road trip with waffles

Fields and forests, sleepy villages, old wooden churches with stained-glass windows. Narrow roads through empty wilderness. Hidden lakes, silent and silky under a grey sky. A stop at a cafe somewhere - they serve waffles with strawberry jam and icecream.

It's just me and an old lady and our summer tradition - a road trip. Happiness and nostalgia and longing, all stretching out on the road before us.

i'm salt liquorice and vanilla sugar

I love the different and surprising. I'm bored.

I make my friends laugh, I'm tired of people. I want to be alone and I'm lonely. I cannot understand the need to share anything at all on social media. I cannot understand the human race.

My hair is a mess of  colours - salt liquorice, chocolate, caramel and vanilla sugar. I'm infinitely curious.

"I am a lover without a lover. I am lovely and lonely and I belong deeply to myself." (Warsan Shire)

not somewhere else

I have a sore throat and should isolate myself. So I fight a sudden urge to go absolutely everywhere just to see people.

In cutoff denim shorts and woollen socks, I bring my laptop out on the balcony and proofread rainwear labels in the company of sea and sky.

I asked God why I'm not somewhere else. He said, "Because you don't really want to be."