I’ve been so busy leading up to this. So busy. Birthdays, work days, family days, dog days, date days, driving days, salad days. My weeks were wonderfully packed.

And then my bags, too, were wonderfully packed. It felt sudden. It was not.

I am in Berlin, at a friend’s house where I would rather lay in bed than bathe the hours of travel off my worn-out body. I justify this by hydrating instead. I need all the water I can get.

Is a midnight arrival really an arrival? I haven’t seen anything but a short S-Bahn subway ride and this gorgeous, plant-filled home. I kind of want that to be all I see, today.

I knew it would be like this. I know it won’t stay like this. I breathe and adapt and eventually I’ll find opening my suitcase less overwhelming. It’s just that Viv did a lot of the packing. And I only packed things that made me feel comforts of home; of course now they make me cry. What doesn’t?

It’s jet lag and dehydration and when did I eat last. All of this underpinned by a feeling of absences so thorough they’re a constant, unreachable presence. It’s a change I chose: to fly without a net because I know the world will catch me. Maybe I have a little less faith in that today, but here, amid plants abundant, I breathe.