on nothing. Foreign – who can know what this word means?"

- Albert Camus, from Notebooks, 1935-1942

Because of the weather, the plane could not land at its first attempt. It took another restless, anxious twenty minutes of circling above the storm and the peninsula before the second, successful attempt. You can run but you can't hide... somewhere along the line, there's a landing. Or an Icarus-like fall from the sky because your fuel is up.

Into the storm: fat, wind-swept droplets spattering my lenses. On the unprotected walk from the back of the plane and into the safety of the airport. I relished gulping in deeply the fresh, bracing ozone-filled air.

Home. 

Every single one of my rescue orchids but one had flowered in my absence. A shot of joy to my heart not unlike adrenalin.

Stale air.

The winter weather of my content.

To unpack for a Friday evening alone at home on the couch surrounded by books, a frosted wine glass and, also, roasted & salted plump peanuts and raisins instead of leaving the flat for a restaurant meal, or to refill the kitchen cupboard.

While the storm raged against the glass like a plague of fat flies trying desperately to get in..